Balfour (of Whittingehame), Arthur James, 1 st Earl (b. July 25, 1848, Whittinghame, East
Lothian, Scot.—d. March 19, 1930,
Woking, Surrey, Eng.) British states¬ man. The nephew of the marquess of Salisbury, Balfour served in Parlia¬ ment (1874-1911) and in his uncle’s government as secretary for Ireland (1887-91). From 1891 he was the Conservative Party’s leader in Par¬ liament and succeeded his uncle as prime minister (1902-05). He helped form the Entente Cordiale (1904). His most famous action came in 1917 when, as foreign secretary (19lb- 19), he wrote the so-called Balfour Declaration, which expressed official British approval of Zionism. He served as lord president of the coun¬ cil (1919-22, 1925-29) and drafted the Balfour Report (1926), which defined relations between Britain and the dominions expressed in the Statute of Westminster.
Balfour Declaration (Nov. 2, 1917) Statement issued by the British foreign secretary, Arthur James Balfour, in a letter to Lionel Walter Roth¬ schild, a leader of British Jewry, as urged by the Russian Jewish Zionist leaders Chaim Weizmann and Nahum Sokolow. The declaration promised the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine that would not disturb the non-Jewish groups already residing there. The Brit-
2, 1924, New York, N.Y.,
Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, 1932.
BASSANO AND VANDYK
Arthur James Balfour, c. 1900.
BASSANO AND VANDYK
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
156 I Bali ► Ballesteros
ish anticipated gaining a mandate over Palestine after World War I (1914- 18) and hoped to win over Jewish public opinion to the side of the Allies. They also hoped that pro-British settlers would help protect the approaches to the Suez Canal, a vital link to Britain’s South Asian pos¬ sessions.
Bali Vba-le, 'ba-le\ Island (pop., 2000 prelim.: 3,151,162), Indonesia. Located in the Lesser Sunda Islands, off the eastern coast of Java, it con¬ stitutes, with minor adjacent islands, a province of Indonesia. The main towns are Singaraja and Denpasar, the provincial capital. The island is mountainous; its highest peak is Mount Agung (10,308 ft [3,142 m]). Colonized by India in early times and supplemented by emigres from Java in the 16th century, Bali is the remaining stronghold of Hinduism in the Indonesian archipelago. Visited by the Dutch in the late 16th century, it came under Dutch rule only in the late 19th century. It was occupied by the Japanese in World War II and became part of Indonesia in 1950. Tour¬ ism is now one of the mainstays of its economy.
Balinese People of the island of Bali, Indon. They differ from other Indonesians in adhering to Hinduism, though their culture has been heavily influenced by the Javanese. In Balinese villages each family lives in its own compound, surrounded by earthen or stone walls; all villages have temples and an assembly hall. Balinese religion fuses Hindu Shaivism with Buddhism, ancestor cults (see ancestor worship), and belief in spirits and magic. Marriage is often limited to members of the same kinship organi¬ zation, and family relationships are reckoned through the male line.
Balkan League Vbol-konX (1912-13) Alliance of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro, which fought the first Balkan War against the Ottoman empire. Ostensibly created to limit Austrian power in the Bal¬ kans, the league was actually formed at the instigation of Russia to expel the Turks from the Balkans. The league disintegrated when its members quarreled over the division of territorial spoils after their victory in the first Balkan War.
Balkan Mountains Bulgarian Stara Planina Vsta-ra-.pla-ne-'naV Mountain range, southeastern Europe. It extends east to west across cen¬ tral Bulgaria from the Black Sea to the Serbian border; the highest point is Botev Peak, at 7,795 ft (2,376 m). The range forms the major divide between the Danube River in the north and the Maritsa River in the south. It is crossed by about 20 passes (notably Shipka Pass), several railway lines, and the Iskur River.
Balkan Wars (1912- 13) Two military conflicts that deprived the Otto¬ man Empire of almost all its remaining territory in Europe. In the First Bal¬ kan War, the Balkan League defeated the Ottoman Empire, which, under the terms of the peace treaty (1913), lost Macedonia and Albania. The Second Balkan War broke out after Serbia, Greece, and Romania quar¬ reled with Bulgaria over the division of their joint conquests in Mace¬ donia. Bulgaria was defeated, and Greece and Serbia divided up most of Macedonia between themselves. The wars heightened tensions in the Bal¬ kans and helped spark World War I.
Balkans or Balkan Peninsula Peninsula, southeastern Europe. Located between the Adriatic Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Aegean and Black seas, it contains many countries, including Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, Moldova, Romania, and Bulgaria. From 168 bc to ad 107, part of the area was incorporated into Roman provinces, including Epirus, Moesia, Pannonia, Thrace, and Dacia. It was subsequently settled by Slavic invaders, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, and Slavonized Bulgars, the last of whom were pushed into the Balkan region in the 6th century. It was gradually organized into kingdoms, many of which were overrun by the Ottoman Empire in the 14th-15th century. The factional strife that occurred there from the early 20th century, provoking the continual breakups and regroupings of dif¬ ferent states, introduced the word balkanize into English.
Balkhash, Lake or Lake Balqash Vbal-'kash\ Lake, southeastern Kazakhstan. It is about 375 mi (600 km) long, with a maximum depth of roughly 85 ft (25 m). Its chief feeder is the Ili River, which enters at the west in a wide delta. Harsh climate affects its size greatly; its area has varied from about 6,000 sq mi (15,500 sq km) to 7,300 sq mi (19,000 sq km), depending on seasonal precipitation. It is frozen from November to early April. Since the mid-20th century, industrial pollution has caused severe ecological damage.
Ball, Lucille (Desiree) (b. Aug. 6, 1911, Celoron, near Jamestown, N.Y., U.S.—d. April 26, 1989, Los Angeles, Calif.) U.S. actress and tele¬
vision star. She performed in films from 1933 and starred in a comedy radio series from 1947. With her bandleader husband, Desi Arnaz, she created the very successful television comedy series I Love Lucy (1951—
57) and later the Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1957-60). After their divorce in 1960, Ball appeared in The Lucy Show (1962-68) and Here’s Lucy (1968-74). With her red hair and rasping voice and a comic persona alternately brassy and feminine, she was the preeminent female star of the early decades of television.
ball bearing One of the two types of rolling, or antifriction, bearings (the other is the roller bearing). Its function is to connect two machine members that move relative to one another so that the frictional resistance to motion is minimal. In many applications, one of the members is a rotating shaft and the other a fixed housing. Each ball bearing has three main parts: two grooved, ringlike races and a number of balls. The balls fill the space between the two races and roll with negligible friction in the grooves. The balls may be loosely restrained and separated by means of a retainer or cage.
ballad Form of short narrative folk song. Its distinctive style crystal¬ lized in Europe in the late Middle Ages as part of the oral tradition, and it has been preserved as a musical and literary form. The oral form has persisted as the folk ballad, and the written, literary ballad evolved from the oral tradition. The folk ballad typically tells a compact tale with delib¬ erate starkness, using devices such as repetition to heighten effects. The modern literary ballad (e.g., those by W.H. Auden, Bertolt Brecht, and Elizabeth Bishop) recalls in its rhythmic and narrative elements the tradi¬ tions of folk balladry.