Astrolabe
An astrolabe is an historical astronomical instrument used by classical astronomers, navigators, and astrologers.
Avshalom Cave
Avshalom Cave is a 5,000 sq m cave in Israel, unique for its dense concentration of stalactites. Some of the stalactites found in the cave are four meters long, and some have been dated as 300,000 years old.
Alan Abel
Alan Abel is an American prankster and jazz percussionist famous for several hoaxes that became media circuses.
Anatomy Theatre of Padua University
The Anatomical Theatre of Padua is the first permanent anatomical theatre in the world.
Arcosanti
Arcosanti is an experimental town that began construction in 1970 in central Arizona. Architect Paolo Soleri, using a concept he calls arcology (a portmanteau of architecture and ecology), started the town to demonstrate how urban conditions could be improved while minimizing the destructive impact on the earth.
Al-Jazari
Al-Jazari was a prominent Arab polymath.
Al-Jazari created a programmable drum machine with pegs (cams) that bump into little levers that operated the percussion. The drummer could be made to play different rhythms and different drum patterns if the pegs were moved around. According to Charles B. Fowler, the automata were a “robot band” which performed “more than fifty facial and body actions during each musical selection.”
The elephant clock was described by Al-Jazari in 1206 is notable for several innovations. It was the first clock in which an automaton reacted after certain intervals of time (in this case, a humanoid robot striking the cymbal and a mechanical robotic bird chirping) and the first water clock to accurately record the passage of the temporal hours to match the uneven length of days throughout the year.
Auguste Piccard
Auguste Piccard was a Swiss physicist, inventor and explorer.
Ambergris
Ambergris is a solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull gray or blackish color produced in the digestive system of sperm whales. Ambergris has a peculiar sweet, earthy odor. The principal historical use of ambergris was as a fixative in perfumery, though it has now been largely displaced by synthetics.
Atomic shadow
A permanent shadow left by atomic bomb explosion.
Astor Place Riot
The Astor Place Riot in New York City and left at least 25 dead and more than 120 injured. Its genesis was a dispute between Edwin Forrest, the first great American star, and William Charles Macready, the greatest English actor of his generation, which largely revolved around which of them was better than the other at acting the major roles of Shakespeare.