Kate Bush
Kate Bush is an English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Her eclectic musical style and idiosyncratic vocal style have made her one of the United Kingdom's most successful solo female performers of the past 30 years.
Jacob Burckhardt
For nineteenth-century Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt, the Italian Renaissance was nothing less than the beginning of the modern world - a world in which flourishing individualism and the competition for fame radically transformed science, the arts, and politics. In this landmark work he depicts the Italian city-states of Florence, Venice and Rome as providing the seeds of a new form of society, and traces the rise of the creative individual, from Dante to Michelangelo. A fascinating description of an era of cultural transition, this nineteenth-century masterpiece was to become the most influential interpretation of the Italian Renaissance, and anticipated ideas such as Nietzsche's concept of the 'Ubermensch' in its portrayal of an age of genius.
Bataan Death March
Bataan Death March was the forcible transfer, by the Imperial Japanese Army, of 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war after the three-month Battle of Bataan in the Philippines during World War II, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of prisoners. The 97 km march was characterized by wide-ranging physical abuse and murder, and resulted in very high fatalities inflicted upon prisoners and civilians alike by the Japanese Army.
Bijagós Islands
The Bijagós islands are some of the least-visited in West Africa. The Bijagós archipelago, comprising 18 major islands and dozens of smaller ones, covers 2,500 sq km of ocean. It belongs to Guinea-Bissau, a tiny former Portuguese colony wedged between Senegal and Guinea. Life on the islands, which have Unesco Biosphere Reserve status, seems to tick along much as it has done for hundreds of years. While the beaches are pristine and white, there's rarely anyone on them except the odd fisherman.
Brine pools
Brine pools are large areas of brine on the ocean basin. These pools are bodies of water that have a salinity three to five times greater than the surrounding ocean. Brine pools are sometimes called seafloor "lakes" because the dense brine does not easily mix with overlying seawater. The high salinity raises the density of the brine, which creates a distinct surface and shoreline for the pool. When submarines dive into brine pools, they float on the brine surface due to its high density. The motion of a submarine can create waves across the brine-seawater interface that wash over the surrounding "shoreline."
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke was a philosopher of the sublime.
Biscúter
Biscúter was a microcar manufactured in Spain during the mid-20th century. Biscúter flourished for about ten years and the cars became a common sight on Spanish roads, as well as a part of popular culture. ("Ugly as a Biscúter" was a common joke.) Amenities such as doors and windows did eventually appear, and several different bodystyles were produced, including trucks, an elegant woodie station wagon, and a toy-like sports car called the Pegasín.
Caroline Blackwood
Caroline Blackwood was a writer and artist's muse, and the eldest child of Basil Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 4th Marquess of Dufferin and Ava and the brewery heiress Maureen Guinness. A well-known figure in the literary world through her journalism and her novels, Caroline Blackwood was equally well-known for her high-profile marriages, first to the artist Lucian Freud, then to the composer Israel Citkowitz and finally to the poet Robert Lowell, who described her as "a mermaid who dines upon the bones of her winded lovers".
Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne was an English author of varied works which reveal his wide learning in diverse fields including medicine, religion, science and the esoteric.
Busby Berkeley
Busby Berkeley was a highly influential Hollywood movie director and musical choreographer. Berkeley was famous for his elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns. Berkeley's works used large numbers ofshowgirls and props as fantasy elements in kaleidoscopic on-screen performances.