the Hundred Days and commanded troops at the unsuccessful Battle of Waterloo. After the Bourbon Restoration, he was court-martialed and shot by firing squad.
Neyshabur X.na-sha-'burX or NIshdpur \,ne-sh9-'pur\ Town (pop., 1996: 158,847), northeastern Iran. Its name derives from its founder, the Sasanian king Shapur I. One of the four great cities of the region of Kho- rasan, it was the residence of the 5th-century Sasanian king Yazdegerd II. It declined by the mid-7th century but flourished again under the Tahirid (821-873) and Samanid (819-999) dynasties. It was the residence of the Seljuq sultan Toghr'il Beg in the 11th century but again declined in the 12th century. The tombs of the renowned poet and scholar Omar Khayyam and the mystic poet Farid al-Dln 'Attar are nearby.
Nez Perce \'nez-'p9rs\ North American Indian people living mainly in Idaho, U.S. Their language belongs to the Penutian language group, and their traditional homeland is an area centring on the Snake River in central Idaho, western Oregon, and western Washington. The name Nez Perce, applied by French Canadian trappers, means “Pierced Noses”; they call themselves Nimfipuu (Nee-me-poo), meaning “The Real People.” Their culture was primarily that of the Plateau Indians, with some Plains Indian influence. Their domestic life centred on small villages near streams with abundant salmon; they also hunted small game and collected wild plant foods. After acquiring horses, they began to hunt bison and became more warlike, eventually becoming one of the dominant tribes in the region. Through a series of treaties in the mid-1800s, their traditional territory was severely reduced; the tragic Nez Perce War (1877), led by Chief Joseph, was the result. At the turn of the 21st century, they numbered some 3,300.
Nezam? Vnez-.o-.meV or Nizam? orig. Ilyas Yusuf Nizam? Gan- jaw? (b. c. 1141, Ganja, Seljuq empire—d. 1209, Ganja) Greatest roman¬ tic epic poet in Persian literature. Little is known of his life, except that he spent it in what is now Azerbaijan. Only a handful of his qasidahs (odes) and ghazels have survived; his reputation rests on his great Kham- seh (“The Quintuplet”), a group of five poems totaling 30,000 couplets, in which he brought a colloquial and realistic style to the epic. The fourth poem, The Seven Beauties, is considered his masterpiece.
NFL See National Football League
Ngami Voq-'ga-meV Lake Shallow lake, northwestern Botswana, north of the Kalahari Desert. It was a large lake, estimated at more than 170 mi (275 km) in circumference when the explorer David Livingstone sighted it in 1849. The lake varies in size with the amount of rainfall, and, although it is much smaller today than in Livingstone’s time, it is rich in birdlife.
NGO See nongovernmental organization
Ngo Dinh Diem Vqo-'din-de-'em ,\English Ven-'go-'din-de-'eirA (b. Jan. 3, 1901, Quang Binh province, Viet.—d. Nov. 2, 1963, Cho Lon, S.Viet.) President of South Vietnam (1955-63). Of noble birth, Diem was on friendly terms with the Vietnamese imperial family and served as Emperor Bao Dai’s minister of the interior (1933), but he resigned when the French would not accept his legislative reforms. He turned down an invitation to join Ho Chi Minh’s forces and lived in self-imposed exile until invited back in 1954 by Bao Dai to serve as prime minister of South Vietnam. In 1955 he ousted the emperor and made himself president. He refused to carry out elections mandated by the Geneva Accords of 1954, ruled auto¬ cratically, and showed preference to fellow Roman Catholics in an over¬ whelmingly Buddhist country. An unpopular leader, Diem was assassinated by his generals in 1963.
Ngonde See Nyakyusa
Ngugi wa Thiong'o \ 3 q-'gu-ge-wa-'thy6i]-go\ orig. James Thiong'o Ngugi (b. Jan. 5, 1938, Limuru, Kenya) Kenyan novelist. Educated in Uganda and England, he wrote the first major novel in English by an East African; the popular Weep Not, Child (1964) is the story of a family drawn into the struggle for Kenyan independence. His other nov¬ els include A Grain of Wheat (1967) and Petals of Blood (1977). As he became more sensitive to the effects of colonialism, he adopted his tra¬ ditional name and wrote in the Bantu language of the Kikuyu people. He also wrote plays and numerous essays on literature, culture, and politics.
