OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Potato War

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​Potato War, (Kartoffelkrieg), the name given by the Prussians to the War of the Bavarian Succession in 1778–79. The Prussians and a Saxon contingent, commanded by Frederick the Great and his brother Prince Henry, were opposed to two Austrian armies under London and Lacy. The operations consisted almost entirely of manoeuvres which had for their object the obtaining or the denial to the enemy of food-supplies. The war thus acquired the name of Kartoffelkrieg. Its duration was from the 3rd of July 1778 to the assembly of the congress of Teschen on the 10th of March 1779, and its total cost £4,350,000 and 20,000 men to all parties. The war may be studied from the military point of view as an extreme example of what Clausewitz calls “war with a restricted aim.”
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Penitentiary

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See P. Hinschius, Kirchenrecht, i 427, &c. (Berlin, 1869); Du Cange, Glossarium s.v. “Poenitentiarius”; Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie (ed. 1904), s.v. “Pönitentiarius.”
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Penelope

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​PENELOPE, in Greek legend, wife of Odysseus, daughter of Icarius and the nymph Periboea. During the long absence of her husband after the fall of Troy many chieftains of Ithaca and the islands round about became her suitors, and, to rid herself of the import unities of the wooers, she bade them wait till she had woven a winding-sheet for old Laërtes, the father of Odysseus But every night she undid the piece which she had woven by day. This she did for three years, till her maids revealed the secret. She was relieved by the arrival of Odysseus, who returned after an absence of twenty years, and slew the wooers. The character of Penelope is less favourable in late writers than in the Homeric story. During her husband's absence she is said to have become the mother of Pan by Hermes, and Odysseus, on his return, repudiated her as unfaithful (Herodotus ii. 145 and schol.) She thereupon withdrew to Sparta and thence to Mantineia, where she died and where her tomb was shown. According to another account she married Telegonus the son of Odysseus and Circe, after he had killed his father, and dwelt with him in the island of Aeala or in the Islands of the Blest (Hyginus Feb. 127).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pengelly, William

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​PENGELLY, WILLIAM (1812–1894), English geologist and anthropologist, was born at East Looe in Cornwall on the 12th of January 1812, the son of the captain of a small coasting vessel. He began life as a sailor, after an elementary education in his native village, but in 1828 he abandoned a seafaring life. He had developed a passion for learning, and about 1856 he removed to Torquay and started a school, in 1846 he became a private tutor in mathematics and natural science. Geology hail in early years attracted his attention, but it was not until he was about 50 years of age that he began seriously to cultivate the study. In 1857 he was instrumental in the reorganization of the Torquay Mechanics’ Institute, in 1844 mainly owing to his energy the Torquay Natural History Society was founded, and in 1862 he assisted in founding the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Literature, Science and Art. Meanwhile he had been occupied in collecting fossils from many parts of Devon and Cornwall, and in 1860 the Baroness Burdett-Coutts acquired and presented them to the Oxford Museum, where they form “The Pengelly Collection.” Through the generosity of the same lady he was called upon to examine the lignites and clays of Bovey Tracey, in conjunction with Dr Oswald Heer, who undertook the determination of the plant-remains. Their report was published by the Royal Society (1862), and Pengelly was elected F.R.S. in 1865. He aided in the investigations of the Brixham bone-cavern from the date of its discovery in 1858, the full report being issued in 1875; and he was the main explorer of Kent’s Hole, Torquay, and from 1864 for more than fifteen years he laboured with unflagging energy in examining and recording the exact position of the numerous organic remains that were disinterred during a systematic investigation of this cave, carried on with the aid of grants from the British Association. He first attended the British Association at the Cheltenham meeting in 1856, and was present at subsequent meetings (except that at Montreal in 1884) until 1889. His observations assisted in establishing the important fact of the contemporaneity of Palaeolithic man with various Pleistocene mammalia, such as the mammoth, cave-bear, cave-lion, &c. He was awarded the Lyell medal by the Geological Society of London in 1886. He died at Torquay on the 16th of March 1894.
See Memoir of William Pengelly, edited by his daughter Hester Pengelly, with a summary of his scientific work by the Rev. Professor T. G. Bonney (1897).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Penhallow, Samuel

