Axis Powers Coalition headed by Germany, Italy, and Japan that opposed the Allied Powers in World War II. The alliance originated in a
series of agreements between Germany and Italy, followed in 1936 by the Rome-Berlin Axis declaration and the German-Japanese Anti-Comintern Pact. The connection was strengthened by the formal Pact of Steel (1939) between Germany and Italy and by the Tripartite Pact signed by all three powers in 1940. Several other countries, including Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Slovakia, later allied themselves with the original Axis Powers.
axle Pin or shaft on or with which wheels revolve; with fixed wheels, one of the basic simple machines for amplifying force. Combined with the wheel, in its earliest form it was probably used for raising weights or water buckets from wells. Its principle of operation can be illustrated in the attachment of large and small gears to the same shaft; the tendency of a force applied at the radius on the large gear to turn the shaft is sufficient to overcome a larger force at the radius on the small gear. The mechanical advantage is equal to the ratio of the two forces and also equal to the ratio of the radii of the two gears.
Axminster carpet Floor covering produced in a factory founded at Axminster, England, in 1755 by the cloth weaver Thomas Whitty. The carpets were knotted in wool on woolen warps, with wefts of flax or hemp, and featured Renaissance architectural or floral patterns. The factory closed in 1835 with the advent of industrial weaving machines. The name survives as a generic term for all machine-made carpets with pile similar to velvet or chenille.
Axum See Aksum
ayatollah V.I-o-'to-loV In the Shiite branch of Islam, a high-ranking reli¬ gious authority regarded by his followers as the most learned person of his age. The ayatollah’s authority rests on the infallible imam. His legal decisions are accepted as binding by his personal followers and (in the present day) by the wider community.
Ayckbourn Vak-.bonA, Sir Alan (b. April 12, 1939, London, Eng.) British playwright. He began acting with the Stephen Joseph Co. in Scar¬ borough, Yorkshire, where he also wrote his earliest plays under the pseudonym Roland Allen (1959-61). Most of his plays premiered at the company’s theatre, where he was artistic director beginning in 1970. He has written over 50 plays, mostly farces and comedies that deal with marital and class conflicts, including Relatively Speaking (1967), Absurd Person Singular (1972), the trilogy The Norman Conquests (1973), Inti¬ mate Exchanges (1982), and Communicating Doors (1995).
Aydid \l-'ded\, Muhammad Farah orig. Muhammad Farah Hassan (b. c. 1930, Beledweyne, Italian Somaliland—d. Aug. 1, 1996, Mogadishu, Somalia) Somali faction leader. He received military training in Italy and the U.S.S.R. and served in posts under Mohamed Siad Barre (1978-89) before overthrowing him in 1991. He became the dominant clan leader at the centre of the Somalian civil war. Losing the interim presidency to another factional leader, Aydid continued warring on rival clans. When UN and U.S. troops arrived in Somalia (1992), Aydid ambushed a UN contingent and was declared an outlaw. The attempt to capture him led to many deaths, and foreign troops were withdrawn. He then intensified his campaign against his rivals, but he reportedly died of a heart attack after being wounded in battle.
Ayer \'a(o)r, 'e(o)r\, Sir A(lfred) J(ules) (b. Oct. 29, 1910, London, Eng.—d. June 27, 1989, London) British philosopher. He taught at Uni¬ versity College London (1946-59) and later at Oxford (1959-78). He gained international notice in 1936 with the publication of his first book, Language, Truth and Logic, a manifesto of logical positivism that drew on the ideas of the Vienna Circle and the tradition of British empiricism as rep¬ resented by David Hume and Bertrand Russell. He is also remembered for his contributions to epistemology and his writings on the history of Anglo- American philosophy (see also analytic philosophy). His other works include The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge (1940), The Problem of Knowledge (1956), The Origins of Pragmatism (1968), Russell and Moore (1971), The Central Questions of Philosophy (1973), and Wittgen¬ stein (1985).
Ayers \'arz\ Rock Rock outcrop, southwestern Northern Territory, Aus¬ tralia. Called Uluru by the Australian Aborigines and located in Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, it is 1,100 ft (335 m) high and may be the world’s largest monolith. Its arkosic sandstone changes colour according to the height of the sun. Shallow caves at the base of the rock are sacred to sev¬ eral Aboriginal tribes and contain carvings and paintings. In 1985 own¬ ership of Ayers Rock was officially returned to the Aborigines.
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Aying ► Azerbaijan I 141
Aying or A Ying Va-'yigX orig. Qian Xingcun (b. Feb. 6, 1900—d. June 17, 1977) Chinese critic and historian of modem Chinese literature. A member of the Communist Party and of the standing committee of the League of Left-Wing Writers, he began c. 1930 to gather and study mate¬ rials on the literature of modern times and of the Ming and Qing dynas¬ ties. His published works, including Women Writers in Modern China (1933) and Two Talks on the Novel (1958), contributed greatly to the record of modern culture in China.
Aylesbury Valz-b9-re\ Town (pop., 1995 est.: 61,000), south-central England. The county seat of Buckinghamshire, it lies northwest of London in the Thames valley known as the Vale of Aylesbury, noted for its rich clay. Once an important market town, it is now an industrial centre. Its historic buildings include an 18th-century county hall and a 15th-century inn.
Aymara \,I-m3- , ra\ Large South American Indian group living on the Titicaca plateau of the central Andes Mountains in present-day Peru and Bolivia. The Aymara were conquered by the Inca and the Spanish, though they rebelled against both. Traditional Aymara now live in an area of poor soil and harsh climate, where they herd llamas and alpacas, grow crops, and fish using boats made of large reeds. Poverty rates within the group are among the highest in the hemisphere.
Ayme Ve-'maV Marcel (b. March 29, 1902, Joigny, Fr.—d. Oct. 14, 1967, Paris) French novelist, essayist, and playwright. His novels include The Hollow Field (1929), The Fable and the Flesh (1943), and The Tran¬ sient Hour (1946). He delighted a vast public with witty tales of talking farm animals (reflecting his own farm upbringing), some of which were published in English as The Wonderful Farm (1951). Though his extrava¬ gant creations mingling fantasy and reality were long dismissed as minor, he was belatedly recognized as a master of light irony and storytelling.
Ayodhya \9-'yod-y9\ or Oudh Town (pop., 2001: 49,417), Uttar Pradesh state, northern India. Lying on the banks of the Ghaghara River just east of Faizabad, of which it is now a suburb, Ayodhya in ancient times was one of India’s greatest cities; today, it is one of the seven holy cities of Hinduism. It was the capital of Kosala, as described in the Ramay- ana. It became an important Buddhist centre in Buddhism’s early years (6th-4th century bc), and the Buddha is said to have lived there. In the 16th century the Mughal emperor Babur built a mosque on a site tradi¬ tionally associated with an ancient Hindu temple marking the birthplace of the god Rama. The storming of the mosque by Hindus in 1990, amid religious tensions, was followed by riots, and the ensuing crisis brought down the government. In 1992 the mosque was demolished by Hindu fundamentalists, and hundreds of people died in the rioting that subse¬ quently swept through India.