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 Talk Talk - Communication terms
Category: General technical and industrial
Date & country: 28/05/2010, UK
Words: 18630


Bangka
Indonesian island off the east coast of Sumatra; area 12,000 sq km/4,600 sq mi; population (2000) 900,200. The capital is Pangkalpinang. It is one of the world's largest producers of tin

Banjul
Capital and chief port of Gambia, on an island at the mouth of the Gambia River; population of urban area (1995 est) 186,000; city (1995 est) 58,700. It is located 195 km/121 mi southeast of Dakar (capital of Senegal). Industries include peanut processing and exporting, brewing, and tourism (centred at the nearby resorts of Bakau, Fajar...

banjo
Resonant stringed musical instrument with a long fretted neck and circular drum-type soundbox covered on the topside only by stretched skin (now usually plastic). It is played with a plectrum. Modern banjos normally have five strings. The banjo originated in the American South among black slaves (based on a similar instrument of African origin)

Bangor
(Wales) Cathedral, university, and market town in Gwynedd, north Wales, on the Menai Strait 15 km/9 mi northeast of Caernarfon; population (2001) 15,300. Industries include chemicals, electrical goods, and engineering. Trade in slate from Penrhyn quarries was at one time very important...

Bangui
Capital and main river port of the Central African Republic, on the River Ubangi; population (2003) 531,800. The country's leading commercial and educational centre, Bangui is also its centre for light industries, including beer, cigarettes, office machinery, timber and metal products, textiles, leather goods, and soap. Bangui is the countr...

Bangkok
Click images to enlargeCapital and port of Thailand, on the east bank of the River Chao Phraya, 40 km/24 mi from the Gulf of Thailand; population (2000 est) 6,320,200; the population of the whole metropolitan area, including the industrial centre of Thon Buri across the river, is 10,068,000 (2000 est). It is t...

Bangalore
Capital of Karnataka state, southern India, lying 950 m/3,000 ft above sea level; population (2001 est) 4,292,200. Industries include electronics, aircraft, railway-carriage, and machine-tools construction, as well as the manufacture of electrical goods and the processing of coffee. Bangalore University and the University of Agricul...

Bandung Conference
First conference, in 1955, of the Afro-Asian nations, proclaiming anticolonialism and neutrality between East and West. It was organized by Indonesia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, India, and Pakistan

Bandung
Commercial city and capital of Jawa Barat province on the island of Java, Indonesia, 180 km/112 mi southeast of Jakarta; population (2000) 3,443,700. Bandung is the third-largest city in Indonesia. Industries include textiles, chemicals, and plastics. Founded by Dutch settlers in 1810, Bandung was the administrative centre when the coun...

Bandar Seri Begawan
Capital and largest town of Brunei, 14 km/9 mi from the mouth of the Brunei River; population (2001) 27,300. The port serves ocean-going vessels; industries include oil refining and construction. Features include the Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque 1958, one of the largest and most splendid in Asia, and the Kampong Ayer water village. Sin...

Banda, Hastings Kamuzu
Malawi politician, physician, and president (1966–94). He led his country's independence movement and was prime minister of Nyasaland (the former name of Malawi) from 1964. He became Malawi's first president in 1966 and was named president for life in 1971; his rule was authoritarian. Having bowed to opposition pressure and opened ...

Banbury
Market town in Oxfordshire, central England, on the River Cherwell, 40 km/25 mi north of Oxford, and administrative centre for Cherwell District Council; population (2001) 41,800. Industries include food processing (Kraft Jacobs Suchard), traditional brewing (Hook Norton, Merivales), printing, and the manufacture of car components, electric...

bay
Any of various species of laurel tree. The aromatic evergreen leaves are used for flavouring in cookery. There is also a golden-leaved variety. (Genus Laurus, family Lauraceae.)

basil
Plant with aromatic leaves, belonging to the mint family. A native of the tropics, it is cultivated in Europe as a herb and used to flavour food. Its small white flowers appear on spikes. (Genus Ocimum basilicum, family Labiatae.)

barley
Click images to enlargeCereal belonging to a family of grasses. It resembles wheat but is more tolerant of cold and draughts. Cultivated barley (Hordeum vulgare) comes in three main varieties – six-rowed, four-rowed, and two-rowed. (Family Gramineae.) Barley was one of the earliest cere...

baobab
Tree with rootlike branches, hence the nickname `upside-down tree`, and a disproportionately thick girth, up to 9 m/30 ft in diameter. The pulp of its fruit is edible and is known as monkey bread. (Genus Adansonia, family Bombacaceae.)

