OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Moser, Johann Jakob

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​MOSER, JOHANN JAKOB (1701–1785), German jurist, was born at Stuttgart on the 18th of January 1701. He studied at the university of Tübingen, where, at the early age of nineteen, he was appointed extraordinary professor of law. In 1729 he became ordinary professor, and in 1736 he accepted a chair and directorship in the university of Frankfort-on-the-Oder. On account, however, of differences with King Frederick William I. of Prussia, he resigned these offices in 1739 and retired to Ebersdorf, a village in the principality of Reuss, where for several years he devoted himself wholly to study, and especially to the production of his Deutsches Staatsrecht. In 1751 he was recalled to Würtemberg as district counsellor, and in 1759 was imprisoned at Hohentwiel on account of the steps he had taken in connexion with this office against certain tyrannical proceedings of the duke. In 1764 he received his liberty and was restored to office. He died on the 30th of September 1785. Moser was the first to discuss in an adequate form the subject of European international law. He wrote more than 500 volumes, his principal works being Deutsches Staatsrecht (1737–1754), Neues deutsches Staatsrecht (1766–1775), Deutsches Staatsarchiv (1751–1757), Grundriss der heutigen Staatsverfassung von Deutschland (1754).
See Schmid, Das Leben J. J. Mosers (1868); Schulze, J. J. Moser, der Vater des deutschen Staatsrechts (1869).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kudu

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​KUDU (koodoo), the native name for a large species of African antelope (q.v.), with large corkscrew-like horns in the male, and the body marked with narrow vertical white lines in both sexes. The female is hornless. Strepsiceros capensis (or S. strepsiceros) is the scientific name of the true kudu, which ranges from the Cape to Somaliland; but there is also a much smaller species (S. imberbis) in East and North-East Africa.
Male Kudu.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kuhn, Franz Felix Adalbert

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​KUHN, FRANZ FELIX ADALBERT (1812–1881), German philologist and folklorist, was born at Königsberg in Neumark on the 19th of November 1812. From 1841 he was connected with the Köllnisches Gymnasium at Berlin, of which he was appointed director in 1870. He died at Berlin on the 5th of May 1881. Kuhn was the founder of a new school of comparative mythology, based upon comparative philology. Inspired by Grimm’s Deutsche Mythologie, he first devoted himself to German stories and legends, and published Märkische Sagen und Märchen (1842), Norddeutsche Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche (1848), and Sagen, Gebräuche und Märchen aus Westfalen (1859). But it is on his researches into the language and history of the Indo-Germanic peoples as a whole that his reputation is founded. His chief works in this connexion are: Zur ältesten Geschichte der Indogermanischen Völker (1845), in which he endeavoured to give an account of the earliest civilization of the Indo-Germanic peoples before their separation into different families, by comparing and analysing the original meaning of the words and stems common to the different languages; Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Göttertranks (1859; new ed. by E. Kuhn, under title of Mythologische Studien, 1886); and Über Entwicklungsstufen der Mythenbildung (1873), in which he maintained that the origin of myths was to be looked for in the domain of language, and that their most essential factors were polyonymy and homonymy. The Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete der Indogermanischen Sprachen, with which he was intimately connected, is the standard periodical on the subject.
See obituary notice by C. Bruchmann in Bursian’s Biographisches Jahrbuch (1881) and J. Schmidt in the above Zeitschrift, xxvi. n.s. 6.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kuchān

