founded a company that sold traffic-counting systems to local govern¬ ments. At 19 he dropped out of Harvard University and cofounded Microsoft Corp. with Paul G. Allen (b. 1954). Microsoft began its domi¬ nation of the fledgling microcomputer industry when Gates licensed the operating system MS-DOS to IBM in 1980 for use in IBM’s first personal computer. As Microsoft’s largest shareholder, Gates became a billionaire in 1986, and within a decade he was the world’s richest private individual. Beginning in 1995, he refocused Microsoft on the development of soft¬ ware solutions for the Internet, and he also moved the company into the computer hardware and gaming markets with the Xbox video machine. In 1999 he and his wife created the largest charitable foundation in the U.S.
Gates, Henry Louis (Jr.) (b. Sept. 16, 1950, Keyser, W.Va., U.S.) U.S. critic and scholar. Gates attended Yale University and the University of Cambridge. He has chaired Harvard University’s department of Afro- American Studies for many years. In such works as Figures in Black (1987) and The Signifying Monkey (1988) he has used the term signifyin’ to represent a practice that can link African and African American liter¬ ary histories; his other books include Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man (1998). He has edited many anthologies, including Reading Black, Reading Feminist (1990) and the Norton Anthology of African American Writers (1997), and has restored and edited many lost works by black writers. He writes frequently to a general public, notably in The New Yorker, and he wrote the television series Wonders of the African World
(1999).
Gates, Horatio (b. c. 1728, Maldon, Essex, Eng.—d. April 10, 1806, New York, N.Y., U.S.) English-born American general. He served in the British army during the French and Indian War. In 1772 he immigrated to Virginia, where he sided with colonial interests. He was made adjutant general of the Continental Army (1775) and succeeded Gen. Philip Schuyler in New York (1777). Assisted by Benedict Arnold, he forced the surren¬ der of British forces under John Burgoyne at the Battle of Saratoga (1777). Congress then chose Gates as president of the Board of War. Supporters, including Thomas Conway, sought to have Gates replace George Wash¬ ington, but the plan failed, and Gates returned to his New York command. In 1780 he was transferred to the South, where he attempted to oust the British forces under Charles Cornwallis but was defeated at the Battle of Camden, S.C. An official inquiry was ordered, but charges never were pressed. He retired to Virginia, then freed his slaves in 1790 and moved to New York.
Gatling gun Hand-cranked multi barrel rotary gun. It was invented by Richard J. Gatling (1818-1903) during the American Civil War. Making use of the newly invented brass cartridge, he assembled a cluster of 10 barrels, each of which was fired and reloaded during rotation by a crank. The barrels were loaded by gravity and the action of the cartridge con¬ tainer, and the spent cartridge cases were ejected. Without equal in the era of single-shot guns, it could fire as many as 3,000 rounds per minute. It became obsolete in the 1880s when the invention of smokeless powder led to development of a truly automatic machine gun.
GATT See General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
Gatun \ga-'tiin\ Lake Spanish Lago Gatun \Ta-go-ga-'tun\ Lake, Panama. Constituting part of the Panama Canal system, its area is 166 sq mi (430 sq km). It was formed by damming the Chagres River in 1912. Its dam and spillway serve to hold sufficient water in the Gaillard Cut for ships’ passage and for use in the canal’s locks during dry spells. Guacha Island, a wildlife sanctuary, lies in the centre of the lake.
Gauches, Cartel des See Cartel des Gauches
gaucho Any of the nomadic and colourful horsemen of the Argentine and Uruguayan Pampas, who remain folk heroes famed for hardiness and lawlessness. Gauchos flourished from the mid 18th to the mid 19th cen¬ tury. At first they rounded up the herds of horses and cattle that roamed freely on the vast grasslands east of the Andes. In the early 19th century they fought in the armies that defeated the Spanish colonial regime and then for the caudillos who jockeyed for power after independence. Argen¬ tine writers have celebrated the gauchos, and gaucho literature is an important part of the Latin American cultural tradition.
gaucho literature Latin American poetic genre that imitates the pay- adas (“ballads”) traditionally sung to guitar accompaniment by wander¬ ing gaucho minstrels of Argentina and Uruguay. By extension, the term includes the body of Latin American prose literature about the gaucho
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Gaudi ► gay rights movement I 741
way of life and philosophy. Long a part of folk literature, gaucho lore became a subject of 19th-century Romantic verse, as well as prose that often explores themes of conflict between the old and the new.
Gaudi \'gau-the\ (i Cornet), Antoni Spanish Antonio Gaudi y Cornet (b. June 25, 1852, Reus, Spain—d. June 10, 1926, Barcelona) Spanish (Catalan) architect. Though his early works were Mudejar (Span¬ ish Muslim-Christian) in effect, his work after 1902 eluded all conven¬ tion. He began to produce “equilibrated” structures able to stand on their own without bracing; his system employed piers and columns that tilt to transmit diagonal forces and thin-shell, laminated-tile vaults. Works such as the Park Giiell (1900-14), Casa Mila (1905-10), and Casa Batllo (1904-06) feature undulating surfaces and polychrome decoration (e.g., pieces of broken ceramic). Much of his later career was occupied with the extraordinary church of the Holy Family (Sagrada Familia), still unfin¬ ished at his death, in which he transformed the Gothic style into a com¬ plex forest of flowing forms and exuberant detail, with spiral-shaped piers, vaults, towers, and a hyperbolic paraboloid roof.
Gaugamela V.go-go-'me-bV Battle of (331 bc) Clash between the forces of Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia that brought the fall of the Persian empire. Attempting to stop Alexander’s incursions, Darius prepared a battleground on the Plain of Gaugamela in present-day Iraq and, with his much larger army, waited for Alexander. His plans were undone by Alexander’s brilliant tactics; when Darius saw defeat was imminent, he fled and his army was cut down. Alexander’s victory gave him control of South Asia.
gauge \'gaj\ In manufacturing and engineering, a device used to deter¬ mine whether a dimension is larger or smaller than a reference standard. A snap gauge, for example, is formed like the letter C, with outer “go” and inner “not go” jaws, and is used to check diameters, lengths, and thicknesses. Screw-thread pitch gauges have triangular serrations spaced to correspond with various pitches, or numbers of threads per inch or per centimeter. Deviation-type or dial gauges indicate the amount by which an object deviates from the standard.
Gauguin \g6-'ga n \, (Eugene-Henri-) Paul (b. June 7, 1848, Paris, France—d. May 8, 1903, Atuona, Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia) French painter, sculptor, and printmaker. He spent his child¬ hood in Lima (his mother was a Peruvian Creole). From c. 1872 to 1883 he was a successful stockbroker in Paris. He met Camille Pissarro about 1875, and he exhibited several times with the Impressionists. Disillusioned with bourgeois materialism, in 1886 he moved to Pont-Aven, Brittany, where he became the central figure of a group of artists known as the Pont-Aven school. Gauguin coined the term “Synthetism” to describe his style during this period, referring to the synthesis of his paintings’ formal elements with the idea or emotion they conveyed. Late in October 1888 Gauguin traveled to Arles, in the south of France, to stay with Vincent van Gogh. The style of the two men’s work from this period has been classified as Post-Impressionist because it shows an individual, personal development of Impressionism’s use of colour, brushstroke, and nontra- ditional subject matter. Increasingly focused on rejecting the materialism of contemporary culture in favour of a more spiritual, unfettered lifestyle, in 1891 he moved to Tahiti. His works became open protests against materialism. He was an influential innovator; Fauvism owed much to his use of colour, and he inspired Pablo Picasso and the development of Cub¬ ism.