banksia
Any shrub or tree of a group native to Australia, including the honeysuckle tree. They are named after the English naturalist and explorer Joseph Banks. (Genus Banksia, family Proteaceae.) Banksias have spiny evergreen leaves and large flower spikes, made up of about 1,000 individu...

banyan
Tropical Asian fig tree. It produces aerial roots that grow down from its spreading branches, forming supporting pillars that look like separate trunks. (Ficus benghalensis, family Moraceae.)

bamboo
Any of a large group of giant grass plants, found mainly in tropical and subtropical regions. Some species grow as tall as 36 m/120 ft. The stems are hollow and jointed and can be used in furniture, house, and boat construction. The young shoots are edible; paper is made from the stems. (Genu...

banana
Click images to enlargeAny of several treelike tropical plants which grow up to 8 m/25 ft high. The edible banana is the fruit of a sterile hybrid form. (Genus Musa, family Musaceae.) The curved yellow fruits of the commercial banana, arranged in clusters known as `hands`, form cylindrical...

Barnard's star
Star, 6 light years away from the Sun, in the constellation Ophiuchus. It is the second-closest star to the Sun, after Alpha Centauri, a triple star, the closest component of which, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2 light years away from the Sun. It is a faint red dwarf of 10th magnitude, visible only through a telescope. It is named after the US astron...

barium
Soft, silver-white, metallic element, atomic number 56, relative atomic mass 137.33. It is one of the alkaline-earth metals, found in nature as barium carbonate and barium sulphate. As the sulphate it is used in medicine: taken as a suspension (a `barium meal`), its movement along the gut is followed using X-rays. The bari...

baldness
Loss of hair from the scalp, common in older men. Its onset and extent are influenced by genetic make-up and the level of male sex hormones. There is no cure, and expedients such as hair implants may have no lasting effect. Hair loss in both sexes may also occur as a result of ill health or radiation treatment, such as for cancer. Alopecia, a c...

base pair
In biochemistry, the linkage of two base (purine or pyrimidine) molecules that join the complementary strands of DNA. Adenine forms a base pair with thymine (or uracil in RNA) and cytosine pairs with guanine in a double-stranded nucleic acid molecule. One base lies on one strand of the DNA double helix and one on the other, so that the base pai...

bacteria
Microscopic single-celled organisms lacking a membrane-bound nucleus. Bacteria, like archaea, certain fungi, and viruses, are micro-organisms – organisms that are so small they can only be seen using a microscope. They are organisms that are more simple than the cells of animals, plants, and fungi in that they lack a nucleus. Bacte...

bacillus
Genus of rod-shaped bacteria that occur everywhere in the soil and air. Some are responsible for diseases such as anthrax, or for causing food spoilage

bat
Any mammal of the order Chiroptera, related to the Insectivora (hedgehogs and shrews), but differing from them in being able to fly. Bats are the only true flying mammals. Their forelimbs are developed as wings capable of rapid and sustained flight. There are two main groups of bats: megabats, wh...

basset
Any of several breeds of hound with a long low body and long pendulous ears, of a type originally bred in France for hunting hares by scent

bass
(fish) Long-bodied scaly sea fish Morone labrax found in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean. They grow to 1 m/3 ft, and are often seen in shoals. Other fish of the same family (Serranidae) are also called bass, as are North American freshwater fishes of the family ...

barracuda
Large predatory fish Sphyraena barracuda found in the warmer seas of the world. It can grow over 2 m/6 ft long and has a superficial resemblance to a pike. Young fish shoal, but the older ones are solitary. The barracuda has very sharp shearing teeth and may attack people

barnacle
Marine crustacean of the subclass Cirripedia. The larval form is free-swimming, but when mature, it fixes itself by the head to rock or floating wood. The animal then remains attached, enclosed in a shell through which the cirri (modified legs) protrude to sweep food into the mouth. Barnacles include the stalked goose barnacle Lepas an...

barbet
Small, tropical bird, often brightly coloured. There are about 78 species of barbet in the family Capitonidae, order Piciformes, common to tropical Africa, Asia, and America. Barbets eat insects and fruit and, being distant relations of woodpeckers, drill nest holes with their beaks. The name comes f...