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​PENHALLOW, SAMUEL (1665-1726), American colonist and historian, was born at St Mabon, Cornwall, England, on the 2nd of July 1665. From 1683 to 1686 he attended a school at Newington Green (near London) conducted by the Rev. Charles Morton (1627-1698), a dissenting clergyman, with whom he emigrated to Massachusetts in 1686. He was commissioned by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England to study the Indian languages and to preach to the Indians; but he was soon diverted from this work. Removing to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, he there married a daughter of John Cutt (1625-1681), president of the province of New Hampshire in 1679-1680, a successful merchant and mill-owner, and thus came into possession of considerable property (including much of the present site of Portsmouth). In 1700 he was speaker of the Assembly and in 1702 became a member of the Provincial Council, but was suspended by Lieut.-Governor George Vaughan (1676-1724). Penhallow, however, was sustained by Governor Samuel Shute (1662-1742), and Vaughan was removed from office in 1716. In 1714 Penhallow was appointed a justice of the superior court of judicature, and from 1717 until his death was chief justice of that court; and he also served as treasurer of the province in 1699-1726, and as secretary of the province in 1714-1726. He died at Portsmouth on the 2nd of December 1726. He wrote a valuable History of the Wars of New England with the Eastern Indians, or a Narrative of their Continued Perfidy and Cruelty (1726; reprinted in the Collections of the New Hampshire Historical Society, vol. i., 1824, and again in Cincinnati in 1859), which covers the period from 1703 to 1726, and is a standard contemporary authority.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pendleton, George Hunt

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​PENDLETON, GEORGE HUNT (1825–1889), American lawyer and legislator, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on the 25th of July 1825. He was educated at the university of Heidelberg, studied law, was admitted to the bar, and began to practise at Cincinnati. He was a member of the Ohio Senate in 1854 and 1855, and from 1857 to 1865 was a Democratic member of the national House of Representatives, in which he opposed the war policy of Lincoln. In 1864 he was the Democratic candidate for vice-president. After leaving Congress he became one of the earliest champions of the “Ohio idea” (which he is said to have originated), demanding that the government should pay the principal of its 5–20-year 6% bonds in the “greenback” currency instead of in coin. The agricultural classes of the West regarded this as a means of relief, and Pendleton became their recognized leader and a candidate for the Democratic nomination to the presidency in 1868, but he failed to receive the requisite two-thirds majority. In 1869 he was the Democratic candidate for governor of Ohio, but was defeated by Rutherford B. Hayes. For the next ten years he devoted himself to the practice of law and to the supervision of the Kentucky Railroad Company, of which he had become president in 1869. From 1879 to 1885 he was a Democratic member of the United States Senate, and introduced the so-called Pendleton Act of 1885 for reforming the civil service, hostility to which lost him his seat in 1885 He was minister to Germany from 1885 to the summer of 1889, and died at Brussels on the 24th of November 1889
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Peninsula

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​PENINSULA (Lat. paeninsula, from paene, almost, and insula, an island), in physical geography, a piece of land nearly surrounded by water. In its original sense it connotes attachment to a larger land-mass by a neck of land (isthmus) narrower than the peninsula itself, but it is often extended to apply to any long promontory, the coast-line of which is markedly longer than the landward boundary.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Okuma (Shigenobu), Count

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​OKUMA (SHIGENOBU), Count (1838–), Japanese statesman, was born in the province of Hizen in 1838. His father was an officer in the artillery, and during his early years his education consisted mainly of the study of Chinese literature. Happily for him, however, he was able to acquire in his youth a knowledge of English and Dutch, and by the help of some missionaries he succeeded in obtaining books in those languages on both scientific and political subjects. These works effected a complete revolution in his mind. He had been designed by his parents for the military profession, but the new light which now broke in upon him determined him to devote his entire energies to the abolition of the existing feudal system and to the establishment of a constitutional government. With impetuous zeal he urged his views on his countrymen, and though he took no active part ​in the revolution of 1868, the effect of his opinions exercised no slight weight in the struggle. Already he was a marked man, and no sooner was the government reorganized, with the mikado as the sole wielder of power, than he was appointed chief assistant in the department of foreign affairs. In 1869 he succeeded to the post of secretary of the joint departments of the interior and of finance, and for the next fourteen years he devoted himself wholly to politics. In 1870 he was made a councillor of state, and a few months later he accepted the office of president of the commission which represented the Japanese government at the Vienna Exhibition. In 1872 he was again appointed minister of finance, and when the expedition under General Saigô was sent to Formosa (1874) to chastise the natives of that island for the murder of some shipwrecked fishermen, he was nominated president of the commission appointed to supervise the campaign. By one of those waves of popular feeling to which the Japanese people are peculiarly liable, the nation which had supported him up to a certain point suddenly veered round and opposed him with heated violence. So strong was the feeling against him that on one occasion a would-be assassin threw at him a dynamite shell, which blew off one of his legs. During the whole of his public life he recognized the necessity of promoting education. When he resigned office in the early ’eighties he established the Semmon Gako, or school for special studies, at the cost of the 30,000 yen which had been voted him when he received the title of count, and subsequently he was instrumental in founding other schools and colleges. In 1896 he joined the Matsukata cabinet, and resigned in the following year in consequence of intrigues which produced an estrangement between him and the prime minister. On the retirement of Marquis Ito in 1898 he again took office, combining the duties of premier with those of minister of foreign affairs. But dissensions having arisen in the cabinet, he resigned a few months later, and retired into private life, cultivating his beautiful garden at Waseda near Tôkyô.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Olaf (king of Northumbria and Dublin)

