Moliere\m6l-'yerW/g. Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (baptized Jan. 15, 1622, Paris, France—d. Feb. 17, 1673, Paris) French playwright, actor, and director. The son of a prosperous upholsterer, he left home to become an actor in 1643, joining forces with the Bejart family. He cofounded the troupe known as the Illustre Theatre and toured the French provinces (1645-58), writing plays and acting in them. After his troupe was estab¬ lished in a permanent theatre in Paris under the patronage of Louis XIV, he won acclaim in the court and among bourgeois audiences for his com¬ edy The Affected Young Ladies (1659). His other major plays include The School for Wives (1662), Tartuffe (1664; initially banned by religious authorities), The Misanthrope (1666), The Miser (1669), The Bourgeois Gentleman (1670), and The Imaginary Invalid (1673). His plays compose a portrait of all levels of 17th-century French society and are marked by their good-humoured and intelligent mockery of human vices, vanities, and follies. Despite his success, he never ceased to act and direct. Taken ill during a performance, he died of a hemorrhage within a day and was denied holy burial. He is considered the greatest French dramatist and the father of modern French comedy.
Molise \mo-'le-za\ Autonomous region (pop., 2001 prelim.: 316,548), south-central Italy. Its western sector is part of the Apennines, and the remainder consists mostly of low mountains and hills. Under Lombard rule during the early Middle Ages, it was controlled by the duchy of Be¬ ne vento. In the 13th century it successively came under Angevin, Span¬ ish, and Bourbon rulers. In 1860 it was joined to Abruzzi to form Abruzzi e Molise, which was incorporated into the Kingdom of Italy. In 1965 Abruzzi e Molise was divided back into the separate regions of Abruzzi and Molise. It is one of Italy’s most rural regions; its capital, Campobasso, is the only city of any size.
Mol let \m6-'le\, Guy (b. Dec. 31, 1905, Flers-de-l’Orne, France—d. Oct. 3, 1975, Paris) French politi¬ cian. An English teacher in Arras, he joined the Socialist Party in 1921 and became head of the socialist teach¬ ers’ union in 1939. After serving in World War II, he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies and became secretary-general of the Socialist Party (1946-69). With Pierre Mendes- France, he led the Republican Front to victory and became premier (1956-57). Failures in dealing with the Algerian rebellion and the Suez Crisis led to the government’s defeat, but Mollet continued to serve as a deputy and as mayor of Arras.
mollusk or mollusc Any of some 75,000 species of soft-bodied inver¬ tebrate animals (phylum Mollusca), many of which are wholly or partly enclosed in a calcium carbonate shell secreted by the mantle, a soft covering formed from the body wall. Between the mantle and the body is the mantle cavity. Mollusks occur in most habitats from the deep sea to high mountains. Living mollusks are usually grouped into eight classes: Gastropoda (see gastropod), Bivalvia or Pelecypoda (see bivalve), Cephalopoda (see cephalopod), Scaphopoda (tusk shells), Aplacophora (Solenogasters), Caudofoveata (sometimes included in the Aplacophora order), Polyplacophora (chitons), and Mono- placophora. Mollusks are economically important as food, and their shells are widely used in jewelry and decorative items. See illustration opposite.
Molly Maguires (1862-76) Secret organization of U.S. coal miners in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. To protest poor working conditions and employment discrimination in the 1860s, the Irish-American miners formed a group named for an Irish widow who had led antilandlord agi¬ tators in Ireland. Acts of sabotage and terrorist murders in the coalfields were blamed on the group, and mine owners hired a Pinkerton detective, James McParlan, to infiltrate the organization. Based on his testimony in the widely publicized trials (1875-77), 10 “Mollies” were convicted of murder and hanged.
Molnar \'mol- 1 nar\, Ferenc (b. Jan. 12, 1878, Budapest, Hung.—d. April 1, 1952, New York City, N.Y., U.S.) Hungarian writer. He published his first stories at age 19 and achieved his first success with the play The Devil (1907). Among his other plays, some adapted as films, are Liliom (1909), which was also adapted as the musical Carousel ; The Swan (1920); and The Red Mill (1923). Some of his stories, especially those in Music (1908), are masterpieces that reveal the problems of the poor. Of his many novels, only The Paul Street Boys (1907) was a success.
Moloch Vmo-.lok, 'ma-l3k\ Ancient Middle Eastern deity to whom chil¬ dren were sacrificed. The laws given to Moses by God expressly forbade the Israelites to sacrifice children to Moloch, as the Egyptians and Canaan- ites did. A shrine to Moloch outside the walls of Jerusalem was destroyed during the reign of Josiah the reformer.
Molotov Vmo-b-.tofA, Vyacheslav (Mikhaylovich) orig. Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Skryabin (b. March 9, 1890, Kukarka, Russia—d. Nov. 8, 1986, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.) Soviet political leader. A member of the Bolsheviks from 1906, he worked in provincial Communist Party organizations from 1917. A staunch sup¬ porter of Joseph Staun, he became secretary of the Central Committee in 1921. Promoted to the Politburo in 1926, he purged the Moscow party organization of anti-Stalinists (1928-30). He served as prime minister (1930—41) and as the country’s foreign minister (1939-49, 1953-56). He
1905, Flers-de-1 Orne, France—d.
Mollet
HARUNGUE/H. ROGER-VIOLLET
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
molting ► momentum I 1279
negotiated the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact in 1939, and in World War II he ordered the production of the crude bottle bombs later called “Molotov cocktails.” He arranged the alliances with the U.S. and Britain and was the Soviet spokesman at the Allied conferences during and after the war. After being dismissed in 1956 by Nikita Khrushchev, Molotov joined an unsuccessful attempt to depose Khrushchev (1957) and lost all his party offices; in 1962 he was expelled from the Communist Party.
valves or plates
girdle
foot
tusk shell or scaphopod
class Scaphopoda
tentacles
clam
class Bivalvia
chiton
class Polyplacophora
shell
siphon
tentacles
mouth
foot
whelk
class Gastropoda
(captacula)
class Cephalopoda
nautilus
class
Cephalopoda
Representative mollusks. Bivalves have a shell with two halves. Filter feeders, they take in food and water through a tubular siphon. In the clam, a muscular foot is used for burrowing and creeping. The chitons, typically found adhering to rocks and shells, have shells divided into eight overlapping plates. Tusk shells, or scapho- pods, are burrowing mollusks with a shell open at both ends; with the larger end buried in the sand, they feed on microorganisms captured by the tentacles. The whelks, like most gastropods (univalves), have a single shell, which is usually coiled; when threatened, the body can be pulled into the shell, which is closed by a plate (operculum). Cephalopods have a well-developed head and a foot divided into numerous tentacles. The two long tentacles of the squid are used to capture prey, and the short arms transfer food to the mouth. The nautilus is the only cephalopod that has retained an exterior shell; by regulating the amount of gas and fluid in the interior chambers, it can regulate its buoyancy.
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molting Shedding or casting off of an animal’s outer layer or covering and formation of its replacement. Regulated by hormones, molting occurs throughout the animal kingdom. It includes the shedding and replacement of horns, hair, skin, and feathers and the process by which a nymph or other organism sheds an external skeleton for the purpose of growth or change in shape.