Benton, Thomas Hart (b. March 14, 1782, near Hillsborough, N.C., U.S.—d. April 10, 1858, Washing¬ ton, D.C.) U.S. politician. After moving to St. Louis, Mo. (1815), he became editor of the St. Louis Enquirer. Appealing to agrarian and commercial interests, he won elec¬ tion to the U.S. Senate in 1820. He became a crusader for the distribu¬ tion of public lands to settlers and was soon acknowledged as the chief spokesman in the Senate of the early Democratic Party. His opposition to the extension of slavery into the West cost him his Senate seat in 1851, though he later served in the House of Representatives (1853-55). His grandnephew was the artist Thomas Hart Benton.
Benton, Thomas Hart (b. April
15, 1889, Neosho, Mo., U.S.—d. Jan. 19, 1975, Kansas City, Mo.) U.S. painter and muralist. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and at the Academie Julian in Paris, where he came into contact with Synchromism and Cubism. In 1912 he returned to the U.S. and settled in New York City. Failing in his attempts at Modernism, he set out to travel through the rural heartland, sketching people and places. In the 1930s he painted several notable murals, including America Today (1930-31) at the New School for Social Research. He often transposed biblical and classical stories to rural American settings, as in Susanna and the Elders (1938). His style, which quickly became influential, is characterized by undulating forms, cartoonlike figures, and brilliant colour. He taught at the Art Students League in New York, where Jackson Pollock was his best-known student.
Benton, William (Burnett) (b. April 1, 1900, Minneapolis, Minn., U.S.—d. March 18, 1973, New York, N.Y.) U.S. publisher, advertising executive, and government official. A descendant of missionaries and edu¬ cators, he founded, with Chester Bowles, the successful New York adver¬ tising agency of Benton & Bowles. He later became a vice president of the
University of Chicago; through his efforts, the university acquired Ency¬ clopaedia Britannica, which he managed and later purchased. In 1945 he became assistant secretary of state, and he later briefly served in the U.S. Senate (1949-52). Thereafter he devoted sustained attention to the ency¬ clopaedia; he died shortly before the publication of its 15th edition.
bentwood furniture Type of furniture made of wooden rods bent into shape after being heated with steam.
The method was used on the 18th- century Windsor chair, but its prin¬ cipal exponent was Michael Thonet, who exploited its possibilities in the 1840s. His bentwood chairs are among the most successful examples of early mass-produced furniture.
Bentwood is light, comfortable, and inexpensive, as well as strong and graceful.
Benue-Congo \'ba-nwa\ lan¬ guages Largest branch of the Niger-Congo language family, both in numbers of languages (900) and speakers (at least 500 million). Its major divisions are Defoid, includ¬ ing Yoruba, with more than 20 mil¬ lion speakers; Edoid, including Edo (see kingdom of Benin); Nupoid, including Nupe, Ebira, and Gbagyi;
Idomoid, including Idoma; Igboid, including the many dialects of the approximately 19 million Igbo people; Kainji, with 40 languages;
Platoid, a congeries of 50 languages;
Cross River, a group of more than 55 languages; and Bantoid. The largest branch, Bantoid, comprises a North¬ ern and a Southern group and includes more than 500 languages, 47 of which are spoken by more than 1 million people. The Bantu languages make up the largest subgroup of Southern Bantoid.
Benue \'ba-nwa\ River or Benoue \ba-'nwa\ River River, western Africa. Rising in northern Cameroon (as the Benoue), the river flows west across east-central Nigeria (as the Benue). About 870 mi (1,400 km) long, it is the chief tributary of the Niger River and transports a considerable volume of trade.