barbel
Freshwater fish Barbus barbus found in fast-flowing rivers with sand or gravel bottoms in Britain and Europe. Long-bodied, and up to 1 m/3 ft long in total, the barbel has four barbels (`little beards` – sensory fleshy filaments) near the mouth

barbastelle
Insect-eating bat Barbastella barbastellus with hairy cheeks and lips, `frosted` black fur, and a wingspan of about 25 cm/10 in. It lives in hollow trees and under roofs, and is occasionally found in the UK but more commonly in Europe

Barbary ape
Tailless, yellowish-brown macaque monkey Macaca sylvanus, 55–75 cm/20–30 in long. Barbary apes are found in the mountains and wilds of Algeria and Morocco, especially in the forests of the Atlas Mountains. They were introduced to Gibraltar, where legend has it that the British will leave if the ape colony dies o...

bandicoot
Small marsupial mammal inhabiting Australia and New Guinea. There are about 11 species, family Peramelidae. Bandicoots are rat- or rabbit-sized and live in burrows. They have long snouts, eat insects, and are nocturnal. A related group, the rabbit bandicoots or bilbies, is reduced to a single...

badger
Large mammal of the weasel family with molar teeth of a crushing type adapted to a partly vegetable diet, and short strong legs with long claws suitable for digging. The Eurasian common badger Meles meles is about 1 m/3 ft long, with long, coarse, greyish hair on the back, and ...

baboon
Large monkey of the genus Papio, with a long doglike muzzle and large canine teeth, spending much of its time on the ground in open country. Males, with head and body up to 1.1 m/3.5 ft long, are larger than females, and dominant males rule the `troops` in which baboo...

babirusa
Wild pig Babirousa babyrussa, becoming increasingly rare, found in the moist forests and by the water of Sulawesi, Buru, and nearby Indonesian islands. The male has large upper tusks which grow upwards through the skin of the snout and curve back towards the forehead. The babirusa is up to 80 cm/2.5 ft at the shoulder. It is ...

basilisk
(zoology) Central and South American lizard, genus Basiliscus. It is about 50 cm/20 in long and weighs about 90 g/0.2 lb. Its rapid speed (more than 2 m/6.6 ft per second) and the formation of air pockets around the feet enable it to run short distances across th...

basenji
Breed of dog originating in Central Africa, where it is used for hunting. About 41 cm/16 in tall, it has pointed ears, curled tail, and short glossy coat of black or red, often with white markings. It is remarkable because it has no true bark

barb
General name for fish of the genus Barbus and some related genera of the family Cyprinidae. As well as the barbel, barbs include many small tropical Old World species, some of which are familiar aquarium species. They are active egg-laying species, usually of `typical` fish shape and with barbels at the corner of th...

bantam
Small ornamental variety of domestic chicken weighing about 0.5–1 kg/1–2 lb. Bantams can either be a small version of one of the larger breeds, or a separate type. Some are prolific egg layers. Bantam cocks have a reputation as spirited fighters

bactrian
Species of camel, Camelus bactrianus, found in the Gobi Desert in central Asia. Body fat is stored in two humps on the back. It has very long winter fur which is shed in ragged lumps. The bactrian has a head and body length of about 3 m/10 ft, and is about 2.1 m/6.8 ft tall at the shoulder. Most bactrian camels are domest...

bank rate
Interest rate fixed by the Bank of England as a guide to mortgage and other loan rates which was replaced in 1972 by the minimum lending rate

babbler
Bird of the thrush family Muscicapidae with a loud babbling cry. Babblers, subfamily Timaliinae, are found in the Old World, and there are some 250 species in the group

basidiocarp
Spore-bearing body, or `fruiting body`, of all basidiomycete fungi (see fungus), except the rusts and smuts. A well known example is the edible mushroom Agaricus brunnescens. Other types include globular basidiocarps (puffballs) or flat ones that project from tree trunks (brackets). They are made up of a mass of tig...

base
(mathematics) In mathematics, the number of different single-digit symbols used in a particular number system. In our usual (decimal) counting system of numbers (with symbols 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) the base is 10. In the bi...

barrier reef
Coral reef that lies offshore, separated from the mainland by a shallow lagoon

Baha'i Faith
Religion founded in the 19th century from a Muslim splinter group, Babism, by the Persian Baha'u'llah. His message in essence was that all great religious leaders are manifestations of the unknowable God and all scriptures are sacred. There is no priesthood: all Baha'is are expected t...

badlands
Barren landscape cut by erosion into a maze of ravines, pinnacles, gullies, and sharp-edged ridges. Areas in South Dakota and Nebraska, USA, are examples

Baldwin, Stanley
British Conservative politician, prime minister 1923–24, 1924–29, and 1935–37. He weathered the general strike of 1926, secured complete adult suffrage in 1928, and handled the abdication crisis of Edward VIII in 1936, but failed to prepare Britain for World War II

bank
Financial institution that uses funds deposited with it to lend money to companies or individuals, and also provides financial services to its customers. The first banks opened in Italy and Cataluña around 1400. In 1900, half of the world's top ten banks were British; by 1950, the dominant banking nation had become the USA, with half o...

