agrarianism: Agrarianism since the mid-20th century: Penn Warren, Allen Tate, Andrew Lytle, and Donald Davidson, who defended a mode of life that they believed was consonant with European rather than industrial society. The Southern Agrarians wrote about a wide range of aspects pertinent to the settled and traditional mode of farm life that they believed…

Faron Young: …went on to fame included Johnny Paycheck, the Wilburn Brothers, Roger Miller, Lloyd Green, and Darrell McCall.

blister beetle: …species Lytta vesicatoria, commonly called Spanish fly. Cantharidin is used medically as a topical skin irritant to remove warts. In the past, when inducing blisters was a common remedy for many ailments, cantharidin was commonly used for this purpose. It was also a major ingredient in so-called love potions. Blister…

Lyttelton, town and port, eastern South Island, New Zealand. It is situated within the Christchurch urban area and on Lyttelton Harbour, an inlet of the southwestern Pacific Ocean extending 8 miles (13 km) into the north shore of Banks Peninsula. The harbour’s entrance is flanked by Godley Head on

George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton was a British Whig statesman and writer, patron of novelist Henry Fielding and poet James Thomson. The son of a prominent Whig family, Lyttelton was an early political associate of his brother-in-law, William Pitt (later Earl of Chatham), in the so-called Boy

Humphrey Lyttelton was a British trumpeter, clarinetist, bandleader, and composer who was the leading force in English jazz for more than 50 years. In his later years he was perhaps best known as the host of a BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) weekly radio comedy titled I’m Sorry I Haven’t a

Sir Thomas Littleton was a jurist, author of Littleton on Tenures (or Treatise on Tenures), the first important English legal text neither written in Latin nor significantly influenced by Roman (civil) law. An edition (1481 or 1482?) by John Lettou and William de Machlinia was doubtless the first

Lytton Commission, (1931–32), investigation team that was led by V.A.G.R. Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton, and was appointed by the League of Nations to determine the cause of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria begun on Sept. 18, 1931. After extensive research and a six-week stay in Manchuria

Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton was a British politician, poet, and critic, chiefly remembered, however, as a prolific novelist. His books, though dated, remain immensely readable, and his experiences lend his work an unusual historical interest. Bulwer-Lytton was the youngest

Michael Holroyd: His exhaustive two-volume work Lytton Strachey: A Critical Biography (1967, 1968) stands as Strachey’s definitive biography. Holroyd’s two-volume Augustus John (1974, 1975) is a study of the painter’s personal as well as artistic life. He later revisited both of the latter biographies and published substantially revised versions of each:…

Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton was a British politician, poet, and critic, chiefly remembered, however, as a prolific novelist. His books, though dated, remain immensely readable, and his experiences lend his work an unusual historical interest. Bulwer-Lytton was the youngest

Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st earl of Lytton was a British diplomat and viceroy of India (1876–80) who also achieved, during his lifetime, a reputation as a poet. Lytton, son of the 1st Baron Lytton, began his diplomatic career as unpaid attaché to his uncle Sir Henry Bulwer, then minister at

Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st earl of Lytton was a British diplomat and viceroy of India (1876–80) who also achieved, during his lifetime, a reputation as a poet. Lytton, son of the 1st Baron Lytton, began his diplomatic career as unpaid attaché to his uncle Sir Henry Bulwer, then minister at

Sir Henry Alfred Lytton was a British comic actor best known for his leading roles in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. The mainstay of the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company for nearly 30 years, Lytton was so distinguished that his stage jubilee celebration was attended by the British prime minister and his

Victor Alexander George Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd earl of Lytton was a British governor of Bengal (1922–27) and chairman of the League of Nations mission to Manchuria, which produced the so-called Lytton Report (1932), condemning Japan’s aggression there. (See Lytton Commission.) Bulwer-Lytton was

Victor Alexander George Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd earl of Lytton was a British governor of Bengal (1922–27) and chairman of the League of Nations mission to Manchuria, which produced the so-called Lytton Report (1932), condemning Japan’s aggression there. (See Lytton Commission.) Bulwer-Lytton was

