Tom big bee \tam-'big-be\ River River, Alabama, U.S. Formed by the confluence of the river’s eastern and western forks near Amory, Miss., it crosses the Alabama border west of Carrollton and flows south nearly 525 mi (845 km) to join the Alabama River and form the Mobile and Tensaw rivers. It is linked to the Tennessee River by the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway.
Tombstone City (pop., 2000: 1,504), southeastern Arizona, U.S. The site was named by Ed Schieffelin, who discovered silver there in 1877 after being told that all he would find would be his tombstone. By 1881 a silver rush had drawn prospectors such as Doc Holliday and Johnny
Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum).
GRANT HEILMAN
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tomography ► tongues I 1921
Ringo, who brought the town a reputation for lawlessness. Feuds were common, including the 1881 gun battle at the O.K. Corral between the Earp (see Wyatt Earp) and Clanton families. Tombstone was declared a national historic landmark in 1962.
tomography \t6-'ma-gr3-fe\ Radiological technique for obtaining clear X-ray images of internal structures by focusing on a specific plane within the body to produce a cross-sectional image. It allows the exami¬ nation of structures that are obscured by overlying organs and soft tissues and do not show up clearly on conventional X-ray images. See also com¬ puted AXIAL TOMOGRAPHY.
Tompion Ytam-pe-anX, Thomas (baptized July 25, 1639, Northill, Bedfordshire, Eng.—d. Nov. 20,
1713, London) British clockmaker.
Working closely with Robert Hooke and Edward Barlow, he made one of the first English watches with a bal¬ ance spring and patented the cylin¬ der escapement. The most famous clockmaker of his time, he is remem¬ bered as the father of British clock¬ making.
Tompkins, Daniel D. (b. June 21, 1774, Scarsdale, N.Y., U.S.—d.
June 11, 1825, Staten Island, N.Y.)
U.S. politician. He served on the state supreme court (1804-07). As governor (1807-17), he initiated education and penal-code reforms and helped secure state legislation outlawing slavery. An opponent of banking interests, he blocked the chartering of a bank by calling an end to the legislature’s session, the only such occurrence in New York history. He was twice elected vice president with Pres. James Monroe
(1817-25).
tonality Organization of music around a single pitch; more specifically, the Western system of keys that grew out of the modal music of the Renaissance in the 17th century. The term is often used to refer to the network of relationships implicit in the seven principal tones of a given key, each of which has the potential to become the tonic temporarily by means of modulation, whereby a new network of relationships arises. Because of its capacity to extend pitch relationships to remote lengths in an audibly comprehensible way, the tonal system permits the composition of music of great complexity.
Tonatiuh \to-'na-te-ii\ Sun deity of the Aztecs and Nahuas. According to most myths, there were four eras that preceded the era of Tonatiuh, each of which ended by cataclysm. He was viewed as a god constantly threatened by the awesome tasks of his daily birth at sunrise, arduous journey across the sky, and death at each sunset. He was the object of human sacrifice, which was thought necessary to sustain him. Generally represented by a colorful disk, he was depicted in the center of the Aztec calendar, with his eagle’s claw hands clutching human hearts.
tone In linguistics, a variation in the pitch of the voice while speaking. The term is usually applied to languages (called tone languages) in which pitch differentiates words with an identical sequences of consonants and vowels. For example, man in Mandarin Chinese may mean either “deceive” or “slow,” depending on its pitch. In tone languages, what mat¬ ters is not absolute pitch but the pitch of one word relative to another or how pitch changes within a word.
tone See pitch, timbre
Tone, (Theobald) Wolfe (b. Jan. 20, 1763, Dublin, Ire.—d. Nov. 19, 1798, Dublin) Irish republican and rebel. In 1791 he cofounded the Soci¬ ety of United Irishmen to work for parliamentary reform. He organized a Catholic convention of elected delegates that forced Parliament to pass the Catholic Relief Act in 1793. In 1796, seeking to overthrow English rule in Ireland, he convinced France to send an invasion force of 43 ships and 14,000 men, but the ships were dispersed by a storm. Tone again brought an Irish invasion plan to Paris in October 1797, but the principal
French military leader, Napoleon Bonaparte, took little interest. In 1798, with only 3,000 men, he again attempted an invasion; captured and sen¬ tenced to hang, he committed suicide.
tone poem See symphonic poem
Tone \'to-na\ River River, central Honshu, Japan. It rises in the volca¬ nic area of northwestern Kanto region and flows 200 mi (320 km) south¬ east to enter the Pacific Ocean at Choshi. No other river in Japan has been so modified by human activity; its course has been altered and its entire length is confined by dikes. It is an indispensable source for irrigation, industry, and hydroelectricity.
Tonga officially Kingdom of Tonga Island country, South Pacific Ocean. Area: 290 sq mi (750 sq km). Population (2005 est.): 98,600. Capitaclass="underline" Nukualofa. The people are of Polynesian ancestry. Languages: Tongan, English (both official). Religions: Christianity (mostly Protestant; also Roman Catholic, other Christians); also Baha’i. Currency: pa’anga. Tonga comprises an archipelago of some 170 islands that extends north- south in two parallel chains for roughly 500 mi (800 km). The eastern islands are low and formed of coral limestone; those in the west are mountainous and of volcanic origin, and four of the western islands are active volcanoes. The country has a developing free-market economy based mainly on agriculture. Chief products include fish, coconuts, sweet potatoes, and bananas. Tourism also is important. Tonga is a constitutional monarchy with one legislative house; the head of state and government is the king, assisted by the privy council. Tonga was inhabited at least 3,000 years ago by people of the Lapita culture. The Tongans developed a stratified social system headed by a paramount ruler whose dominion by the 13th century extended as far as the Hawaiian Islands. The Dutch vis¬ ited in the 17th century, but effective European contact dates from 1773, when Capt. James Cook arrived and named the archipelago the Friendly Islands. The modern kingdom was established during the reign (1845-93) of King George Tupou I. It became a British protectorate in 1900. This was dissolved in 1970 when Tonga, the only ancient kingdom surviving from the pre-European period in Polynesia, achieved complete indepen¬ dence within the Commonwealth. Tonga was at the centre of a financial scandal in the early 21st century when money in a government trust fund was lost while under the management of an American investor. This added to the country’s ongoing financial problems.
Tonghak See Ch'ondogyo
Tonghak Uprising (1894) Korean peasant rebellion that sparked the Sino-Japanese War. Despite being persecuted for it, impoverished peas¬ ants turned increasingly to Tonghak (“Eastern Learning”; see Ch'ondogyo), a syncretic, nationalistic religion that opposed Western cul¬ ture and espoused equality of all people. When demonstrations staged by Tonghak followers calling for social reform met with a negative govern¬ ment response, the peasantry united with them in a rebellion that suc¬ ceeded in defeating government troops in southern Korea. The government called on China for aid; Japan sent in troops without being asked, and China and Japan clashed. The rebels laid down their arms to defuse tensions; nevertheless, the Sino-Japanese War ensued. The leaders of the uprising, including Ch'oe Si-hyong, were executed.