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​KUCHĀN, a fertile and populous district of the province Khorasan in Persia, bounded N. by the Russian Transcaspian territory, W. by Bujnurd, S. by Isfaraïn, and extending in the E. to near Radkan. Its area is about 3000 sq. m. and its ​population, principally composed of Zafaranlu Kurds, descendants of tribes settled there by Shah Abbas I. in the 17th century, is estimated at 100,000. About 3000 families are nomads and live in tents. The district produces much grain, 25,000 to 30,000 tons yearly, and contains two towns, Kuchan and Shirvan (pop. 6000), and many villages.
Kuchan, the capital of the district, has suffered much from the effects of earthquakes, notably in 1875, 1894 and 1895. The last earthquake laid the whole town in ruins and caused considerable loss of life. About 8000 of the survivors removed to a site 71/2 m. E. and there built a new town named Nasseriyeh after Nasr-ud-din Shah, but known better as Kuchan i jadid, i.e. New Kuchan, and about 1000 remained in the ruined city in order to be near their vineyards and gardens. The geographical position of the old town is 37° 8′ N., 58° 25′ E., elevation 4100 ft. The new town has been regularly laid out with broad streets and spacious bazaars, and, situated as it is half-way between Meshed and Askabad on the cart-road connecting those two places, has much trade. Its population is estimated at 10,000. There are telegraph and post offices.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kuenen, Abraham

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​KUENEN, ABRAHAM (1828–1891), Dutch Protestant theologian, the son of an apothecary, was born on the 16th of September 1828, at Haarlem, North Holland. On his father’s death it became necessary for him to leave school and take a humble place in the business. By the generosity of friends he was educated at the gymnasium at Haarlem and afterwards at the university of Leiden. He studied theology, and won his doctor’s degree by an edition of thirty-four chapters of Genesis from the Arabic version of the Samaritan Pentateuch. In 1853 he became professor extraordinarius of theology at Leiden, and in 1855 full professor. He married a daughter of W. Muurling, one of the founders of the Gröningen school, which made the first pronounced breach with Calvinistic theology in the Reformed Church of Holland. Kuenen himself soon became one of the main supports of the modern theology, of which J. N. Scholten (1811–1885) and Karel Willem Opzoomer (b. 1821) were the chief founders, and of which Leiden became the headquarters. His first great work, an historico-critical introduction to the Old Testament, Historisch-kritisch onderzoek naar het onstaan en de verzameling van de boeken des Ouden Verbonds (3 vols., 1861–1865; 2nd ed., 1885–1893; German by T. Weber and C. T. Müller, 1885–1894), followed the lines of the ​dominant school of Heinrich Ewald. But before long he came under the influence of J. W. Colenso, and learned to regard the prophetic narrative of Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers as older than what was by the Germans denominated Grundschrift (“Book of Origins”). In 1869–1870 he published his book on the religion of Israel, De godsdienst van Israël tot den ondergang van der Joodschen Staat (Eng. trans., 1874–1875). This was followed in 1875 by a study of Hebrew prophecy, De profeten en de profetie onder Israel (Eng. trans., 1877), largely polemical in its scope, and specially directed against those who rest theological dogmas on the fulfilment of prophecy. In 1882 Kuenen went to England to deliver a course of Hibbert lectures, National Religions and Universal Religion; in the following year he presided at the congress of Orientalists held at Leiden. In 1886 his volume on the Hexateuch was published in England. He died at Leiden on the 10th of December 1891.
Kuenen was also the author of many articles, papers and reviews; a series on the Hexateuch, which appeared in the Theologisch Tijdschrift, of which in 1866 he became joint editor, is one of the finest products of modern criticism. His collected works were translated into German and published by K. Budde in 1894. Several of his works have been translated into English by Philip Wicksteed. See the article in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kubus

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​KUBUS, a tribe inhabiting the central parts of Sumatra. They are nomadic savages living entirely in the forests in shelters of branches and leaves built on platforms. It has been suggested that they represent a Sumatran aboriginal race; but Dr J. G. Garson, reporting on Kubu skulls and skeletons submitted to him by Mr. H. O. Forbes, declared them decidedly Malay, though the frizzle in the hair might indicate a certain mixture of negrito blood (Jour. Anthrop. Instit., April 1884). They are of a rich olive-brown tint, their hair jet black and inclined to curl, and, though not dwarfs, are below the average height.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kufa

