OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Awadia and Fadnia

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​AWADIA and FADNIA, two small nomad tribes of pure Arab blood living in the Bayuda desert, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, between the wells of Jakdul and Metemma. They are often incorrectly classed as Ja’alin. They own numbers of horses and cattle, the former of the black Dongola breed. At the battle of Abu Klea (17th of January 1885) they were conspicuous for their courage in riding against the British square.
See Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, edited by Count Gleichen (London, 1905).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Awaji

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​AWAJI, an island belonging to Japan, situated at the eastern entrance of the Inland Sea, having a length of 32 m., an extreme breadth of 16 m., and an area of 218 sq. m., with a population of about 190,000. It is separated on the south from the island of Shikoku by the Naruto channel, through which, in certain conditions of the tide, a remarkable torrential current is set up. The island is celebrated for its exquisite scenery, and also for the fact that it is traditionally reputed to have been the first of the Japanese islands created by the deities Izanagi and Izanami. The loftiest peak is Yuruuba-yama (1998 ft.), the most picturesque Sen-zan (1519 ft.). Awaji is noted for a peculiar manufacture of pottery.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Award

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​AWARD (from O. Fr. ewart, or esguart, cf. “reward”), the decision of an arbitrator. (See Arbitration.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gates, Horatio

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​GATES, HORATIO (1728–1806), American general, was born at Maldon in Essex, England, in 1728. He entered the English army at an early age, and was rapidly promoted. He accompanied General Braddock in his disastrous expedition against Fort Duquesne in 1755, and was severely wounded in the battle of July 9; and he saw other active service in the Seven Years’ War. After the peace of 1763 he purchased an estate in Virginia, where he lived till the outbreak of the War of Independence in 1775, when he was named by Congress adjutant-general. In 1776 he was appointed to command the troops which had lately retreated from Canada, and in August 1777, as a result of a successful intrigue, was appointed to supersede General Philip Schuyler in command of the Northern Department. In the two battles of Saratoga (q.v.) his army defeated General Burgoyne, who, on the 17th of October, was forced to surrender his whole army. This success was, however, largely due to the previous manœuvres of Schuyler and to Gates’s subordinate officers. The intrigues of the Conway Cabal to have Washington superseded by Gates completely failed, but Gates was president for a time of the Board of War, and in 1780 was placed in chief command in the South. He was totally defeated at Camden, S.C., by Cornwallis on the 17th of August 1780, and in December was superseded by Greene, though an investigation into his conduct terminated in acquittal (1782). He then retired to his Virginian estate, whence he removed to New York in 1790, after emancipating his slaves and providing for those who needed assistance. He died in New York on the 10th of April 1806.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gau, John

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​GAU, JOHN (c. 1495–? 1553), Scottish translator, was born at Perth towards the close of the 15th century. He was educated in St Salvator’s College at St Andrews. He appears to have been in residence at Malmö in 1533, perhaps as chaplain to the Scots community there. In that year John Hochstraten, the exiled Antwerp printer, issued a book by Gau entitled: The Richt vay to the Kingdome of Heuine, of which the chief interest is that it is the first Scottish book written on the side of the Reformers. It is a translation of Christiern Pedersen’s Den rette vey till Hiemmerigis Rige (Antwerp, 1531), for the most part direct, but showing intimate knowledge in places of the German edition of Urbanus Rhegius. Only one copy of Gau’s text is extant, in the library of Britwell Court, Bucks. It has been assumed that all the copies were shipped from Malmö to Scotland, and that the cargo was intercepted by the Scottish officers on the look out for the heretical works which were printed abroad in large numbers. This may explain the silence of all the historians of the Reformed Church—Knox, Calderwood and Spottiswood. Gau married in 1536 a Malmö citizen’s daughter, bearing the Christian name Birgitta. She died in 1551, and he in or about 1553.
The first reference to the Richt Vay appeared in Chalmers’s Caledonia, ii. 616. Chalmers, who was the owner of the unique volume before it passed into the Britwell Court collection, considered it to be an original work. David Laing printed extracts for the Bannatyne Club (Miscellany, iii., 1855). The evidence that the book is a translation was first given by Sonnenstein Wendt in a paper “Om Reformatorerna i Malmö,” in Rördam’s Ny Kirkehistoriske Samlinger, ii. (Copenhagen, 1860). A complete edition was edited by A. F. Mitchell for the Scottish Text Society (1888). See also Lorimer’s Patrick Hamilton.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gatehouse

