Olympias was the wife of Philip II of Macedonia and mother of Alexander the Great. She had a passionate and imperious nature, and she played important roles in the power struggles that followed the deaths of both rulers. The daughter of Neoptolemus, king of Epirus, Olympias apparently was

Berlin Olympic Stadium, stadium built for the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, part of a sport complex originally called the Reich Sports Field (German: Reichssportfeld), that is now used for international football matches. The Nazis were determined to make the 1936 Berlin Olympics a memorable

Olympic, British luxury liner that was a sister ship of the Titanic and the Britannic. It was in service from 1911 to 1935. To compete with the Cunard Line for the highly profitable transatlantic passenger trade, the White Star Line decided to create a class of liners noted more for comfort than

Olympic Airlines, Greek airline, formerly known as Olympic Airways, founded on April 6, 1957, by the Greek shipowner Aristotle Onassis (1906?–75) but, from 1975, wholly owned by the Greek government. Services from Greece into western Europe began in 1957, and by 1980 services extended throughout

Olympic Airlines, Greek airline, formerly known as Olympic Airways, founded on April 6, 1957, by the Greek shipowner Aristotle Onassis (1906?–75) but, from 1975, wholly owned by the Greek government. Services from Greece into western Europe began in 1957, and by 1980 services extended throughout

Olympic Airlines, Greek airline, formerly known as Olympic Airways, founded on April 6, 1957, by the Greek shipowner Aristotle Onassis (1906?–75) but, from 1975, wholly owned by the Greek government. Services from Greece into western Europe began in 1957, and by 1980 services extended throughout

measurement system: Greeks and Romans: …and 24 fingers equaled 1 Olympic cubit. The coincidence with the Egyptian 24 digits equaling 1 small cubit suggests what is altogether probable on the basis of the commercial history of the era, that the Greeks derived their measures partly from the Egyptians and partly from the Babylonians, probably via…

flag consisting of a white field bearing five equal interlocking rings of blue, dark yellow, black, green, and red with separations wherever two rings intersect. The width-to-length ratio of the flag is 2:3.In 1914, when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) held its 20th anniversary meeting in

How Does the Olympic Torch Stay Lit?: In 2000 the Olympic torch spent three minutes submerged in the Coral Sea.

Olympic Games, athletic festival that originated in ancient Greece and was revived in the late 19th century. Before the 1970s the Games were officially limited to competitors with amateur status, but in the 1980s many events were opened to professional athletes. Currently, the Games are open to

What do Paris, Helsinki, Atlanta, Beijing, and Tokyo have in common? They all have hosted the Olympics. As the foremost international sporting event, the Olympic Games have been held in cities around the world—though certain regions, notably Africa, have yet to play host. In years past, the bidding

flag consisting of a white field bearing five equal interlocking rings of blue, dark yellow, black, green, and red with separations wherever two rings intersect. The width-to-length ratio of the flag is 2:3.In 1914, when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) held its 20th anniversary meeting in

marmot: …young every year, but the Olympic marmot (M. olympus) of the Olympic Mountains in the United States bears young every other year.

Olympic Mountains, segment of the Pacific mountain system of western North America. They extend across the Olympic Peninsula south of the Juan de Fuca Strait and west of Puget Sound in northwestern Washington, U.S. The mountains began to form about 35 million years ago when the Juan de Fuca Plate

Olympic National Park, ecologically diverse area occupying much of the Olympic Peninsula in northwestern Washington, U.S. Originally established as a national monument in 1909 and redesignated a national park in 1938, it preserves the Olympic Mountains and their magnificent forests and wildlife. It

Seoul: Cultural life: Olympic Park, to the east of the Sports Complex, is an expansive green space containing more of the facilities built for the 1988 Olympics as well as a sculpture park, an Olympics museum, the Korean National University of Physical Education, and an earthen fortress from…

Washington: Relief and drainage: In the northwest the Olympic Peninsula borders the Pacific Ocean south of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Dense rainforests extend along the western slopes of the rugged Olympic Mountains, which rise to 7,965 feet (2,428 meters) on Mount Olympus.

ProCon Debates: Should Performance-Enhancing Drugs and Technologies Be Allowed in Sports?; Are the Olympic Games Worth the Cost to Their Host Countries and Cities? ProCon Issue in the News: Ryan James Wedding was not accused of doping during his snowboarding career, but the Canadian Olympian is now

Montreal: Cultural life: …Summer Games, has a sports stadium (Big O) seating more than 70,000 spectators; Montreal Tower, an inclined structure 540 feet (165 metres) tall with three observation floors that are accessible via cable car; Montreal Biodome, in which four separate ecosystems have been re-created; and a sports and fitness complex containing…

How Does the Olympic Torch Stay Lit?: In 2000 the Olympic torch spent three minutes submerged in the Coral Sea.

