Belidor \ba-le-'dor\, Bernard Forest de (b. 1698, Catalonia, Spain—d. Sept. 8, 1761, Paris, France) French military and civil engi¬ neer. After serving in the French army, he worked on measuring an arc of the Earth. As professor of artillery at a French military school, he wrote notable books on engineering, artillery, ballistics, and fortifications, but his fame rests primarily on his classic Architecture hydraulique (4 vol., 1737-53), covering engineering mechanics, mills and waterwheels, pumps, harbours, and sea works.
Belinsky \by9l-'yen-ske\, Vissarion (Grigoryevich) (b. May 30,
1811, Sveaborg, Fin., Russian Empire—d. May 26, 1848, St. Petersburg, Russia) Russian literary critic. Expelled from the University of Moscow in 1832, he worked as a journalist, making his reputation with critical articles that expounded nationalist doctrine. His argument that literature should express political and social ideas had a major impact on Soviet literary criticism, and he was often called the father of the Russian radi¬ cal intelligentsia.
Belisarius (b. c. 505, Germania, Illyria?—d. March 565) Byzantine general. While serving in the bodyguard of Emperor Justinian I, he was appointed (c. 525) to command in the eastern armies, and he defeated the Persians in the Battle of Dara (530). In 532 Belisarius further gained Jus¬ tinian’s confidence by commanding the troops that ended the Nika Insur¬ rection that nearly toppled the emperor. He led expeditions to overthrow the Vandals in North Africa (533) and regain Sicily and southern Italy from the Ostrogoths (535-537), defending Rome (537-538). He was offered a kingship by the Goths, which caused Justinian to recall him in disfavour. He was sent again to Rome (544-548) but with inadequate forces, and he was replaced by Narses in 548. Still loyal to Justinian, he was recalled in 559 to repel Hun invaders.
Belit \'ba-lit\ Akkadian goddess of destiny, consort of Bel, and mother of the moon god. Sin. Her Sumerian counterpart was Ninlil. Assyrians some¬ times identified her with Ishtar. Ninlil was a grain goddess, and the story of her rape by Enlil, the Lord of the Wind, reflects the seasonal cycle of pollination, ripening, and withering.
Belitung See Billiton
Beliveau \'bel-i-vo\, Jean (Marc A.) (b. Aug. 31, 1931, Trois- Rivieres, Que., Can.) Canadian ice-hockey centre. He played for the Mon¬ treal Canadiens from 1953 to 1971. His career record of 79 goals and 176 points made during play-off games, including 17 Stanley Cup champion¬ ships, stood until 1987.
Belize \bo-Tez \ formerly (1840-1973) British Honduras Country, Central America. Area: 8,867 sq mi (22,965 sq km). Population (2005
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est.): 291,000. Capitaclass="underline" Belmopan. Most Belizeans are of mixed ancestry (Indian- European, African-European), with smaller groups of Maya Indians and Gari- funa. Languages: English (official), Cre¬ ole, Spanish. Religion: Christianity (Roman Catholic, Protestant). Currency: Belize dollar. The country is bounded to the north by Mexico, to the east by the Caribbean Sea, and to the west and south by Guatemala. Belize is a land of mountains, swamps, and tropical jungles. The north¬ ern half consists of swampy lowlands drained by the Belize and Hondo rivers; the latter forms the boundary with Mexico. The southern half is more mountainous and contains the country’s highest point, Victoria Peak (3,681 ft [1,122 m]). Off the coast lies Belize Barrier Reef, the world’s second largest barrier reef. Belize is relatively prosperous and has a devel¬ oping free-market economy with some government participation. It is a constitutional monarchy with two legislative houses; its head of state is the British monarch represented by a governor-general, and the head of government is the prime minister. The area was inhabited by the Maya (c. 300 bc-ad 900); the ruins of their ceremonial centres, including Car- acol and Xunantunich, can still be seen. The Spanish claimed sovereignty from the 16th century but never tried to settle Belize, though they regarded the British who did as interlopers. British loggers arrived in the mid-17th century; Spanish opposition was finally overcome in 1798. When settlers began to penetrate the interior, they met with Indian resistance. In 1871 British Honduras became a crown colony, but an unfulfilled provision of an 1859 British-Guatemalan treaty led Guatemala to claim the territory. The situation had not been resolved when Belize was granted its inde¬ pendence in 1981. Although Guatemala officially recognized the territo¬ ry’s independence in 1991, a British force, stationed there to ensure the new country’s security, was not withdrawn until 1994.
Belize City City (pop., 2000: 49,050), Belize. The chief seaport and former capital of Belize, it lies at the mouth of the Belize River, which was until the 10th century a heavily populated trade artery of the Maya empire. The British settled the area in the 17th century. The city, built on ground only slightly above sea level, has been ravaged by hurricanes, so the capital was moved inland to Belmopan in 1970.
bell Hollow vessel, usually of metal, that produces a ringing sound when struck by an interior clapper or a mallet. In the West, open bells have acquired a standard “tulip” shape. Though the vibrational patterns of such open bells are basically nonharmonic, they can be tuned so that the lower overtones produce a recognizable chord. Forged bells have existed for many thousands of years. Bells were first cast, or founded, in the Bronze Age; the Chinese were the first master founders. Bells have carried a wide range of cultural meanings. They are particularly important in religious
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194 I Bell ► Belle Isle
ritual in East and South Asia. In Christianity, especially Russian Ortho¬ doxy, bells have also been used ritually. They have tolled the hours from monastery and church steeples, originally to govern monastic routine and later also to fill a similar role for the secular world.
Bell, Alexander Graham (b. March 3, 1847, Edinburgh, Scot.—d. Aug. 2, 1922, Beinn Bhreagh, Nova Scotia, Can.) Scottish-born U.S. audiologist and inventor. He moved to the U.S. in 1871 to teach the visible-speech system developed by his father, Alexander Melville Bell (1819-1905). He opened his own school in Boston for training teach¬ ers of the deaf (1872) and was influ¬ ential in disseminating these methods. In 1876 he became the first person to transmit intelligible words through electric wire (“Watson, come here, I want you,” spoken to his assistant Thomas Watson). He patented the telephone the same year, and in 1877 he cofounded Bell Tele¬ phone Co. With the proceeds from France’s Volta Prize, he founded Volta Laboratory in Washington,
D.C., in 1880. His experiments there led to the invention of the photo¬ phone (which transmitted speech by light rays), the audiometer (which measured acuteness of hearing), the Graphophone (an early practical sound recorder), and working wax recording media, both flat and cylindrical, for the Graphophone. He was chiefly responsible for founding the journal Science, founded the Ameri¬ can Association to Promote Teaching of Speech to the Deaf (1890), and continued his significant research on deafness throughout his life.
Bell, (Arthur) Clive (Heward) (b. Sept. 16, 1881, East Shefford, Berkshire, Eng.—d. Sept. 17, 1964, London) British art critic. He stud¬ ied at Cambridge University and in Paris. In 1907 he married Vanessa Stephen, sister of Virginia Woolf; with Virginia’s husband, Leonard Woolf, and Roger Fry, they formed the core of the Bloomsbury group. Bell’s most important aesthetic ideas were published in Art (1914) and Since Cezanne (1922), in which he promoted his theory of “significant form” (the quality that distinguishes works of art from all other objects). His assertion that art appreciation involves an emotional response to purely formal qualities, independent of subject matter, was influential for several decades.