Lyubertsy, city, Moscow oblast (region), Russia. It lies in the greenbelt, southeast of Moscow city. Before the October Revolution in 1917 it was an agricultural centre, but its position at an important railway junction made it an attractive site for industry. In the early Soviet period, the

Yury Petrovich Lyubimov was a Soviet theater director and actor noted for his two decades of somewhat experimental productions for the Taganka Theatre in Moscow. Lyubimov served in the Soviet army during World War II, and upon his release in 1946, he joined the company of the Yevgeny Vakhtangov

Fyodor Abramov: His essay Lyudi kolkhoznoy derevni v poslevoyennoy proze (1954; “People in the Kolkhoz Village in Postwar Prose”), which took issue with the official, idealized portrayal of life in communal Soviet villages, was condemned by the Writers’ Union and the highest organ of the Communist Party, the Central…

Nastia Liukin: Her Kazakh-born father and coach, Valery Lyukin, won four medals for the Soviet Union at the 1988 Olympic Games and two more at the 1991 world championships, and in 1987 he became the first gymnast to complete a triple back somersault on the floor exercise. Her mother, Anna Kochneva, also…

Nastia Liukin is an American gymnast who won five medals at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, more than any other gymnast at the Games. Liukin was born into a family of extraordinary gymnasts. Her Kazakh-born father and coach, Valery Lyukin, won four medals for the Soviet Union at the 1988 Olympic

carbohydrate: Configuration: Thus, although d-xylose and d-lyxose both have five carbon atoms and are of the d-configuration, the spatial arrangement of the asymmetrical centres (at carbon atoms 2, 3, and 4) is such that they are not mirror images.

Ukraine: Music of Ukraine: Ruslana Lyzhichko, winner of the Eurovision Song Contest in 2004, emerged as the country’s first international star of the 21st century.

airship: …completed his first airship, the LZ-1, in 1900. This technically sophisticated craft, 128 metres (420 feet) long and 11.6 metres (38 feet) in diameter, had an aluminum frame of 24 longitudinal girders set within 16 transverse rings and was powered by two 16-horsepower engines; it attained speeds approaching 32 km…

Hindenburg, German dirigible, the largest rigid airship ever constructed. In 1937 it caught fire and was destroyed; 36 people died in the disaster. The Hindenburg was a 245-metre- (804-foot-) long airship of conventional zeppelin design that was launched at Friedrichshafen, Germany, in March 1936.

military aircraft: Airships: …of the zeppelins was the LZ-70; this craft was 220 metres (720 feet) long, was able to fly above 4,900 metres (16,000 feet), and had a range of 12,000 km (7,500 miles). The LZ-70 was shot down late in the war, however, and large rigid (metal-framed) airships were never again…

False Dmitry: …Boris Godunov succeeded him, the first False Dmitry appeared and challenged Godunov’s right to the throne. The first pretender is considered by many historians to have been Grigory (Yury) Bogdanovich Otrepyev, a member of the gentry who had frequented the house of the Romanovs before becoming the monk Grigory and…

False Dmitry: Although the second False Dmitry bore no physical resemblance to the first, he gathered a large following among Cossacks, Poles, Lithuanians, and rebels who had already risen against Shuysky. He gained control of southern Russia, marched toward Moscow, and established his headquarters (including a full court and…

False Dmitry: In March 1611 a third False Dmitry, who has been identified as a deacon called Sidorka, appeared at Ivangorod. He gained the allegiance of the Cossacks (March 1612), who were ravaging the environs of Moscow, and of the inhabitants of Pskov, thus acquiring the nickname Thief of Pskov. In…

GIF: …algorithm commonly referred to as LZW, named after its inventors, Abraham Lempel and Jacob Ziv of Israel and Terry Welch of the United States. LZW was the source of a controversy started by the American Unisys Corporation in 1994, when it was revealed that they owned a patent for LZW…