The Olympic Truce: The creation of the Ekecheiria, the Olympic truce, lies within the traditional story of the founding of the ancient Olympic Games. Two warring kings of the area around Olympia, Iphitos and Cleomenes, joined with the Spartan lawgiver Lycurgus in an agreement to hold the Games…

Olympic Valley, winter sports area in Placer county, northeastern California, U.S. It lies just northwest of Lake Tahoe. Olympic Valley, the focus of a state recreation area, was the site of the 1960 Winter Olympic Games, under its former name, Squaw Valley. It has ice-skating and rock-climbing

Helsinki 1952 Olympic Games: …were dropped, but a separate Olympic Village for Eastern bloc countries was created in Otaniemi. The Games themselves, however, were friendly, and by the end of the competition Soviet officials had opened their village to all athletes. The Helsinki Games marked the return of German and Japanese teams to Olympic…

Origins of the Olympic Winter Games, The first organized international competition involving winter sports was introduced just five years after the birth of the modern Olympics in 1896. This competition, the Nordic Games, included only athletes from the Scandinavian countries and was held

20th-century international relations: The atomic decision: …MacArthur to plan Operation “Olympic,” an invasion of Kyushu, for November 1. The second means, inducement, was clearly preferable, and on May 8, the day after the German surrender, President Harry S. Truman tried it. Unconditional surrender, he said, would mean “the termination of the influence of the military…

Olympic Games, athletic festival that originated in ancient Greece and was revived in the late 19th century. Before the 1970s the Games were officially limited to competitors with amateur status, but in the 1980s many events were opened to professional athletes. Currently, the Games are open to

There are few international events more highlighted and discussed than the biennial Olympics, the world’s foremost sports competition. But is hosting the Olympic Games really worth the cost to their host city and country? The Olympic Games were first held at the sacred site of Olympia, Greece (near

The use of performance-enhancing drugs among athletes competing in the Olympic Games is not new—as early as 1904, American runner Thomas Hicks was given doses of strychnine during the marathon at the Summer Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri. He ended up winning the race after the first-place finisher

With qualifications beginning on August 6, 2016, artistic gymnastics is a highly anticipated international sport. Artistic gymnastics is a separate Olympic sport from rhythmic gymnastics and trampoline, with events including floor exercise, pommel horse, rings, vault, parallel bars, and horizontal

Olympic athletics begins in Rio de Janeiro with the preliminary competitions. The popular sport known widely as track and field has especially high stakes this Olympic Games as returning champions and world-record breakers prepare to defend their titles. Jamaican athlete Usain Bolt is the favorite

Basketball has been played at the Olympic Games for 80 years and is the rare team spectator sport that maintains its popularity when played at the Games. Although arguably as popular (or more popular) worldwide, baseball lasted just 16 years as an official Olympic sport (although it has been added

In September 2015 the International Olympic Committee announced five candidate cities for the 2024 Summer Olympics: Rome, Hamburg, Paris, Budapest, and Los Angeles. However, hosting the Olympics has lost some of its luster. Of the five cities, Hamburg withdrew its bid in November 2015 after a

Cycling has been a part of the Olympic Games since the first modern Summer Olympics in 1896. Though there are four different cycling disciplines included as events—road, track, mountain bike, and bicycle motocross (BMX)—the only style of competition to be featured is racing (that means there are no

Three equestrian disciplines are featured at the Rio Olympics in both team and individual events: dressage, jumping, and eventing (the equine triathlon). Each discipline has its roots in the military. In fact, until 1948 only military officers were allowed to compete in equestrian Olympic events.

Whether you call it football or soccer, one thing is certain: it is the world’s most popular sport. According to some estimates, there are at least three billion football fans worldwide. The final of the 2018 men’s World Cup was watched by more than 3.5 billion TV viewers, while the women’s

Fighting sports were among the first contests to be included in the ancient Olympic Games. Only footraces predated wrestling, which was introduced in 708 BCE, and boxing made its debut as an event 20 years later. In 648 BCE pankration, an ancient precursor to modern mixed martial arts, became an

The 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro welcome back two sports to the Games: golf and rugby. Both sports earned enough votes at the 121st International Olympic Committee (IOC) Session in Copenhagen in 2009 to beat out baseball, karate, roller sports, squash, and softball for the two coveted

Tennis, badminton, and table tennis are the three racket sports featured during the Summer Olympics. Though all three have different origins and rules, the racket sports are bonded by their use of the handy projectile hitter that gives the grouping its name. Similar games have been played since