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​KUFA, a Moslem city, situated on the shore of the Hindieh canal, about 4 m. E. by N. of Nejef (32° 4′ N., 44° 20′ E.), was founded by the Arabs after the battle of Kadesiya in A.D. 638 as one of the two capitals of the new territory of Irak, the whole country being divided into the sawads, or districts, of Basra and Kufa. The caliph ‛Ali made it his residence and the capital of his caliphate. After the removal of the capital to Bagdad, in the middle of the following century, Kufa lost its importance and began to fall into decay. At the beginning of the 19th century, travellers reported extensive and important ruins as marking the ancient site. Since that time the ruins have served as quarries for bricks for the building of Nejef, and at the present time little remains but holes in the ground, representing excavations for bricks, with broken fragments of brick and glass strewn over a considerable area. A mosque still stands on the spot where ‛Ali is reputed to have worshipped. (For history see Caliphate.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kuka

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​KUKA, or Kukawa, a town of Bornu, a Mahommedan state of the central Sudan, incorporated in the British protectorate of Nigeria (see Bornu). Kuka is situated in 12° 55′ N. and 13° 34′ E., 41/2 m. from the western shores of Lake Chad, in the midst of an extensive plain. It is the headquarters of the British administration in Bornu, and was formerly the residence of the native sovereign, who in Bornu bears the title of shehu.
The modern town of Kuka was founded c. 1810 by Sheikh Mahommed al Amin al Kanemi, the deliverer of Bornu from the Fula invaders. It is supposed to have received its name from the kuka or monkey bread tree (Adansonia digitata), of which there are extensive plantations in the neighbourhood. Kuka or Kaoukaou was a common name in the Sudan in the middle ages. The number of towns of this name gave occasion for much geographical confusion, but Idrisi writing in the 12th century, and Ibn Khaldun in the 14th century, both mention two important towns called Kaou Kaou, of which one would seem to have occupied a position very near to that of the modern Kuka. Ibn Khaldun speaks of it as the capital of Bornu and as situated on the meridian of Tripoli. In 1840 the present town was laid waste by Mahommed Sherif, the sultan of Wadai; and when it was restored by Sheikh Omar he built two towns separated by more than half a mile of open country, each town being surrounded by walls of white clay. It was probably owing to there being two towns that the plural Kukawa became the ordinary designation of the town in Kano and throughout the Sudan, though the inhabitants used the singular Kuka. The town became wealthy and populous (containing some 60,000 inhabitants), being a centre for caravans to Tripoli and a stopping-place of pilgrims from the Hausa countries going across Africa to Mecca. The chief building was the great palace of the sheikh. Between 1823 and 1872 Kuka was visited by several English and German travellers. In 1893 Bornu was seized by the ex-slave Rabah (q.v.), an adventurer from the Bahr-el-Ghazal, who chose a new capital, Dikwa, Kuka falling into complete decay. The town was found in ruins in 1902 by the British expedition which replaced on the throne of Bornu a descendant of the ancient rulers. In the same year the rebuilding of Kuka was begun and the town speedily regained part of its former importance. It is now one of the principal British stations of eastern Bornu. Owing, however, to the increasing importance of Maidugari, a town 80 m. S.S.W. of Kuka, the court of the shehu was removed thither in 1908.
For an account of Kuka before its destruction by Rabah, see the Travels of Heinrich Barth (new ed., London, 1890); and Sahara und Sudan, by Gustav Nachtigal (Berlin, 1879), i. 581–748.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Peter II.

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​PETER II. (1715-1730), emperor of Russia, only son of the Tsarevich Alexius, was born on the 18th of October 1715. From his childhood the orphan grand duke was kept in the strictest seclusion. His grandfather, Peter the Great, systematically ignored him. His earliest governesses were the wives of a tailor and a vintner from the Dutch settlement; a sailor called Norman taught him the rudiments of navigation; and, when he grew older, he was placed under the care of a Hungarian refugee, Janos Zeikin, who seems to have been a conscientious teacher. During the reign of Catherine I. Peter was quite ignored, but just before her death it became clear to those in power that the grandson of Peter the Great could not be kept out of his inheritance much longer. The majority of the nation and three-quarters of the nobility were on his side, while his uncle, the emperor Charles VI., through the imperial ambassador at St Petersburg, Rabutin, persistently urged his claims. The matter was arranged between Menshikov, Osterman and Rabutin, and on the 18th of May 1727 Peter II., according to the terms of the supposed last will of Catherine I., was proclaimed sovereign autocrat. The senate, the privy council and the guards took the oath of allegiance forthwith. The education of the young prince was wisely entrusted to the vice-chancellor Osterman. Menshikov, who took possession of Peter II. and lodged him in his own palace on the Vasily island, had intended to marry Peter to his daughter Maria; the scheme was frustrated by his fall (Sept. 21, 1727); but Peter only fell into the hands of the equally unscrupulous Dolgoruki, who carried him away from Petersburg to Moscow. Peter's coronation was celebrated at that city on the 25th of February 1728. He was betrothed to Catherine, second daughter of Alexis Dolgoruki, and the wedding was actually fixed for the 30th of January 1730; but on that very day the emperor died of small-pox.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Peter of Aigueblanche

