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Hagia Sophia ► Haile Selassie I 825
Hagia Sophia Vha-ge-o-so-'fe-o, 'ha-je-o-so-'fe-sV (Greek: “Holy Wis¬ dom”) Church in Istanbul, later a mosque and now a museum. It is the masterpiece of Byzantine architecture. Designed under Justinian I by Anthe¬ mius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus, the original building was com¬ pleted in less than six years (ad 532-37). It combined a longitudinal basilica and a centralized building in a wholly original manner, with a huge main dome (rebuilt 563) supported on pendentives and semidomes on either side. In plan it is almost square. There are three aisles separated by col¬ umns with galleries above and great marble piers rising up to support the dome. The walls above the galleries, as well as the base of the dome, are pierced by windows, whose light obscures the supports, giving the impres¬ sion that the canopy floats on air.
hagiography V.ha-ge-'a-gro-fe, ,ha-je-'a-gr3-fe\ Literature describing the lives of the saints. Christian hagiography includes stories of saintly monks, bishops, princes, and virgins, with accounts of their martyrdom and of the miracles connected with their relics, tombs, icons, or statues. Written as early as the 2nd century and popular during the Middle Ages, hagiographies focus on lives of individual saints or on stories of a class of saints (e.g., martyrs).
Hague \'hag\, The Dutch 's-Gravenhage \,skrav- 3 n-'ha-k9\ or Den Haag \den-'hak\ City (pop., 2005 est.: 468,421), seat of government of The Netherlands. Located 4 mi (6 km) from the North Sea, it is the administrative capital of The Netherlands, home to its court and govern¬ ment, though Amsterdam is the official capital. The counts of Holland built a castle at The Hague in 1248. The complex now forms the Binnenhof in the old quarter of the city, which became the seat of the Dutch govern¬ ment in 1585. The city grew rapidly in the 19th and 20th centuries. A centre of government, international law, and corporate administration, most of its businesses are engaged in trade, banking, and insurance. The International Court of Justice is housed in the Peace Palace (1913). The city is filled with notable architecture, much of which survived despite the heavy damage inflicted on the city during the German occupation in World War II.
Hague Conventions Series of international agreements signed at The Hague (1899, 1907). The first conference was requested by Russia to dis¬ cuss rules to limit warfare and attempt arms limitations. Twenty-six coun¬ tries attended and approved several proposed conventions, including prohibition of the use of asphyxiating gases (not renewed in 1907) and creation of a Permanent Court of Arbitration. The 1907 meeting, called by Theodore Roosevelt, was attended by 44 countries and also had arms limitation as a goal, which again went unmet. An agreement to reconvene in eight years confirmed the principle that international conferences were the best way to handle international problems. Though World War I pre¬ vented the next meeting from taking place, the conferences influenced creation of the League of Nations and the United Nations. See also Geneva Conventions.
Hahn, Otto (b. March 8, 1879, Frankfurt am Main, Ger.—d. July 28, 1968, Gottingen, W.Ger.) German physical chemist. He worked at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry (1912—44), serving as director from 1928. With Lise Meitner he discovered several radioelements. In 1938, with Meitner and Fritz Strassmann (1902-80), he found the first chemi¬ cal evidence of nuclear-fission products, created when they bombarded uranium with neutrons. For his discovery of nuclear fission, Hahn was awarded a 1944 Nobel Prize. He became president of the Max Planck Society; a respected public figure, he spoke out strongly against further development of nuclear weapons. In 1966 he shared the Enrico Fermi Award with Meitner and Strassmann.
Hahnemann Vha-no-monV, (Christian Friedrich) Samuel (b.
April 10, 1755, Meissen, Saxony—d. July 2, 1843, Paris, Fr.) German physician, founder of homeopathy. Struck by the similarity of the symp¬ toms quinine produced in the healthy body to those of the disorders it cured, he theorized that “likes are cured by likes” and proposed his doc¬ trine that substances used this way are most effective in small doses. His chief work, Organon of Rational Medicine (1810), expounds his system. His Pure Pharmacology (6 vol., 1811) details the symptoms produced by testing a large number of drugs on healthy subjects.
Hai River \'hl\ River, Hebei province, China. A short part of the Bai River, the name Hai properly belongs only to the stream from Tianjin that flows into the Bo Hai some 43 mi (70 km) away. It is, however, also used as the general name for the system of tributary streams that discharge into the sea through this channel. Because of the streams’ heavy inflow, the
Hai River often floods; in 1939 Tianjin was submerged for a month. The river is now the site of a comprehensive water-control project.
Haida \'hI-do\ Northwest Coast Indian people of the Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii), B.C., Can., and southern Prince of Wales Island, Alaska, U.S. Their language, also called Haida, belongs to the Na-Dene language family. Each child born was assigned at birth to one of two major tribal divisions, or moieties—the Raven and the Eagle—based on mater¬ nal descent. Marriages between two members of the same moiety were taboo. Each moiety consisted of lineages that owned rights to land, had their own chiefs, waged war, held ceremonies such as POTLATCHes, and functioned as economically independent units. Haida economy was based on fishing and hunting. The Haida continue to be known for their crafts¬ manship and their art, which includes the carving of totem poles. At the turn of the 21st century, they numbered about 3,500.
Haidarabad See Hyderabad
Haifa \'hI-fo\ ancient Sycaminum City (pop., 2001: 270,500) and chief port, northwestern Israel. Located on the Bay of Haifa overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, it is first mentioned in the Talmud (c. 1st—4th cen¬ tury ad). Conquered in 1100 by Christian Crusaders, it was taken by Napoleon I in 1799 and by Egyptian Gen. Ibrahim Pasha in 1839. Occu¬ pied by British forces in 1918, it became part of mandated Palestine. It came under Israeli control in 1948, during the first Arab-Israeu war. Situ¬ ated on the northern slopes of Mount Carmel, with the exception of its port section on the bay, it is a tourist resort and a commercial centre. Haifa is the world headquarters of the Baha’i faith.
Haig, Douglas, 1 st Earl (b. June 19, 1861, Edinburgh, Scot.—d. Jan. 29, 1928, London, Eng.) British general in World War I. A career army officer, he was promoted to general in 1914 and led British forces in northern France. In 1915 he succeeded John French as commander in chief of the British Expeditionary Force. Advocating a strategy of attrition, he was criticized for the enormous British losses at the Battles of the Somme (1916) and Ypres (1917). He was promoted to field marshal in 1916. In 1918 he secured the appointment of Ferdinand Foch as commander of the Allied forces; the two worked well together, and after helping stop the last German offensive, Haig led the victorious Allied assault in August
haiku Vhl-.kiA Unrhymed Japanese poetic form consisting of 17 syl¬ lables arranged in three lines containing five, seven, and five syllables, respectively. Haiku expresses much and suggests more in the fewest pos¬ sible words. The form gained distinction in the 17th century, when Basho elevated it to a highly refined art. It remains Japan’s most popular poetic form. The Imagist poets (1912-30) and others have imitated the form in English and other languages.
hail Precipitation of balls or pieces of ice with a diameter of 0.2-4 in. (5 mm-10 cm). Small hail (also called sleet, or ice pellets) has a diam¬ eter of less than 0.2 in. Hail can be extremely destructive to buildings and crops; if it is large enough, it may be dangerous to animals. Hailstones 6 in. (15 cm) in diameter have fallen during storms in the U.S. Midwest. Hailstorms are most common in the middle latitudes and usually last around 15 minutes. They ordinarily occur in middle to late afternoon and may accompany thunderstorms.