Bank of England
UK central bank founded by act of Parliament in 1694. It was entrusted with issuing bank notes in 1844 and nationalized in 1946. It is banker to the clearing banks and the UK government. As the government's bank, it manages and arranges the financing of the public sector borrowing requirement and the national debt, implements monetary policy an...

Basic English
Simplified form of English devised and promoted by the writer and scholar C K Ogden and the literary critic I A Richards in the 1920s and 1930s as an international auxiliary language; as a route into Standard English for foreign learners (little used now); and as a reminder to the English-speaking world of the virtues of plain language....

Bantu languages
Group of related languages belonging to the Niger-Congo family, spoken widely over the greater part of Africa south of the Sahara, including Swahili, Xhosa, and Zulu. Meaning `people` in Zulu, the word Bantu itself illustrates a characteristic use of prefixes: mu-ntu `man`, ba-ntu
batch processing
In computing, system for processing data with little or no operator intervention. Batches of data are prepared in advance to be processed during regular `runs` (for example, each night). This allows efficient use of the computer and is well suited to applications of a repetitive nature, such bulk file format conversion, as a company payro...

BASIC
High-level computer-programming language, developed in 1964, originally designed to take advantage of multiuser systems (which can be used by many people at the same time). The language is relatively easy to learn and is popular among microcomputer users. Most versions make use of an interpreter, which translates BASIC into machine code and...

Babbage, Charles
English mathematician who devised a precursor of the computer. He designed an analytical engine, a general-purpose mechanical computing device for performing different calculations according to a program input on punched cards (an idea borrowed from the Jacquard loom). This device was never built, but it embodied many of the principles on which...

balance of power
In politics, the theory that the best way of ensuring international order is to have power so distributed among states that no single state is able to achieve a dominant position. The term, which may also refer more simply to the actual distribution of power, is one of the most enduring concepts in international relations. Since the development of ...

Bach, Wilhelm Friedemann
German composer. The eldest son of Johann Sebastian Bach, he was also an organist, improviser, and master of counterpoint

Babeuf, François-Noël
French revolutionary journalist, a pioneer of practical socialism. In 1794 he founded a newspaper in Paris, later known as the Tribune of the People, in which he demanded the equality of all people. He was guillotined for conspiring against the ruling Directory during the French Revolution

ballade
In literature, a poetic form developed in France in the later Middle Ages from the ballad, generally consisting of one or more groups of three stanzas of seven or eight lines each, followed by a shorter stanza or envoy, the last line being repeated as a chorus. In music, a ballade is an instrumental piece based on a story; a form used in piano ...

battery
Click images to enlargeAny chemical energy-storage device allowing release of electricity on demand. It is made up of one or more electrical cells. Electricity is produced by a chemical reaction in the cells. There are two types of battery: primary-cell batteries, which are disposable; and secondary-ce...

Bandaranaike, Sirimavo
Sri Lankan politician, prime minister 1994–2000. She succeeded her husband Solomon Bandaranaike to become the world's first female prime minister, 1960–65 and 1970–77, but was expelled from parliament in 1980 for abuse of her powers while in office. Her daughter Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga was elected president in 1994. Sh...

Bamako
Capital and port of Mali, lying on the upper Niger River, in the southwest of the country; population (2001 est) 947,100. As a major river port, it is vital to the economy of a landlocked country. Industries include ceramics, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, textiles, farm machinery, batteries, river fishing, and food and tobacco processing. History...

Baluchistan
Mountainous desert area, comprising a province of Pakistan, part of the Iranian province of Sistán and Balúchestan, and a small area of Afghanistan. The Pakistani province has an area of 347,200 sq km/134,050 sq mi and a population (2002 est) of 7,215,700; its capital is Quetta. Sistán and Balúchestan has an area of 181,...