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​PETER OF AIGUEBLANCHE (d. 1268), bishop of Hereford, belonged to a noble family of Savoy and came to England in 1236 with his master, William of Savoy, bishop of Valence, being in attendance on Eleanor of Provence, the bride of Henry III. A year or two later he is found residing permanently in England as a member of the king’s court, before 1239 he was archdeacon of Salop, and in 1240 he was chosen bishop of Hereford. In 1255 Peter acted as Henry’s principal agent in the matter of accepting the kingdom of Sicily from Pope Alexander IV. for his son Edmund, and his rapacious and dishonest methods of raising money for this foolish enterprise added not a little to the unpopularity which surrounded the king and his foreign favourites. When civil war broke out between Henry and his barons the bishop remained loyal to his master, and whilst residing, almost for the first time, at Hereford he was taken prisoner in May 1263. He was, however, released when the king and his enemies came to terms, and after a stay in France he retired to Savoy, where he died on the 27th of November 1268.
See F. Mugnier, Les Savoyards en Angleterre au XIIIᵉ siècle et Pierre d’ Aigueblanche (Chambéry, 1890).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Peter's Pence

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​PETER’S PENCE, Rome Scot, or Rom-feoh, a tax of a penny on every hearth, formerly paid annually to the popes, now represented by a voluntary contribution made by the devout in Roman Catholic churches Its date of origin is doubtful. The first written evidence of it is contained in a letter of Canute (1031) sent from Rome to the English clergy. At this time it appears to have been levied on all families possessed of land worth thirty pence yearly rental, out of which they paid one penny. Matthew Paris says the tax was instituted by Offa, king of Mercia (757–796) for the upkeep of the English school and hostel at Rome. Layamon, however, declares that Ina, king of Wessex (688–725), was the originator of the idea. At the Norman Conquest it appears to have fallen into arrears for a time, for William the Conqueror promised the pope in 1076 that it should be regularly paid. By a bull of Pope Adrian IV. the tax was extended to Ireland. In 1213 Innocent III. complained that the bishops kept 1000 marks of it, only forwarding 300 to Rome. In 1306 Clement V. exacted a penny from each household instead of the £201, 9s. at which the tax appears to have been then fixed. The threat of withholding Peter’s pence proved more than once a useful weapon against recalcitrant popes in the hands of English kings. Thus in 1366 and for some years after it was refused on the ground of the pope’s obstinacy in withholding his consent to the statute of praemunire During the 10th century the custom of Peter’s pence was introduced into Poland, Prussia and Scandinavia, and in the 11th century Gregory VII. attempted to exact it from France and ​Spain. The tax was fairly regularly paid by the English until 1534, when it was abolished by Henry VIII.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Oakum

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​OAKUM (O. Eng. ácumbe or—œcumbe, tow, literally “off-combings”), a preparation of tarred fibre used in shipbuilding, for caulking or packing joints of timbers in wood vessels and the deck planking of iron and steel ships. Oakum is made by preference from old tarry ropes and cordage of vessels, and its picking and preparation has been a common penal occupation in prisons and workhouses. White oakum is made from untarred materials.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Oamaru