Benz \'bents \, Karl (Friedrich) (b. Nov. 25, 1844, Karlsruhe, Baden—d. April 4, 1929, Ladenburg, Ger.) German mechanical engineer who designed and built the first practical automobile powered by an internal-combustion engine. The original car, his three-wheeled Motor- wagen, first ran in 1885. Benz’s company produced its first four-wheeled car in 1893 and the first of its series of racing cars in 1899. Benz left the company in 1906 to form another group with his sons. In 1926 the Benz company merged with the company started by Gottlieb Daimler.
benzene Simplest aromatic hydrocarbon (see aromatic compound), par¬ ent substance of a large class of chemical compounds. It was discovered in 1825 by Michael Faraday. The chemical formula is C 6 H 6 ; August Kekule von Stradonitz in 1865 was the first to propose the correct structure, a six-membered ring of carbon atoms, each with one hydrogen atom bonded to it (see bonding). Although benzene is often represented with alternat¬ ing single and double bonds between carbon atoms, the electrons in the bonds are shared or delocalized in such a way as to make all carbon- carbon bonds alike. Benzene is a colourless, mobile liquid with a char¬ acteristic odour. An excellent solvent, it is also widely used as a starting material for many plastics, dyes, detergents, insecticides, and other indus¬ trial chemicals. Benzene is highly toxic, and long exposure may cause LEUKEMIA.
Benzer, Seymour (b. Oct. 15, 1921, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. molecular biologist. He received his Ph.D. from Purdue University. He developed a method for determining the detailed structure of viral genes and coined the term cistron to denote functional subunits of genes. He did much to explain the nature of genetic oddities, called nonsense mutations, in terms of the nucleotide sequence of DNA, and he discovered a rever¬ sal, or suppression, of these mutations in certain bacteria.
Bent beechwood armchair by the Tho¬ net brothers, Austria, c. 1870; in the Museum of Modern Art, New York City
COURTESY OF THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK, GIFT OF THONET INDUSTRIES
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
202 I Beowulf ► Bergen
Beowulf Vba-9-,wulf\ Heroic poem considered the highest achievement of Old English literature and the earliest European vernacular epic. It deals with events of the early 6th century and was probably composed c. 700- 750. It tells the story of the Scandinavian hero Beowulf, who gains fame as a young man by vanquishing the monster Grendel and Grendel’s mother; later, as an aging king, he kills a dragon but dies soon after, honoured and lamented. Beowulf belongs metrically, stylistically, and the¬ matically to the Germanic heroic tradition but shows a distinct Christian influence.
Berain \ba-'ra n \, Jean, the Elder (b. Oct. 28, 1637, Saint-Mihiel, Fr.—d. Jan. 24, 1711, Paris) French decorator and designer. Trained under Charles Le Brun, he was appointed chief designer to the court of Louis XIV in 1674. He was skilled in designing tapestries, accessories, furniture, costumes, and elaborate stage settings for operas and extravagant theat¬ rical productions; these were typically filled with fantastic iconography. He satisfied the king’s appetite for splendour and inspired other cabinet¬ makers such as Andre-Charles Boulle.
Berar \ba-'rar\ Historical region, west-central India. Located in what is now northern Maharashtra state, Berar emerged as a distinct political entity after the incursions of Muslim armies in the 13th century ad. It formed part of several Muslim kingdoms until, on the breakup of the Mughal Empire, it fell to the ruler of Hyderabad. Coming under British control in 1853, it was subsequently assigned to various provinces; it has been part of Maharashtra state since 1960. The region includes a rich cotton-growing area in the Purna River basin.
Berber Any member of a community native to the Maghrib who speaks one of various Berber languages, including Tamazight, Tashahit, and Tari- fit. Berber-speakers were the original inhabitants of North Africa, though many regions succumbed to colonization by the Roman Republic and Empire and later (from the 7th century ad) to conquest by the Arabs. Berbers gradually accepted Islam, and many switched to Arabic or became bilin¬ gual. Berber languages are still spoken in some rural and mountain areas of Morocco and Algeria and by some inhabitants of Tunisia and Libya. Since the 1990s Berber intellectuals have sought to revive interest in the language. The Berber-speaking Almoravid and Almohad dynasties built empires in North Africa and Spain in the 11th—13th centuries. See also Abd el-Krim; Kabyle; Rif.