For decades, athletes have run, jumped, skated, and skied their way into Olympic history. The rest of us watch with wonder, stunned by their unbelievable achievements, left struggling to grasp the reality of their physical feats. To us, many Olympians seem like anomalies in the human continuum,

Volleyball was introduced to the Olympic Games in 1964, but before it became a competitive worldwide sport, it was a simple game developed at a Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) community center. In the city of Holyoke, Massachusetts, in 1895, William Morgan decided to create a new indoor

Dio Chrysostom: In Olympicus the sculptor Phidias explains the principles he followed in his famous statue of Zeus, one passage being supposed by some to have suggested the German dramatist Gotthold Lessing’s Laocoon. In On Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, Dio compares the treatment of the story of Philoctetes…

Sylvanus Olympio was a nationalist politician and the first president of Togo who was the first presidential victim of a wave of military coups that occurred in Africa in the 1960s. A leader of the Committee of Togolese Unity after World War II, Olympio was elected president of the first

Olympiodorus The Younger was a Neoplatonist philosopher who is famous for having maintained the Platonic tradition in Alexandria after the Byzantine emperor Justinian had suppressed the Greek Academy at Athens and other pagan schools in ad 529. Olympiodorus’ extant works include lucid and valuable

Timaeus: The Olympionikai (“Victors at Olympia”) was a synchronic list of victors in the Olympic Games, the kings and ephors of Sparta, the archons (magistrates) of Athens, and the priestesses of Hera at Argos. Timaeus’s work established the practice of dating by the Olympic Games that became…

Olympique de Marseille, French professional football (soccer) club founded in 1899 and based in Marseille. Established as a general sports club that originally focused on rugby, Olympique de Marseille won the first of 10 French Cup trophies in 1924 and its first French top-division (known as Ligue

Michael Essien: …in 2003 Essien transferred to Olympique Lyonnais in Lyon, France. He helped lead the team to league championships in both the 2003–04 and 2004–05 seasons, and in 2005 he was named France’s Player of the Year. Essien’s continued progression made him one of the most-coveted players in the world, and…

Carl Spitteler: …Prize) was the poetic epic Der olympische Frühling (1900–05; revised 1910; “The Olympic Spring”), in which he found full scope for bold invention and vividly expressive power. The last years of his life were given up to rewriting his first work. Tighter in composition than the early version and, like…

Mount Olympus, mountain peak, the highest (9,570 feet [2,917 metres]) in Greece. It is part of the Olympus massif near the Gulf of Thérmai (Modern Greek: Thermaïkós) of the Aegean Sea and lies astride the border between Macedonia (Makedonía) and Thessaly (Thessalía). It is also designated as Upper

Angela Bassett: …Service in the action thriller Olympus Has Fallen (2013) and its sequel London Has Fallen (2016). Her other films include Lee’s crime dramedy Chi-Raq (2015) and the action adventure Mission: Impossible—Fallout (2018). Bassett also played the mother of the character T’Challa (the Black Panther) in the Marvel Cinematic

Olympus Mons, volcano on the planet Mars, the highest point on the planet and the largest known volcano in the solar system. Centered at 19° N, 133° W, Olympus Mons consists of a central edifice 22 km (14 miles) high and 700 km (435 miles) across. Around its perimeter an outward-facing cliff

Olympic National Park: …found on the highest peak, Mount Olympus (7,965 feet [2,428 metres]), and on others. In all, there are some 250 glaciers in the park, although most are small and localized. The ocean shore section contains scenic beaches, islets, and points; three Indian reservations (of the Makah, Quileute, and Hoh tribes)…

Mount Olympus, mountain peak, the highest (9,570 feet [2,917 metres]) in Greece. It is part of the Olympus massif near the Gulf of Thérmai (Modern Greek: Thermaïkós) of the Aegean Sea and lies astride the border between Macedonia (Makedonía) and Thessaly (Thessalía). It is also designated as Upper

Cyprus: Relief: The range’s summit, Mount Olympus (also called Mount Troodos), reaches an elevation of 6,401 feet (1,951 metres) and is the island’s highest point.

Demosthenes: Leader of the democratic faction: …three stirring speeches (the “Olynthiacs”) to elicit aid for Olynthus, but the city fell the following year without significant help from Athens. Finally, Philip and the Athenians agreed in April 346 to the Peace of Philocrates; Demosthenes, partly to gain time to prepare for the long struggle he saw…

Olynthus, ancient Greek city situated on the Chalcidice Peninsula of northwestern Greece. It lay about 1.5 miles (2.5 km) inland from the Gulf of Torone of the Aegean Sea. A Thracian people called the Bottiaeans inhabited Olynthus until 479 bce, when Persian forces killed them and handed the town