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​OAMARU, a municipal borough on the east coast of South Island, New Zealand, in the county of Waitaki and provincial district of Otago; on the main railway between Christchurch (152 m. N.E.) and Dunedin (78 m. S.S.W.). Pop. (1906) 5071. It is the outlet of the largest agricultural district in New Zealand. A breakwater and mole, constructed of blocks of concrete. enclose a commodious basin, forming one of the safest harbours in the colony. The export of frozen meat is important. The town is built of white Oamaru limestone. Brown coal is obtained at the entrance of Shag Valley, 40 m. S. The district is famed for its stock, and the fine quality of its grain; also for the character of the English grasses laid down there, which flourish in a rich black loam on a limestone formation.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Oast

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​OAST (O. Eng. ást, cf. Dutch eest, “kiln”; the Teutonic root is aidh- “to burn”; the pre-Teutonic idh- is seen in Lat. aestus, “heat,” aestas, “summer,” Gr. αἶθος, “burning heat”), a kiln, particularly one used for drying hops; the word usually appears in the term “oast-house,” a building containing several of such kilns (see Hop). “Oast” is also sometimes used of a kiln for drying tobacco.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Oakham

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​OAKHAM, a market town, and the county town of Rutland, England, 94 m. N. by W. of London by the Midland railway. Pop. (1901) 3294. The church of All Saints ranges in style from Early English to Perpendicular, belonging in appearance mainly to the latter style. Of Oakham Castle, founded in the reign of Henry II., the principal remnant is the notable Norman hall, used as the county hall. The manor came in the time of Henry II. into the hands of Walcheline de Ferrers, and subsequently passed, through many owners, to the duchy of Buckingham, whence it descended to the earls of Winchelsea. A peculiar custom attaching to the manor is to claim a horseshoe from every peer who, for the first time, passes through the town. Flore’s House in the main street is an interesting building dating from the 13th century. Oakham school was endowed as a grammar school by Robert Johnson, archdeacon of Leicester, in 1584; it now has classical and modern sides. Not far from the town are the kennels of the Cottesmore hunt.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Oakland

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​OAKLAND, a city and the county-seat of Alameda county, California, U.S.A., situated opposite and about 6 m. distant from San Francisco, on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay. Pop. (1890) 48,682; (1900) 66,960, of whom 17,256 were foreign born, 3197 being Irish, 2742 German, 2026 English, 1544 English-Canadians, 1020 Portuguese and 994 Swedish; (1910 census) 150,174. It is the terminus of the Ogden branch of the Southern (formerly Central) Pacific, of the Coast Line of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé, and of the Western Pacific railways. Passengers and freight from the East to San Francisco are transferred by ferry from Oakland. A branch of the bay (called Oakland Harbour) divides Oakland from Alameda, and the railway piers of Oakland run directly out into the bay for more than 2 m. toward San Francisco, thus shortening the ferry connexions. Lake Merritt, in the heart of the city, a favourite pleasure resort, is the centre of the city’s park system. Oakland is the seat of California College (co-educational, Baptist, opened in 1870), and of St Mary’s College (Roman Catholic, 1863) for men; and in the suburban Village of Mills College, west of the city, is Mills College (non-sectarian, 1871) for women, an institution of high rank. Electric power for the city is derived from Colgate, on the Yuba river, 219 m. distant. Oakland has important manufacturing interests, the total Value of its factory products in 1905 being $9,072,539, 69% more than in 1900.
The site of the present city (as well as that of Alameda and Berkeley) lay originally within the limits of a great private Mexican grant which was confirmed by the United States authorities. A settlement was begun—at first by “squatters” in defiance of the private claim—in 1850; in May 1852 this was incorporated as a town (the name being derived from a wood of oaks in the midst of which the first settlement was made), and in March 1854 it was chartered as a city. In 1869 it was selected as the western terminus of the Central Pacific, a choice which greatly promoted Oakland’s commercial importance. The water front was recklessly given away in 1852, and the resulting disputes and litigation lasted for more than thirty years; in 1908 the water front reverted to the city. The population increased more than sixfold from 1860 to 1870, and doubled in 1900–1910. It became the county-seat in 1874. In December 1910 a commission form of government was adopted.