Baltic, Battle of the
Naval battle fought off Copenhagen on 2 April 1801, in which a British fleet under Sir Hyde Parker, with Nelson as second-in-command, annihilated the Danish navy

balloon
Click images to enlargeLighter-than-air craft that consists of a gasbag filled with gas lighter than the surrounding air and an attached basket, or gondola, for carrying passengers and/or instruments. In 1783, the first successful human ascent was in Paris, in a hot-air balloon designed by the Montgolfier ...

ballet
Theatrical representation in dance form in which music also plays a major part in telling a story or conveying a mood. Some such form of entertainment existed in ancient Greece, but Western ballet as we know it today first appeared in Renaissance Italy, where it was a court entertainment. From there it was brought by Catherine de' Medici to Fra...

Ballard, J(ames) G(raham)
English novelist. He became prominent in the 1960s for his science fiction works on the theme of catastrophe and collapse of the urban landscape. His fundamentally moral vision is expressed with an unrestrained imagination and a pessimistic irony. Born in Shanghai, China, he was educated at Cambridge University, England, before becoming a writer. H...

Ballarat
City in Victoria, Australia, 112 km/70 mi northwest of Melbourne; population (2001) 73,000. It is Victoria's largest inland city, the third-largest city of the state, and is an important railway junction. Industries include the manufacture of agricultural machinery, fibreglass, and paper; champagne, cheese, and lavender are prod...

Balfour Declaration
Letter, dated 2 November 1917, from British foreign secretary A J Balfour to Lord Rothschild (chair, British Zionist Federation) stating: `HM government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.` It helped form the basis for the foundation of Israel in 1948

Balkans
Peninsula of southeastern Europe, stretching into Slovenia between the Adriatic and Aegean seas, comprising Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Greece, Romania, Serbia, and the part of Turkey in Europe. It is joined to the rest of Europe by an isthmus 1,200 km/750 mi wide between Rijeka, Croatia, on the we...

Balearic Islands
(autonomous community) Click images to enlargeGroup of Mediterranean islands forming an autonomous region (since 1983) and province of Spain, comprising Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza, Cabrera, and Formentera; area 5,014 sq km/1,936 sq mi; popu...

Baldwin, James Arthur
US writer and civil-rights activist. He portrayed with vivid intensity the suffering and despair of African-Americans in contemporary society. After his first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), set in Harlem, and Giovanni's Room (1956), about a homosexual relationship in Paris, his writing be...

Balboa, Vasco Núñez de
Spanish conquistador. He founded a settlement at Darien (now Panama) in 1511 and crossed the Isthmus in search of gold, reaching the Pacific Ocean (which he called the South Sea) on 25 September 1513, after a 25-day expedition. He was made admiral of the Pacific and governor of Panama but was removed by Spanish court intrigue, imprisoned, and e...

balance of payments
In economics, an account of a country's debit and credit transactions with other countries. Items are divided into the current account, which includes both visible trade (imports and exports of goods) and invisible trade (services such as transport, tourism, interest, and dividends), and the capital account, which includes investment in and out...

bagpipes
Any of an ancient family of double-reed folk woodwind instruments employing a bladder, filled by the player through a mouthpiece, or bellows as an air reservoir to a `chanter` or fingered melody pipe, and two or three optional drone pipes providing a continuous accompanying harmony. Examples include the old French musette, Scottish an...

Baghdad
Capital city and largest city of Iraq, and capital of the governorate of Baghdad, on the River Tigris; population (2002 est) 5,605,000 (urban area 6,508,200). The city is the home of most of the industrial, commercial, and financial activities of the country. Industries include oil refining, distilling, tanning, tobacco processing, and the manu...

Baden-Württemberg
Administrative region (German Land) in southwest Germany, bordered to the west by France, to the south by Switzerland, to the east by Bavaria, and to the west by the Rhine valley; area 35,752 sq km/13,804 sq mi; population (2003 est) 10,546,800. It is the third-largest and the most industrialized of the 16 federal...

Baden-Baden
Black Forest spa town in Baden-Württemberg, southwestern Germany, in the Oos valley, 68 km/42 mi west of Stuttgart; population (2005 est) 54,600. Its mineral springs have been known since Roman times, and it became a fashionable spa in the 19th century. The town has a conference centre, the Kongresshaus (1968)

Badajoz
(city) Capital of Badajoz province in Extremadura, southwest Spain, situated on the River Guadiana at the Portuguese frontier; population (2001) 133,500. Textiles, pottery, leather, and soap are manufactured. Badajoz has a 16th-century bridge and a 13th-century cathedral. Originall...