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​GATEHOUSE. In the second half of the 16th century in England the entrance gateway, which formed part of the principal front of the earlier feudal castles, became a detached feature attached to the mansions only by a wall enclosing the entrance court. The gatehouse then constituted a structure of some importance, and included sometimes many rooms as at Stanway Hall, Gloucestershire, where it measures 44 ft. by 22 ft. and has three storeys; at Westwood, Worcestershire, it had a frontage of 54 ft. with two storeys; and at Burton Agnes, Yorkshire, it was still larger and was flanked by great octagonal towers at the angles and had three storeys. At a later period smaller accommodation was provided so that it virtually became a lodge, but being designed to harmonize with the mansion it presented sometimes a monumental structure. On the continent of Europe the gatehouse forms a much more important building, as it formed part of the town fortifications, where it sometimes defended the passage of a bridge across the stream or moat. There are numerous examples in France and Germany.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gatling, Richard Jordan

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​GATLING, RICHARD JORDAN (1818–1903), American inventor, was born in Hertford county, North Carolina, on the 12th of September 1818. He was the son of a well-to-do planter and slave-owner, from whom he inherited a genius for mechanical invention and whom he assisted in the construction and perfecting of machines for sowing cotton seeds, and for thinning the plants. He was well educated and was successively a school teacher and a merchant, spending all his spare time in developing new inventions. In 1839 he perfected a practical screw propeller for steamboats, only to find that a patent had been granted to John Ericsson for a similar invention a few months earlier. He established himself in St Louis, Missouri, and taking the cotton-sowing machine as a basis he adapted it for sowing rice, wheat and other grains, and established factories for its manufacture. The introduction of these machines did much to revolutionize the agricultural system in the country. Becoming interested in the study of medicine through an attack of smallpox, he completed a course at the Ohio Medical College, taking his M.D. degree in 1850. In the same year he invented a hemp-breaking machine, and in 1857 a steam plough. At the outbreak of the Civil War he was living in Indianapolis, and devoted himself at once to the perfecting of fire-arms. In 1861 he conceived the idea of the rapid fire machine-gun which is associated with his name. By 1862 he had succeeded in perfecting a gun that would discharge 350 shots per minute; but the war was practically over before the Federal authorities consented to its official adoption. From that time, however, the success of the invention was assured, and within ten years it had been adopted by almost every civilized nation. Gatling died in New York City on the 26th of February 1903.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gatchina

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​GATCHINA, a town of Russia, in the government of St Petersburg, 29 m. by rail S. of the city of St Petersburg, in 59° 34′ N. and 30° 6′ E. Pop. (1860) 9184; (1897) 14,735. It is situated in a flat, well-wooded, and partly marshy district, and on the south side of the town are two lakes. Among its more important buildings are the imperial palace, which was founded in 1770 by Prince Orlov, and constructed according to the plans of the Italian architect Rinaldi; a military orphanage, founded in 1803; and a school for horticulture. Among the few industrial establishments is a porcelain factory. At Gatchina an alliance was concluded between Russia and Sweden on the 29th of October 1799.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gath

