City and administrative centre of Irkutsk oblast (province), east-central Russia. The city lies along the Angara River at its confluence with the Irkut River. It was founded as a wintering camp in 1652, during the first Russian colonization of the area; a fort was built in 1661, and Irkutsk rapidly became the main centre of Cisbaikalia and of the Russian trade route to China and
Born to an expatriate Hungarian family, Polanyi was reared in England and attended Manchester University (Ph.D., 1952; D.Sc., 1964). He accepted a research position with the National Research Council
The son of Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy, and Margaret of Flanders, John was born in the ducal castle at Rouvres, where he spent the greater part of his childhood. In 1385 he married Margaret of Bavaria, and in the following decade
In 1865 Maxwell resigned his professorship at King's College and retired to the family estate in Glenlair. He continued to visit London every spring and served as external examiner for the Mathematical Tripos (exams) at Cambridge. In the spring and early summer of 1867 he toured Italy. But most of his energy during this period was devoted to writing his famous treatise on electricity
The son of Jan Malachowski, the royal grand chancellor, Malachowski was named marshal (speaker) of the Sejm (Diet) in 1788. He was the prime force behind a constitution, adopted in 1791, that embodied such modern western European