Nguni \en-'gii-ne\ Cluster of related ethnic groups living in South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe. They include the Xhosa, Zulu, Swazi, and Nde- bele. They speak very closely related Bantu languages—some of which are unique among Niger-Congo languages in having click sounds, absorbed from contact with their Khoisan-speaking neighbours. The
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1358 I Nguyen dynasty ► Nicaragua
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Nguni were dispersed from their original homeland in what is now East¬ ern Cape province and KwaZulu-Natal by the Mfecane disturbances of the 1820s and the expansion of European power.
Nguyen \'qi£-3n,\ English Ynii-an, en-gl-'en\ dynasty (1802-1945) Last Vietnamese dynasty. During the 16th century, while the emperors of the Later Le dynasty were nominally in control, the Nguyen family came to rule southern Vietnam in an essentially independent fashion. Emperor Gia Long (1762-1820), founder of the dynasty, conquered all of Vietnam in 1802; his successors modeled their administration on the Chinese Qing dynasty (1644-1911/12). The French invaded in 1858 and eventually took control of the entire country. They retained the Nguyen emperors as rul¬ ers of Annam (central Vietnam) and Tonkin (northern Vietnam) but not of southern Vietnam (Cochinchina). Bao Dai, the last emperor, abdicated following the Vietnamese nationalists’ proclamation of independence in
NHL See National Hockey League
Ni Zan or Ni Tsan (b. 1301, Wuxi, Jiangsu province, China—d. 1374) Chinese artist. He was a part of the group of Chinese painters later known as the Four Masters of the Yuan dynasty (including Wu Zhen, Huang Gongwang, and Wang Meng). Although Ni was born to wealth, he chose not to serve the foreign Mongol dynasty of the Yuan and instead lived a life of retirement and scholarship. He was characterized by his contem¬ poraries as particularly quiet and fastidious, qualities that are found in his art. In his paintings, usually landscapes, he used elements sparingly, favoured ink monochrome, and left great areas of the paper untouched. His works are characterized by a sombre quiet, and they often feature a rustic hut, a few trees or other indications of plant life, and elemental landforms. He was much imitated by later painters, making originals by him difficult to authenticate.
niacin \'nI-9-s3n\ or nicotinic V.ni-ks-'te-nik, ,ni-k3-'ti-nik\ acid or vitamin B 3 Water-soluble vitamin of the vitamin B complex, essential to growth and health in animals, including humans. It is found in the body only in combined form as a coenzyme, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), which is involved in the metabolism of carbohydrates and the oxi¬ dation of sugar derivatives and other substances. One of the most stable vitamins, it survives most cooking and most preserving processes. It is widely found in dietary sources, especially lean meat. Deficiency causes pellagra. It is used as a drug to reduce high cholesterol levels in the blood.
Niagara Falls Great falls of the Niagara River, on the U.S. -Canadian border. They are divided by Goat Island into the Horseshoe (or Canadian) Falls and the American Falls. At the foot of the American Falls is the Cave of the Winds, a large rocky chamber formed by erosion. The river below the falls flows between high cliffs, forming Whirlpool Rapids. Bridges spanning the river include Rainbow Bridge between the U.S. and Cana¬ dian cities of Niagara Falls. French missionary Louis Hennepin visited in 1678. Tourism is a major industry, and the falls are a hydroelectric centre.
Niagara River River forming the U.S.-Canada boundary between western New York and southern Ontario. Its high flow and steep descent make it one of the best sources of hydroelectric power in North America. It connects Lake Erie with Lake Ontario, and Niagara Falls lies about halfway along its course. The U.S. and Canadian cities of the same name are on either bank of the river. It is navigable from Lake Erie to the upper rapids.