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​GATH, one of the five chief cities of the Philistines. It is frequently mentioned in the historical books of the Old Testament, and from Amos vi. 2 we conclude that, like Ashdod, it fell to Sargon in 711. Its site appears to have been known in the 4th century, but the name is now lost. Eusebius (in the Onomasticon) places it near the road from Eleutheropolis (Beit Jibrīn) to Diospolis (Ludd) about five Roman miles from the former. The Roman road between these two towns is still traceable, and its milestones remain in places. East of the road at the required distance rises a white cliff, almost isolated, 300 ft. high and full of caves. On the top is the little mud village of Tell eṣ-Ṣāfi (“the shining mound”), and beside the village is the mound which marks the site of the Crusaders’ castle of Blanchegarde (Alba Custodia), built in 1144. Tell eṣ-Ṣāfi was known by its present name as far back as the 12th century; but it appears not improbable that the strong site here existing represents the ancient Gath. The cliff stands on the south side of the mouth of the Valley of Elah, and Gath appears to have been near this valley (1 Sam. xvii. 2, 52). This identification is not certain, but it is at least much more probable than the theory which makes Gath, Eleutheropolis, and Beit Jibrīn one and the same place. The site was partially excavated by the Palestine Exploration Fund in 1899, and remains extending in date back to the early Canaanite period were discovered.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gatty, Margaret

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​GATTY, MARGARET (1809–1873), English writer, daughter of the Rev. Alexander Scott (1768–1840), chaplain to Lord Nelson, was born at Burnham, Essex, in 1809. She early began to draw and to etch on copper, being a regular visitor to the print-room of the British Museum from the age of ten. She also illuminated on vellum, copying the old strawberry borders and designing initials. In 1839 Margaret Scott married the Rev. Alfred Gatty, D.D., vicar of Ecclesfield near Sheffield, subdean of York cathedral, and the author of various works both secular and religious. In 1842 she published in association with her husband a life of her father; but her first independent work was The Fairy Godmother and other Tales, which appeared in 1851. This was followed in 1855 by the first of five volumes of Parables from Nature, the last being published in 1871. It was under the nom de plume of Aunt Judy, as a pleasant and instructive writer for children, that Mrs Gatty was most widely known. Before starting Aunt Judy’s Magazine in May 1866, she had brought out Aunt Judy’s Tales (1858) and Aunt Judy’s Letters (1862), and among the other children’s books which she subsequently published were Aunt Judy’s Song Book for Children and The Mother’s Book of Poetry. “Aunt Judy” was the nickname given by her daughter Juliana Horatia Ewing (q.v.). The editor of the magazine was on the friendliest terms with her young correspondents and subscribers, and her success was largely due to the sympathy which enabled her to look at things from the child’s point of view. Besides other excellences her children’s books are specially characterized by wholesomeness of sentiment and cheerful humour. Her miscellaneous writings include, in addition to several volumes of tales, The Old Folks from Home, an account of a holiday ramble in Ireland; The Travels and Adventures of Dr Wolff the Missionary (1861), an autobiography edited by her; British Sea Weeds (1862); Waifs and Strays of Natural History (1871); A Book of Emblems and The Book of Sun-Dials (1872). She died at Ecclesfield vicarage on the 4th of October 1873.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Blairgowrie

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​BLAIRGOWRIE, a police burgh of Perthshire, Scotland, situated on the Ericht. Pop. (1901) 3378. It is the terminus of a branch line of the Caledonian railway from Coupar Angus, from which it is 43/4 m. distant, and is 16 m. N. by E. of Perth by road. The town is entirely modern, and owes its progress to the water-power supplied by the Ericht for linen and jute factories. There are also sawmills, breweries and a large factory for bee appliances. Strawberries, raspberries and other fruits are largely grown in the neighbourhood. A park was presented to the town in 1892. On the left bank of the Ericht, opposite Blairgowrie, with which it is connected by a four-arched bridge, stands the town and police burgh of Rattray (pop. 2019), where there are flax and jute mills. Donald Cargill the Covenanter, who was executed at Edinburgh, was a native of the parish. Four miles west of Blairgowrie, on the coach road to Dunkeld, lies Loch Clunie, of some interest historically. On a crannog in the lake are the ruins of a small castle which belonged to James (“the Admirable”) Crichton, and the large mound near the loch was the site of the castle in which Edward I. lodged on one of his Scottish expeditions.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Blake, Edward

