Potomac \p3-'to-m9k\ River River, east-central U.S. Rising in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia, it is about 287 mi (462 km) long. It flows southeast through the District of Columbia into Chesapeake Bay. It is navigable by large vessels to Washington, D.C., above which it descends in a series of rapids and falls, including Great Falls. Noted for its beauty, the Potomac is also rich in history. Mount Vernon, home of George Washington, is on its banks below Washington, D.C. The Chesa¬ peake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park parallels the river.
Potosi \,po-t6-'se\ City (pop., 2001: 132,966), southwestern Bolivia. Founded in 1545 after the discovery of silver in a neighbouring moun¬ tain, it grew to be the most populous city in Latin America. After the mid- nth century, its population declined drastically when silver production waned but expanded in the 19th-20th century with the introduction of other industries, including tin mining. One of the highest cities in the world, at an elevation of about 13,700 ft (4,200 m), it is a major Boliv¬ ian industrial centre. The historic city was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1987.
Potsdam City (pop., 2002 est.: 130,435), capital of Brandenburg state, Germany. It is located on the Havel River southwest of Berlin. First men¬ tioned in 993 as a Slav settlement, it was chartered in 1317. It became the electoral residence of the margrave of Brandenburg in 1640 under Frederick William, the Great Elector. It was the Prussian royal residence under Frederick II, during whose reign it was a military and intellectual centre. It was severely damaged during World War II, but many monu¬ ments survived and others have been restored. In 1945 it was the site of the Potsdam Conference. Its large, beautifully landscaped parks were named a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1990. Industries include administration, retailing, education, film production, and tourism. It is the site of several scientific and technical institutions.
Potsdam Conference (July 17-Aug. 2, 1945) Allied conference held in the Berlin suburb of Potsdam after Germany’s surrender in World War II. Harry Truman, Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill (later replaced by Clement R. Attlee) met to discuss European peace settlements, the admin¬ istration of defeated Germany, the demarcation of the boundaries of Poland, the occupation of Austria, the definition of the Soviet Union’s role in eastern Europe, the determination of reparations, and the further prosecution of the war against Japan. The four occupation zones of Ger¬ many conceived at the Yalta Conference were set up, each to be admin¬ istered by the commander-in-chief of the Soviet, British, U.S., or French army of occupation. Poland’s boundary became the Oder and Neisse riv¬ ers in the west, and the country received part of former East Prussia. Sta¬ lin refused to let the Western powers interfere with his control of eastern Europe.
Potter, (Helen) Beatrix (b. July 28, 1866, South Kensington, Mid¬ dlesex, Eng.—d. Dec. 22, 1943, Sawrey, Lancashire) English author and illustrator of children’s books. In her childhood Potter spent holidays in Scotland and the English Lake District, which inspired her love of animals and stimulated her imagina¬ tive and technically superb waterco¬ lour drawings. The illustrated animal stories she sent to a sick child when she was 27 were published as The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902), which became one of the best-selling chil¬ dren’s books of all time. More than 20 sequels followed, featuring such
Beatrix Potter, 1913
PICTORIAL PARADE /LONDON DAILY EXPRESS, REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION OF FREDERICK WARNE & CO.
original characters as Jeremy Fisher, Squirrel Nutkin, Jemima Puddle- Duck, and Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle.
Potter, Dennis (Christopher George) (b. May 17, 1935, Berry Hill, Gloucestershire, Eng.—d. June 7, 1994, Ross-on-Wye, Hereford¬ shire) British dramatist. Educated at Oxford, he thereafter devoted him¬ self to writing, especially of television plays. His innovative serial Pennies from Heaven (1978) combined fantasy sequences and musical interludes in which actors lip-synched to old recordings of period songs. His best- known teleplay, the eight-part The Singing Detective (1986), an autobio¬ graphical account of his crippling bouts of psoriatic arthropathy, combined humour, pathos, and fantastic musical numbers. His other teleplays include the allegedly sacrilegious Brimstone and Treacle (1976, televised 1987) and Lipstick on Your Collar (1993). His movie screenplays include Gorky Park (1983) and Dreamchild (1985).