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​OLAF, or Anlaf (d. 981), king of the Danish kingdoms of Northumbria and of Dublin, was a son of Sitric, king of Deira, and was related to the English king Æthelstan. As his name indicates he was of Norse descent, and he married a daughter of Constantine II., king of the Scots. When Sitric died about 927 Æthelstan annexed Deira, and Olaf took refuge in Scotland and in Ireland until 937, when he was one of the leaders of the formidable league of princes which was destroyed by Æthelstan at the famous battle of Brunanburh. Again he sought a home among his kinsfolk in Ireland, but just after Æthelstan’s death in 940 he or Olaf Godfreyson was recalled to England by the Northumbrians. Both crossed over, and in 941 the new English king, Edmund, gave up Deira to the former. The peace between the English and the Danes did not, however, last long. Wulfstan, archbishop of York, sided with Olaf; but in 944 this king was driven from Northumbria by Edmund, and crossing to Ireland he ruled over the Danish kingdom of Dublin. From 949 to 952 he was again king of Northumbria, until he was expelled once more, and he passed the remainder of his active life in warfare in Ireland. But in 980 his dominion was shattered by the defeat of the Danes at the battle of Tara. He went to Iona, where he died probably in 981, although one account says he was in Dublin in 994. This, however, is unlikely. In the sagas he is known as Olaf the Red.
This Olaf must not be confused with his kinsman and ally, Olaf (d. 941), also king of Northumbria and of Dublin, who was a son of Godfrey, king of Dublin. The latter Olaf became king of Dublin in 934; but he was in England in 937, as he took part in the fight at Brunanburh. After this event he returned to Ireland, but he appears to have acted for a very short ​time as joint king of Northumbria with Olaf Sitricson. It is possible that he was the “Olaf of Ireland” who was called by the Northumbrians after Æthelstan’s death, but both the Olafs appear to have accepted the invitation. He was killed in 941 at Tyningham near Dunbar.
See W. F. Skene, Celtic Scotland, vol. i. (1876), and J. R. Green, The Conquest of England, vol. i. (1899).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Olbers, Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias

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​OLBERS, HEINRICH WILHELM MATTHIAS (1758–1840), German astronomer, was born on the 11th of October 1758 at Arbergen, a village near Bremen, where his father was minister. He studied medicine at Göttingen, 1777–1780, attending at the same time Kaestner’s mathematical course; and in 1779, while watching by the sick-bed of a fellow-student, he devised a method of calculating cometary orbits which made an epoch in the treatment of the subject, and is still extensively used. The treatise containing this important invention was made public by Baron von Zach under the title Ueber die leichteste und bequemste Methode die Bahn eines Cometen zu berechnen (Weimar, 1797). A table of eighty-seven calculated orbits was appended, enlarged by Encke in the second edition (1847) to 178, and by Galle in the third (1864) to 242. Olbers settled as a physician in Bremen towards the end of 1781, and practised actively for above forty years, finally retiring on the 1st of January 1823. The greater part of each night (he never slept more than four hours) was meantime devoted to astronomy, the upper portion of his house being fitted up as an observatory. He paid special attention to comets, and that of 1815 (period seventy-four years) bears his name in commemoration of its detection by him. He also took a leading part in the discovery of the minor planets, re-identified Ceres on the 1st of January 1802, and detected Pallas on the 28th of March following. His bold hypothesis of their origin by the disruption of a primitive large planet (Monatliche Correspondenz, vi. 88), although now discarded, received countenance from the finding of Juno by Harding, and of Vesta by himself, in the precise regions of Cetus and Virgo where the nodes of such supposed planetary fragments should be situated. Olbers was deputed by his fellow-citizens to assist at the baptism of the king of Rome on the 9th of June 1811, and he was a member of the corps législatif in Paris 1812–1813. He died on the 2nd of March 1840, at the age of eighty-one. He was twice married, and one son survived him.
See Biographische Skizzen verstorbener Bremischer Aerzte, by Dr G. Barkhausen (Bremen, 1844); Allgemeine geographische Ephemeriden, iv. 283 (1799); Abstracts Phil. Trans, iv. 268 (1843): Astronomische Nachrichten. xxii. 265 (Bessel), also appended to A. Erman’s Briefwechsel zwischen Olbers und Bessel (2 vols., Leipzig, 1852); Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (S. Günther); R. Grant, Hist. of Phys. Astr. p. 239; R. Wolf, Geschichte der Astronomie, p. 517. The first two volumes of Dr C. Schilling’s exhaustive work, Wilhelm Olbhers, sein Leben und seine Werke, appeared at Berlin in 1894 and 1900, a third and later volume including his personal correspondence and biography. A list of Olbers’s contributions to scientific periodicals is given at p. xxxv of the 3rd ed. of his Leichteste Methode, and his unique collection of works relating to comets now forms part of the Pulkowa library.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Old Deer

