Bidwell, John (b. Aug. 5, 1819, Chautauqua county, N.Y., U.S.—d. April 4, 1900, near Sacramento, Calif.) U.S. political leader. He was a member of the first group to travel by wagon train to California from Independence, Mo. Reluctant to join the Bear Flag revolt of Americans in California against Mexico, he nonetheless helped draw up the Bear Flag Republic’s resolution of independence in July 1846. He fought under John C. Fremont in the Mexican War and assisted in the recapture of Los Ange¬ les in 1847. At the end of the war he returned to Sutter’s Fort, where he was the first to find gold on the Feather River. Later he became a leading agriculturalist and played a prominent role in state politics. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1864 and later ran for governor three times, though he was never elected. In 1892 he became the presidential candidate of the Prohibition Party.
Biedermeier Vbe-dor-.ml-orV style Style of German and Austrian art, furniture, and decoration that developed c. 1815 to 1848. Gottlieb (“Papa”) Biedermeier was a fictional cartoon character, the comic sym¬ bol of middle-class comfort, with an emphasis on family life and the pur¬ suit of hobbies. The subject matter of Biedermeier paintings, which were either genre or historical, was treated sentimentally; Carl Spitzweg (1808— 85) is the best-known of the Biedermeier painters. The simplicity and functionality of Biedermeier furniture were derived from the Empire and Directoire styles, but the furniture was characterized by more restrained geometric shapes. The style was revived in the 1960s.
Biel VbelV Gabriel (b. c. 1420, Speyer [Germany]—d. Dec. 7, 1495, Tubingen, Wurttemberg) German philosopher, economist, and Scholastic theologian. He became professor at the University of Tubingen (1484). His Collectorium circa IV libros sententiarum presented the teachings of William of Ockham; the work influenced followers known as Gabrielis- tae. His economic theories favoured fair taxation and price control. See also Scholasticism.
Bielefeld Vbe-b-,felt\ City (pop., 2002 est: city, 323,400; metro, area, 579,000), northwestern Germany. Founded in 1214, the town arose from a religious settlement around St. Mary’s Church in the late 13th century. It joined the Hanseatic League in the 14th century and passed to Branden¬ burg in 1647. The first mechanized textile mills in Germany were estab¬ lished there in 1851. Heavily damaged in World War II, the city has since been rebuilt. It is the centre of a linen industry; it also has silk and plush weaving mills.
biennial Any plant that completes its life cycle in two growing seasons. During the first growing season biennials produce roots, stems, and leaves; during the second they produce flowers, fruits, and seeds, and then die. Sugar beets and carrots are examples of biennials. See also annual, PERENNIAL.
Bienville \bya n -'vel\, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de (baptized Feb. 23, 1680, Montreal, New France—d. March 7, 1767, Paris, France)
French explorer, colonial governor of Louisiana, and founder of New Orleans. He served with the French navy in King William’s War. He accompanied his brother Pierre Iberville on expeditions to the mouth of the Mississippi River. They founded a settlement in 1699, and he later com¬ manded the colony of Louisiana (1701-12, 1717-23). He founded New Orleans in 1718 and made it the colony’s capital in 1722. Recalled to France in 1723, he returned to serve as governor of Louisiana (1733-43).
Bierce, Ambrose (Gwinnett) (b. June 24, 1842, Meigs county, Ohio, U.S.—d. 1914, Mexico?) U.S. newspaperman, satirist, and short- story writer. Not long after serving in the Civil War, he became a news¬ paper columnist and editor in San Francisco, specializing in attacks on frauds of all sorts. Among his books are Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (1891; revised as In the Midst of Life), which includes “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”; Can Such Things Be? (1893); and The Devil’s Dictionary (1906), a volume of ironic definitions. Tired of American life, he went in 1913 to Mexico, then in the middle of a revolution, and mys¬ teriously disappeared, possibly killed in the 1914 siege of Ojinaga.
Bierstadt \'ber-,shtat\, Albert (b. Jan. 7, 1830, near Diisseldorf, Westphalia—d. Feb. 19, 1902, New York, N.Y., U.S.) German-born U.S. painter of the Hudson River school. His parents immigrated to the U.S. when he was an infant. As a young man he traveled and sketched through¬ out Europe before returning to the U.S. to join a westward-bound expe¬ dition in 1859. Specializing in grandiose pictures of vast mountain scenery, he achieved great popularity in his lifetime with panoramic and often fanciful scenes of the American West, including The Rocky Moun¬ tains (1863) and Mount Corcoran (c. 1875-77). His huge paintings were actually executed in his New York City studio.
big bang Model of the origin of the universe, which holds that it emerged from a state of extremely high temperature and density in an explosive expansion 10 billion—15 billion years ago. Its two basic assumptions—that Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity correctly describes the gravitational interaction of all matter and that an observer’s view of the universe does not depend on direction of observation or on location—make it possible to calculate physical conditions in the universe back to a very early time called the Planck time (after Max Planck). According to the model proposed by George Gamow in the 1940s, the universe expanded rapidly from a highly compressed early state, with a steady decrease in density and temperature. Within seconds, matter pre¬ dominated over antimatter and certain nuclei formed. It took another mil¬ lion years before atoms could form and electromagnetic radiation could travel through space unimpeded. The abundances of hydrogen, helium, and lithium and the discovery of cosmic background radiation support the model, which also explains the redshifts of the light from distant galaxies as resulting from the expansion of space.
Big Ben Clock housed in the tower at the eastern end of Britain’s Houses of Parliament. Designed by Sir Edmund Beckett (1816-1905), Big Ben is famous for its accuracy and its 13-ton bell. The name (for Sir Benjamin Hall, commissioner of works at the time of its installation in 1859) originally applied only to the bell but eventually came to include the clock itself.
Big Bend National Park Pre¬ serve, southwestern Texas, U.S. It lies 250 mi (400 km) southeast of El Paso and occupies 1,252 sq mi (3,243 sq km). It was established in 1944 and named for the wide bend in the Rio Grande that skirts its south¬ ern edge. The park has magnificent mountain and desert scenery; it is home to more than 1,000 species of plants, and its wildlife includes coy¬ otes, pumas, and roadrunners.
Big Bertha Either of two different sets of long-range artillery produced by the Krupp works (see Thyssen Krupp Stahl) in Germany during World War I. The first were 420-mm (16.5-in.) howitzers used by German forces advancing through Belgium in 1914. The second were cannons specially built to bombard Paris in 1918. About 112 ft (34 m) long, they weighed
Nicholas Biddle
COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, WASHINGTON, D.C.
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Big Cypress Swamp ► bile I 217
200 tons (181 metric tons) and were 210 mm (8 in.) or more in calibre. The Paris guns were moved on railway tracks; they bombarded the city for 140 days. Their unprecedented range of 75 mi (121 km) was achieved by sending the shells on a trajectory 12 mi (19 km) into the stratosphere. They were nicknamed for the Krupp matriarch Bertha von Bohlen.