Great Depression Longest and most severe economic depression ever experienced by the Western world. It began in the U.S. soon after the New York Stock Market Crash of 1929 and lasted until about 1939. By late 1932 stock values had dropped to about 20% of their previous value, and by 1933 11,000 of the U.S.’s 25,000 banks had failed. These and other conditions, worsened by monetary policy mistakes and adherence to the gold standard, led to much-reduced levels of demand and hence of pro¬ duction, resulting in high unemployment (by 1932, 25-30%). Since the U.S. was the major creditor and financier of postwar Europe, the U.S. financial breakdown precipitated economic failures around the world, especially in Germany and Britain. Isolationism spread as nations sought to protect domestic production by imposing tariffs and quotas, ultimately reducing the value of international trade by more than half by 1932. The Great Depression contributed to political upheaval. It led to the election of U.S. Pres. Franklin Roosevelt, who introduced major changes in the structure of the U.S. economy through his New Deal. The Depression also advanced Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany in 1933 and fomented political extremism in other countries. Before the Great Depression, gov¬ ernments relied on impersonal market forces to achieve economic cor¬ rection; afterward, government action came to assume a principal role in ensuring economic stability.
Great Dismal Swamp See Dismal Swamp
Great Dividing Range Main watershed of eastern Australia. It com¬ prises a series of plateaus and mountain ranges roughly paralleling the coasts of Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria, Austl. Beginning in the north on the Cape York Peninsula, Queen., the range heads south to become the Australian Alps near the New South Wales-Victoria border. Bending west in Victoria, the range ends in the Grampians, while a south¬ ern spur emerges from the Bass Strait to form the central uplands of Tas¬ mania. The range stretches for 2,300 mi (3,700 km). First traversed in 1813 by Europeans moving into the Australian Outback, the region is now important for agriculture, lumbering, and mining, and national parks attract tourists.
Great Fear (1789) In the French Revolution, a period of panic and riot by peasants and others amid rumors of an “aristocratic conspiracy” by the king and the privileged to overthrow the Third Estate. The gathering of troops around Paris provoked insurrection, and on July 14 the Parisian rabble seized the Bastille. In the provinces the peasants rose against their lords, attacking chateaux and destroying feudal documents. To check the peas¬ ants, the National Constituent Assembly decreed the abolition of the feudal regime and introduced the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citi¬ zen.
Great Fire of London (September 2-5, 1666) Worst fire in London’s history. It destroyed a large part of the city, including most of the civic buildings, St. Paul's Cathedral, 87 parish churches, and about 13,000 houses. It began accidentally at the house of the king’s baker in Pudding Lane near London Bridge, and a violent east wind encouraged the flames. On the fourth day houses were blown up by gunpowder to master the fire. The Thames River swarmed with vessels filled with people trying to save their goods, and some fled to the hills of Hampstead and Highgate, but most of the houseless Londoners settled in Moorfields.
Great Fish River River, southeastern Eastern Cape province, South Africa. Flowing southeast for much of its 400-mi (644-km) run, it joins the Koonap River before entering the Indian Ocean southeast of Graha- mstown. In the early 19th century the lower Great Fish valley formed a battle zone between mostly British settlers moving east from the Cape and tribal settlements to the northeast.
Great Game Rivalry between Britain and Russia in Central Asia in the late 19th century. The term was used by Rudyard Kipling in his novel Kim (1901). British attitudes were influenced by the reports of official, semi¬ official, and private adventurers enjoying the thrill of clandestine opera-
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great hall ► Great Rift Valley I 795
tions beyond the frontiers of India, reports that frequently embellished (or even invented) accounts of Russian machinations and the vacillating loy¬ alties of local chieftains.
great hall Main space in a medieval manor house, monastery, or col¬ lege, in which meals were eaten. In large manor houses it also served other purposes: Justice was administered there, entertainment enjoyed, and often at night its stone floor was strewn with rushes so that servants could sleep there.
great horned owl Horned owl species (Bubo virginianus ) that ranges from Arctic tree limits south to the Strait of Magellan. A powerful, mottled-brown predator, it is often more than 2 ft (60 cm) long, with a wingspan often approaching 80 in. (200 cm). It usually eats small rodents and birds, but has been known to carry off larger prey. Adapted to desert and forest, the species migrates only when food is scarce.
Great Indian Desert See Thar Desert
Great Lakes Chain of lakes, east-central North America. Comprising Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, it forms a natural boundary between the U.S. and Canada. The Great Lakes cover an area of about 94,850 sq mi (245,660 sq km) and constitute the largest fresh¬ water surface in the world. Connected to form a single waterway that dis¬ charges down the St. Lawrence River into the Atlantic Ocean, with the St. Lawrence Seaway they form a shipping lane more than 2,000 mi (3,200 km) long that carries oceangoing traffic as far west as Duluth, Minn. Large quantities of iron ore, coal, grain, and manufactured goods are moved between lake ports and shipped overseas. While commercial fishing was once a major industry on the lakes, pollution and other factors led to its collapse; recovery has been slow and partial. The lakes are used for many recreational activities, including boating and sailing.
Great Lakes Group of large lakes located chiefly in the Great Rift Val¬ ley, eastern central Africa. It includes the lakes Turkana, Albert, Victoria, Tanganyika, and Malawi.
Great Lakes trout See lake trout
Great Leap Forward Failed industrialization campaign undertaken by the Chinese Communists between 1958 and early 1960. Mao Zedong hoped to develop labor-intensive methods of industrialization that would emphasize manpower rather than the gradual purchase of heavy machinery, thereby putting to use China’s dense population and obviating the need to accumulate capital. Rather than large new factories, he proposed develop¬ ing backyard steel furnaces in every village. Rural people were organized into communes where agricultural and political decisions emphasized ideological purity rather than expertise. The program was implemented so hastily and zealously that many errors occurred; these were exacerbated by a series of natural disasters and the withdrawal of Soviet technical person¬ nel. China’s agriculture was so disrupted that about 20 million people died of starvation from 1958 to 1962. By early 1960 the government began to repeal the Great Leap Forward; private plots were returned to peasants and expertise began to be emphasized again.
Great Mosque See Masjid-i-Jami
Great Mosque of Esfahan Persian Masjed-e Jami'
Vmas-jid-i-'ja-meX Complex of buildings, chiefly of the Seljuq period (see SeuOq dynasty), in Esfahan, Iran. The mosque (completed c. 1130) has a central courtyard framed by four huge eyvans, or vaulted niches. It is renowned for its fine brickwork, vaulting, and two domed sanctuaries. The brick dome of the main sanctuary (c. 1070-75) is supported by heavy piers. The smaller domed chamber (1088) is known for its beauty of pro¬ portion; its dome, resting on a series of arches, is a structural masterpiece. The dome and the four -eyvan plan became standard for Seljuq mosques.