Old Point Comfort Historic point and part of the city of Hampton, southeastern Virginia, U.S. It is located at the entrance to Hampton Roads, opposite Norfolk. Named by the colonists of Jamestown in 1607, it has been the site of fortifications, including Fort George and Fort Monroe, since 1609. The latter was a Union base during the American Civil War. It was a popular seaside resort in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Old Testament Sacred scriptures of Judaism and, with the New Testa¬ ment, of Christianity. Written almost entirely in the Hebrew language between 1200 and 100 bc, the Old Testament (also called the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh) is an account of God’s dealings with the Hebrews as his chosen people. In the Hebrew Bible, the first six books tell how the Isra¬ elites became a people and settled in the Promised Land, the following seven books describe the development of Israel’s monarchy and the mes¬ sages of the prophets, and the last 11 books contain poetry, theology, and some additional historical works. Christians divided some of the original Hebrew books into two or more parts, specifically, Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles (two parts each), Ezra-Nehemiah (two separate books), and the Minor Prophets (12 separate books). The content of the Old Testa¬ ment varies according to religious tradition, the Jewish, Roman Catholic, and Protestant canons all differing from each other as to which books they include. See also Apocrypha, Bible.
Old Vic London theatre company. The company’s theatre opened in 1818 as the Royal Coburg; renamed the Royal Victoria in 1833, it became popularly known as the Old Vic. The company, managed by Lilian Baylis, began a regular Shakespeare season in 1914. From the 1930s it was noted for its memorable productions of Shakespeare’s plays and other classics, with actors such as John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, and Ralph Richardson. The company was dissolved in 1963 and formed the nucleus of the new National Theatre, which performed at the Old Vic theatre until moving to a new building in 1976.
Old World monkey Any of some 100 species of monkeys (the catar- rhine [“downward-nosed”] monkeys) that live in Africa, on the Red Sea coast of Arabia, and in Asia from Afghanistan to Indonesia. Catarrhines generally have a narrow nose, a narrow septum, close-set nostrils directed forward or down, bony ear passages, two premolars in each half of each
Olaf V, 1973
KNUDSENS FOTOSENTER
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Oldenbarnevelt ► Oliver I 1405
jaw, a nonprehensile tail (if any), and hard patches of bare skin (ischial callosities) on the buttocks. Zoologists gather all Old World monkeys into a single family, Cercopithecidae. There are two subfamilies: Cercopith- ecinae, or monkeys with cheek pouches (macaques, baboons, vervets, man¬ drills, and others); and Colobinae, or leaf monkeys (langurs, colobus monkeys, proboscis monkeys, and others). See also New World monkey.
Oldenbarnevelt N.ol-don-'bar-no-vohA, Johan van (b. Sept. 14, 1547, Amersfoort, Spanish Netherlands—d. May 13, 1619, The Hague, Neth.) Dutch statesman and a founding father of Dutch independence. A lawyer in the province of Holland, he helped William I negotiate the Union of Utrecht (1579). Appointed “great pensionary” of Holland, he mobilized Dutch resources for the military goals of Maurice of Nassau. As foreign secretary of the Union’s seven provinces, he negotiated a triple alliance with France and England against Spain (1596). He later concluded the Twelve Years’ Truce with Spain (1609), which reaffirmed Holland’s domi¬ nant role in the republic. In 1617 he sided with the moderate Arminians in religious strife against the stricter Calvinists (known as Counter- Remonstrants) and Prince Maurice; he was arrested in 1618, convicted of religious subversion, and beheaded.
Oldenburg Former German state, since 1946 part of Lower Saxony, Germany. It was held by the counts of Oldenburg from c. 1100 until 1667, when it passed to Denmark. In the late 18th century it was ruled by the bishop of Liibeck, who was made duke of Oldenburg by Joseph II, the Holy Roman emperor. It became a grand duchy in the early 19th century and took Prussia’s side in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. It joined the Ger¬ man Empire in 1871. Its last grand duke abdicated in 1918. The 17th- century grand-ducal palace in the city of Oldenburg (pop., 2002 est.: 155,908) is now a state museum of art and culture.
Oldenburg, Claes (Thure) (b. Jan. 28, 1929, Stockholm, Swed.) Swedish-born U.S. Pop art sculptor. The son of a consular official, he spent part of his early life in the U.S. He graduated from Yale University and attended the Art Institute of Chicago before doing freelance illustrations for magazines. He turned to sculpture after moving to New York City in 1956. Like other practitioners of Pop art, he chose banal subjects from consumer culture, but for “soft sculptures” such as Giant Clothespin (1976) and Giant Soft Shuttlecock (1995) he chose subjects with close human associations. His frequent use of soft, yielding vinyl gave the objects human, often sexual overtones.
Oldowan Yal-da-wsnX industry Stone-tool industry of the early Pale¬ olithic (beginning c. 2.5 million years ago) characterized by crudely worked pebble tools. Oldowan tools, made of quartz, quartzite, or basalt, are chipped in two directions to form simple, rough implements for chop¬ ping, scraping, or cutting. The industry is associated with early hominids, such as Homo habius and possibly also Australopithecus robustus, and has been found at Olduvai Gorge (from which its name derives), Lake Tur- kana (see Lake Turkana remains), and the Afar region of Ethiopia. Oldowan tools were made for nearly 1.5 million years before the emergence of the Acheulean industry.
Olduvai Vol-do-.vl, 'ol-do-.waV Gorge Archaeological site on the east¬ ern Serengeti Plain, northern Tanzania. It is a steep-sided ravine about 30 mi (48 km) long and 295 ft (90 m) deep. Deposits exposed in the sides of the gorge cover a time span from c. 2,100,000 to 15,000 years ago and have yielded the remains of more than 50 hominins as well as the most complete sequence of stone tool industries. The site first came to public notice in 1959 when Louis and Mary Leakey (see Leakey family) uncov¬ ered the first specimens of Paranthropus, a hominin related to Australo¬ pithecus. Remains of Homo habius. Homo erectus, and Homo sapiens have since been found. These discoveries have strengthened the argument that the human lineage originated in Africa. See also stone tool industry; Old¬ owan INDUSTRY.
oleander Vo-le-.an-dsrV Any of the ornamental evergreen shrubs of the genus Nerium (dogbane family), which have poisonous milky juice. Numerous varieties of flower colour in the common oleander, or rosebay ( N . oleander), have been introduced from greenhouse culture and are grown outdoors in warmer climates. All parts of the plant are very toxic if eaten, and contact with them may cause skin irritation.
oleaster family Vo-le-.as-torV Family Elaeagnaceae, composed of three genera of hardy shrubs and small trees, found in the Northern Hemi¬ sphere, especially in steppe and coastal regions. The plants’ tiny, distinc¬ tive scales give them a silvery or rust-coloured sheen. Many members of
the family perform nitrogen fixation. The berries of several species are edible. Ornamental shrubs in this family include buffalo berry or silver- berry ( Shepherdia argentea), oleaster or Russian olive {Elaeagnus angus- tifolia), and sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides).
olefin Yo-la-fanV or alkene Any unsaturated hydrocarbon containing one or more pairs of carbon atoms linked by a double bond (see covalent bond, saturation). Olefins may be classified by whether the double bond is in a ring (cyclic) or a chain (acyclic, or aliphatic) or by the number of double bonds (monoolefin, diolefin, etc.). Rare in nature, olefins are obtained by the cracking of petroleum fractions at high temperatures. The simplest ones (ethylene, propylene, butylene, butadiene, and isoprene) are the basis of the petrochemicals industry. They react by adding other chemi¬ cal agents at the double bond to form derivatives or polymers.