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​BLAKE, EDWARD (1833– ), Irish-Canadian statesman, eldest son of William Hume Blake of Cashel Grove, Co. Galway, who settled in Canada in 1832, and there became a distinguished lawyer and chancellor of Ontario, was born on the 13th of October 1833 at Adelaide in Middlesex county, Ontario. Educated at Upper Canada College and the university of Toronto, Blake was called to the bar in 1856 and quickly obtained a good practice, becoming Q.C. in 1864. In 1867 he was elected member for West Durham in the Dominion parliament, and for South Bruce in the provincial legislature, in which he became leader of the Liberal opposition two years later. On the defeat of John Sandfield Macdonald’s government in 1871 Blake became prime minister of Ontario, but resigned this office the same year in consequence of the abolition of dual representation. He declined the leadership of the Liberal party in the Dominion parliament, but, having taken an active part in bringing about the overthrow of Sir John Macdonald’s ministry in 1873, joined the Liberal cabinet of Alexander Mackenzie, though without portfolio or salary. Impaired health soon compelled him to resign, and to take the voyage to Europe; on his return in 1875 he rejoined the cabinet as minister of justice, in which office it fell to him to take the chief part in framing the constitution of the supreme court of Canada. Continued ill-health compelled him in 1877 again to seek rest in Europe, having first exchanged the portfolio of justice for the less exacting office of president of the council. During his absence the Liberal government was driven from power by the elections of 1878; and Blake himself, having failed to secure re-election, was for a short time without a seat in parliament. From 1880 to 1887 he was leader of the opposition, being succeeded on his resignation of the position in the latter year by Mr (afterwards Sir) Wilfrid Laurier. In 1892 he became a member of the British House of Commons as an Irish Nationalist, being elected for South Longford. But he did not fulfil the expectations which had been formed on the strength of his colonial reputation; he took no very prominent part in debate, and gave little evidence of his undoubted oratorical gifts. In 1907 he retired from public life. In 1858 he had married Margaret, daughter of Benjamin Cronyn, first bishop of Huron.
See John Charles Dent, The Last Forty Years: Canada Since the Union of 1841 (2 vols., Toronto, 1881); J. S. Willison, Sir Wilfrid Laurier and the Liberal Party (2 vols., London, 1904).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Blakesley, Joseph Williams

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​BLAKESLEY, JOSEPH WILLIAMS (1808–1885), English divine, was born in London on the 6th of March 1808, and was educated at St Paul’s school, London, and at Corpus Christi and Trinity Colleges, Cambridge. In 1831 he was elected a fellow, and in 1839 a tutor of Trinity. In 1833 he took holy orders, and from 1845 to 1872 held the college living of Ware, Hertfordshire. Over the signature “Hertfordshire Incumbent” he contributed a large number of letters to The Times on the leading social and political subjects of the day, and he also wrote many reviews of books for that paper. In 1863 he was made a canon of Canterbury, and in 1872 dean of Lincoln. Dean Blakesley was the ​author of the first English Life of Aristotle (1839), an edition of Herodotus (1852–1854) in the Bibliotheca Classica, and Four Months in Algeria (1859). He died on the 18th of April 1885.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Blanc, Mont

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​BLANC, MONT, the culminating point (15,782 ft.) of the mountain range of the same name, which forms part of the Pennine Alps, and is divided unequally between France, Italy and Switzerland. The actual highest summit is wholly French and is the loftiest peak in the Alps, and in Europe also, if certain peaks in the Caucasus be excluded. At Geneva the mountain was in former days named the Montagne Maudite, but the present name seems to have been always used locally. On the north is the valley of Chamonix, and on the east the head of the valley of Aosta. Among the great glaciers which stream from the peak the most noteworthy are those of Bossons and Taconnaz (northern slope) and of Brenva and Miage (southern slope). The first ascent was made in 1786 by two Chamonix men, Jacques Balmat and Dr Michel Paccard, and the second in 1787 by Balmat with two local men. Later in 1787 H. B. de Saussure made the third ascent, memorable in many respects, and was followed a week later by Colonel Beaufoy, the first Englishman to gain the top. These ascents were all made from Chamonix, which is still the usual starting point, though routes have been forced up the peak from nearly every side, those on the Italian side being much steeper than that from Chamonix. The ascent from Chamonix is now frequently made in summer (rarely in winter also), but, owing to the great height of the mountain, the view is unsatisfactory, though very extensive (Lyons is visible). There is an inn at the Grands Mulets (9909 ft.). In 1890 M. Vallot built an observatory and shelter hut (14,312 ft.) on the Bosses du Dromadaire (north-west ridge of the mountain), and in 1893 T. J. C. Janssen constructed an observatory just below the very summit.
See C. Durier, Le Mont Blanc (4th ed., Paris, 1897); C. E. Mathews, The Annals of Mont Blanc (London, 1898); P. Güssfeldt, Der ​Montblanc, (Berlin, 1894, also a French translation, Geneva, 1899); L. Kurz, Climbers’ Guide to the Chain of Mont Blanc, section vi. (London, 1892); L. Kurz and X. Imfeld, Carte de la chaine du Mont Blanc (1896, new edition 1905). (W. A. B. C.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Blakelock, Ralph Albert