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​OLD DEER, a parish and village in the district of Buchan, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901), 4313. The village lies on the Deer or South Ugie Water, 101/2 m. W. of Peterhead, and 2 m. from Mintlaw station on the Great North of Scotland Railway Company’s branch line from Aberdeen to Peterhead. The industries include distilling, brewing, and the manufacture of woollens, and there are quarries of granite and limestone. Columba and his nephew Drostan founded a monastery here in the 6th century, of which no trace remains. A most interesting relic of the monks was discovered in 1857 in the Cambridge University library by Henry Bradshaw. It consisted of a small MS. of the Gospels in the Vulgate, fragments of the liturgy of the Celtic church, and notes, in the Gaelic script of the 12th century, referring to the charters of the ancient monastery, including a summary of that granted by David I. These are among the oldest examples of Scottish Gaelic. The MS. was also adorned with Gaelic designs. It had belonged to the monks of Deer and been in the possession of the University Library since 1715. It was edited by John Stuart (1813–1877) for the Spalding Club, by whom it was published in 1869 under the title of The Book of Deer. In 1218 William Comyn, earl of Buchan, founded the Abbey of St Mary of Deer, now in ruins, 3/4 m. farther up the river than the monastery and on the opposite bank. Although it was erected for Cistercians from the priory of Kinloss, near Forres, the property of the Columban monastery was removed to it. The founder (d. 1233) and his countess were buried in the church. The parish is rich in antiquities, but the most noted of them—the Stone of Deer, a sculptured block of syenite, which stood near the Abbey—was destroyed in 1854. The thriving village of New Deer (formerly called Auchriddie) lies about 7 m. W. of the older village; it includes the ruined castle of Fedderat.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Olbia (Sardinia)

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​OLBIA (Gr. ὀλβία, i.e. happy; mod. Terranova Pausania, q.v.), an ancient seaport city of Sardinia, on the east coast. The name indicates that it was of Greek origin, and tradition attributes its foundation to the Boeotians and Thespians under lolaus (see Sardinia). Pais considers that it was founded by the Phocaeans of Massilia before the 4th century B.C. (in Tamponi, op. cit. p. 83). It is situated on low ground, at the extremity of a deep recess, now called the Golfo di Terranova. It was besieged unsuccessfully by L. Cornelius Scipio in 259 B.C. Its territory was ravaged in 210 B.C. by a Carthaginian fleet. In Roman times it was the regular landing-place for travellers from Italy. Cicero notes the receipt of a letter from his brother from Olbia in 56 B.C., and obviously shared the prevailing belief as to the unhealthiness of Sardinia. Traces of the pre-Roman city have not been found. The line of the Roman city walls has been determined on the N. and E., the N.E. angle being at the ancient harbour, which lay to the N. of the modern (Notizie degli Scavi, 1890, p. 224). Among the inscriptions are two tombstones, one of an imperial freedwoman, the other of a freedman of Acte, the concubine of Nero; a similar tombstone was also found at Carales, and tiles bearing her name have been found in several parts of the island, but especially at Olbia, where in building a modern house in 1881 about one thousand were discovered. Pais (op. cit. 89 sqq.) attributes to Olbia an inscription now in the Campo Santo at Pisa, an epistyle bearing the words “Cereri sacrum Claudia Aug. lib. Acte,” and made of Sardinian (?) granite. In any case it is clear that Acte must have had considerable property in the island (Corp. Inscr. Lat. x. 7980). Discoveries of buildings and tombs have frequently occurred within the area of the town and in its neighbourhood. Some scanty remains of an aqueduct exist outside the town, but hardly anything else of antiquity is to be seen in situ. A large number of milestones, fifty-one in all, with inscriptions, and several more with illegible ones, belonging to the first twelve miles of the Roman road between Olbia and Carales, have been discovered, and are now kept in the church of S. Simplicio (Notizie degli Scavi, 1888, p. 535; 1889, p. 258; 1892, pp. 217, 366; Classical Review, 1889, p. 228; 1890, p. 65; P. Tamponi, Silloge Epigrafica, Olbiense, Sassari, 1895). This large number may be accounted for by the fact that a new stone was often erected for a new emperor. They range in date from A.D. 245 to 375 (one is possibly of Domitian). The itineraries state that the main road from Carales to Olbia ran through the centre of the island to the east of Gennargentu (see Sardinia); but a branch certainly diverged from the main road from Carales to Turris Libisonis (which kept farther west, more or less along the line followed by the modern railway) and came to Olbia. The distance by both lines is much the same; and all these milestones belong to the last portion which was common to both roads. (T. As.)