pottery One of the oldest and most widespread of the decorative arts, consisting of objects (mostly useful ones, such as vessels, plates, and bowls) made of clay and hardened with heat. Earthenware is the oldest and simplest form; stoneware is fired at a high temperature to cause it to vitrify and harden; and porcelain is a fine, generally translucent form of pottery. The Chinese began their sophisticated production of pottery in the Neolithic period and produced porcelain as early as the 7th century ad. Chinese porcelain, or “china,” was widely exported to Europe and had a profound influence on European manufacturers and on taste. Clas¬ sical Greece and Islamic cultures are also known for their artistic and technical innovations in pottery.
Poujade \pu-'zhad\, Pierre (-Marie) (b. Dec. 1, 1920, Saint-Cere, France—d. Aug. 27, 2003, La Bastide-l’Eveque) French political leader. The owner of a bookstore in Saint-Cere, in 1953 he organized a local shopkeepers’ strike to protest high taxation. Expanding his activities to other towns, he enrolled 800,000 members in his Union for the Defense of Tradesmen and Artisans. His right-wing movement, known as Pou- jadism, attracted discontented farmers and merchants; in 1956 it won 52 seats in the National Assembly. Poujade’s influence soon waned, but in the 1970s he founded an organization for nonunion workers.
Poulenc Vpu-.laqkV Francis (Jean Marcel) (b. Jan. 7, 1899, Paris, Fr.—d. Jan. 30, 1963, Paris) French composer. In his teens he studied piano with Ricardo Vines (1875-1943). Influenced by Erik Satie, Poulenc and five other like-minded young composers became known as Les Six. Poulenc wrote piano compositions, orchestral music, and chamber music, but he is best known for his vocal music, including many admired songs, the operas The Breasts of Tiresias (1944), Dialogues of the Carmelites (1956), and La voix humaine (1958), and such sacred choral works as Mass in G Major (1937), the Stabat Mater (1950), and the Gloria (1959), reflecting his devout Catholicism.
poultry farming Raising birds commercially or domestically for meat, eggs, and feathers. Chickens, ducks, turkeys, and geese are the birds of primary commercial importance. Guinea fowl and squabs are chiefly of local interest. Though chickens have been domesticated for at least 4,000 years, their meat and eggs have been mass-production commodities only since c. 1800.
pound Unit of weight in the avoirdupois system, the traditional Euro¬ pean system of weight (incorporated into the British Imperial system and the U.S. system of weights and measures), equal to 16 oz, 7,000 grains, or 0.4536 kg. It is also a unit of weight in the troy and apothecaries’ sys¬ tems (two other traditional systems of weight), equal to 12 troy or apoth¬ ecaries’ oz, 5,760 grains, or 0.37 kg. Its Roman ancestor, the libra, is the source of the abbreviation lb. The troy pound is used for precious met¬ als, the apothecaries’ pound for drugs. The British monetary pound is linked historically with the minting of silver coins (sterlings). Large pay¬ ments were reckoned in “pounds of sterlings,” later shortened to “pounds sterling.” See also gram; International System of Units; measurement; metric system; ounce.
Pound, Ezra (Loomis) (b. Oct. 30,1885, Hailey, Idaho, U.S.—d. Nov. 1, 1972, Venice, Italy) U.S. poet and critic. Pound attended Hamilton College and the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied various languages. In 1908 he sailed for Europe, where he would spend most of his life. He soon became a leader of Imagism and a dominant influence in Anglo-American verse, helping promote writers such as William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, Hilda Doolittle, Ernest Hemingway, Robert Frost, D.H. Lawrence, and T.S. Eliot, whose The Waste Land he brilliantly edited. After