Bactria
Province of the ancient Persian empire (now divided between Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan) which was partly conquered by Alexander the Great. During the 6th–3rd centuries BC it was a centre of east–west trade and cultural exchange

Bacon, Roger
English philosopher and scientist. He was interested in alchemy, the biological and physical sciences, and magic. Many discoveries have been credited to him, including the magnifying lens. He foresaw the extensive use of gunpowder and mechanical cars, boats, and planes. Bacon was known as Doctor Mirabilis (Wonderful Teacher). In ...

Bacon, Francis
(painter) Irish painter. Self-taught, he practised abstract art, then developed a stark Expressionist style characterized by distorted, blurred figures enclosed in loosely defined space. He aimed to `bring the figurative thing up onto the nervous system more violently and more poignan...

backgammon
Board game for two players, often used in gambling. It was known in Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, and in medieval England. The board is marked out in 24 triangular points of alternating colours, 12 to each side. Throwing two dice, the players move their 15 pieces around the board to the 6 points that form their own `inner table`; the fir...

Bach, Carl Philip Emanuel
German composer. He was the third son of Johann Sebastian Bach. He introduced a new `homophonic` style, light and easy to follow, which influenced Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven. In the service of Frederick the Great 1740–67, he left to become master of church music at Hamburg in 1768. He wrote over 200 pieces for keyboard instruments,...

Bach, Johann Christian
German composer. The eleventh son of Johann Sebastian Bach, he became celebrated in Italy as a composer of operas. In 1762 he was invited to London, where he became music master to the royal family. He remained in England until his death; his great popularity both as a composer and a performer declined in his last years for political and medica...

Bacchus
In Greek and Roman mythology, the god of fertility (see Dionysus) and of wine; his rites (the Bacchanalia) were orgiastic

Babi faith
Faith from which the Baha'i faith grew

Babylonian Captivity
Exile of Jewish deportees to Babylon after Nebuchadnezzar II's capture of Jerusalem in 586 BC; it was the first diaspora of the Jewish people. According to tradition, the Captivity lasted 70 years, but Cyrus of Persia, who conquered Babylon, actually allowed them to go home in 536 BC. By analogy, the name has also been applied to the papal ...

Baader–Meinhof gang
Popular name for the West German left-wing guerrilla group the Rote Armee Fraktion/Red Army Faction, active from 1968 against what it perceived as US imperialism. The three main founding members were Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Ulrike Meinhof. The group carried out a succession of terrorist attacks in West Germany...

Bauhaus
German school of art, design, and architecture founded in 1919 in Weimar by the architect Walter Gropius, who aimed to fuse art, design, architecture, and crafts into a unified whole. By 1923, as Germany's economy deteriorated, handcrafts were dropped in favour of a more functionalist approach, combining craft design with industrial production....

basilica
Roman public building; a large, roofed hall flanked by columns, generally with an aisle on each side, used for judicial or other public business. The earliest known basilica, at Pompeii, dates from the 2nd century BC. This architectural form was adopted by the early Christians for their churches

bathyscaph
Deep-sea diving apparatus used for exploration at great depths in the ocean. In 1960, Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh took the bathyscaph Trieste to a depth of 10,917 m/35,820 ft in the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench off the island of Guam in the Pacific Ocean

baptism
Immersion in or sprinkling with water as a religious rite of initiation. It was practised long before the beginning of Christianity. In Christian infant baptism, the ceremony welcomes the child into the church community. Sponsors or godparents make vows on behalf of the child, which are renewed by the child at confirmation; some denominations o...

Balzac, Honoré de
French writer. He was one of the major novelists of the 19th century. His first success was Les Chouans/The Chouans, inspired by Walter Scott. This was the beginning of the long series of novels La Comédie humaine/The Human Comedy which includes Eugénie Grandet (1833),
Baltimore
Industrial port and largest city in Maryland, on the western shore of Chesapeake Bay, 50 km/31 mi northeast of Washington, DC; population (2000 est) 651,200. Industries include shipbuilding, oil refining, food processing, and the manufacture of steel, chemicals, and aerospace equipment. The city was named after George Calvert, 1st Lord Balt...

Baltic States
Collective name for the countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, bordering on the east coast of the Baltic Sea. They were formed as independent states after World War I out of former territories of the Russian Empire. The government of the USSR recognized their independence in peace treaties signed in 1920, but in 1939 forced them to allow occu...