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​BLAKELOCK, RALPH ALBERT (1847– ), American painter, was born in New York, on the 15th of October, 1847. He graduated at the College of the City of New York in 1867. In art he was self-taught and markedly original. Until ill-health necessitated the abandonment of his profession, he was a most prolific worker, his subjects including pictures of North American Indian life, and landscapes—notably such canvases as “The Indian Fisherman”; “Ta-wo-koka: or Circle Dance”; “Silvery Moonlight”; “A Waterfall by Moonlight”; “Solitude”; and “Moonlight on Long Island Sound.”
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Blakeney, William Blakeney

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​BLAKENEY, WILLIAM BLAKENEY, Baron (1672–1761), British soldier, was born at Mount Blakeney in Limerick in 1672. Destined by his father for politics, he soon showed a decided preference for a military career, and at the age of eighteen headed the tenants in defending the Blakeney estate against the Rapparees. As a volunteer he went to the war in Flanders, and at the siege of Venlo in 1702 won his commission. He served as a subaltern throughout Marlborough’s campaigns, and is said to have been the first to drill troops by signal of drum or colour. For many years after the peace of Utrecht he served unnoticed, and was sixty-five years of age before he became a colonel. This neglect, which was said to be due to the hostility of Lord Verney, ceased when the duke of Richmond was appointed colonel of Blakeney’s regiment, and thenceforward his advance was rapid. Brigadier-general in the Cartagena expedition of 1741, and major-general a little later, he distinguished himself by his gallant and successful defence of Stirling Castle against the Highlanders in 1745. Two years later George II. made him lieutenant-general and lieutenant-governor of Minorca. The governor of that island never set foot in it, and Blakeney was left in command for ten years.
In 1756 the Seven Years’ War was preluded by a swift descent of the French on Minorca. Fifteen thousand troops under marshal the duc de Richelieu, escorted by a strong squadron under the marquis de la Gallisonnière, landed on the island on the 18th of April, and at once began the siege of Fort St Philip, where Blakeney commanded at most some 5000 soldiers and workmen. The defence, in spite of crumbling walls and rotted gun platforms, had already lasted a month when a British fleet under vice-admiral the Hon. John Byng appeared. La Gallisonnière and Byng fought, on the 20th of May, an indecisive battle, after which the relieving squadron sailed away and Blakeney was left to his fate. A second expedition subsequently appeared off Minorca, but it was then too late, for after a heroic resistance of seventy-one days the old general had been compelled to surrender the fort to Richelieu (April 18–June 28, 1756). Only the ruined fortifications were the prize of the victors. Blakeney and his little garrison were transported to Gibraltar with absolute liberty to serve again. Byng was tried and executed; Blakeney, on his return to England, found himself the hero of the nation. Rewards came freely to the veteran. He was made colonel of the Enniskillen regiment of infantry, knight of the Bath, and Baron Blakeney of Mount Blakeney in the Irish peerage. A little later Van Most’s statue of him was erected in Dublin, and his popularity continued unabated for the short remainder of his life. He died on the 20th of September 1761, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
See Memoirs of General William Blakeney (1757).