Lena River: Physiography: …after the junction with the Olyokma River, and the width of the river reaches 1 mile (1.6 km). From the mouth of the Vitim to the Olyokma, the river skirts the Patom Plateau, on the right bank, forming an enormous bend; the width of the valley increases in places to…

Timothy Olyphant is an American actor who has appeared in a wide range of roles but is best known for portraying two lawmen on television: Sheriff Seth Bullock in Deadwood (2004–06) and Deadwood: The Movie (2019) and U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens in Justified (2010–15) and the miniseries Justified:

Timothy Olyphant is an American actor who has appeared in a wide range of roles but is best known for portraying two lawmen on television: Sheriff Seth Bullock in Deadwood (2004–06) and Deadwood: The Movie (2019) and U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens in Justified (2010–15) and the miniseries Justified:

Nicola Olyslagers is the first Australian woman to jump 2 meters (6 feet 6.74 inches) in the high jump. At the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games (held in 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic), the track-and-field athlete earned a silver medal and set a personal best record with a jump of 2.02 meters (6

Nicola Olyslagers is the first Australian woman to jump 2 meters (6 feet 6.74 inches) in the high jump. At the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games (held in 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic), the track-and-field athlete earned a silver medal and set a personal best record with a jump of 2.02 meters (6

om, in Hinduism and other religions chiefly of India, a sacred syllable that is considered to be the greatest of all the mantras, or sacred formulas. The syllable om is composed of the three sounds a-u-m (in Sanskrit, the vowels a and u coalesce to become o), which represent several important

Umm Kulthūm was an Egyptian singer who mesmerized Arab audiences from the Persian Gulf to Morocco for half a century. She was one of the most famous Arab singers and public personalities of the 20th century. Umm Kulthūm’s father was a village imam who sang traditional religious songs at weddings

Deepika Padukone: Actress and producer: …a Hindi film actress in Om Shanti Om. The slightly offbeat Finding Fanny (2014) showed her in the role of a young widow who sets off on a road trip to help a friend. Padukone starred in Piku (2015) opposite popular Bollywood actor Amitabh Bacchan, playing a daughter who tries…

Johan Ludvig Heiberg: Theoretically, he argued in Om Vaudevillen (1826; “About Vaudeville”), vaudeville as a genre was a synthesis of words and music that subsumed in its poetic realism both the lyrical and the epic and thus marked the highest form of comedy-drama. Besides his vaudeville pieces, Heiberg’s most frequently performed plays…

Tibet: Plant and animal life: …grow mainly in hilly regions), ’om-bu (bushlike trees with red flowers that grow near water), khres-pa (strong durable forest trees used to make food containers), glang-ma (a willow tree used for basketry), and rtsi-shings (the seeds of which are used for making varnish). Fruit-bearing trees and certain roots are used…

Rem Koolhaas: In 1975 he formed the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) with Elia and Zoe Zenghelis and Madelon Vriesendorp (at that time Koolhaas’s wife), with offices in Rotterdam and London.

Rhoma Irama is an Indonesian popular musician who was in large part responsible for the creation of dangdut dance music, a blend of Indonesian, Indian, Middle Eastern, and Western styles that amassed a tremendous following in Indonesia in the late 20th century. Born to a lower-middle-class family

Omagh, former district (1973–2015) within the former County Tyrone, now in Fermanagh and Omagh district, western Northern Ireland, made up of rolling lowlands and hills. It was bordered by the former districts of Strabane to the north, Magherafelt and Cookstown to the east, Dungannon to the south,

Omagh, town, Fermanagh and Omagh district, western Northern Ireland. Situated on the River Strule, Omagh is a market, shopping, and light-manufacturing centre for the district. Traditional crafts (such as table linens and crochet lace) continue to be produced in the town. It is also a major

Omagh bombing, terrorist attack in Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, on August 15, 1998, in which a bomb concealed in a car exploded, killing 29 people and injuring more than 200 others. The Omagh bombing, carried out by members of the Real Irish Republican Army (Real IRA, or New IRA), was

Eldorado: …legendary cities named Manoa and Omagua. In this quest, Gonzalo Pizarro crossed the Andes from Quito (1539), Francisco de Orellana sailed down the Napo and the Amazon (1541–42), and Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada explored eastward from Bogotá (1569–72). Sir Walter Raleigh searched for Manoa in the Orinoco lowlands (1595), while…

Hungarian literature: Earliest writings in Hungarian: It is known as Ómagyar Mária-siralom (c. 1300; “Old Hungarian Lament of the Virgin Mary”). The 14th century also produced translations of the legends of St. Margaret and St. Francis of Assisi. The Jókai codex, which contains the St. Francis legend, was written in about 1440 and is the…

poker: Omaha: The play and betting in Omaha are similar to Texas hold’em. However, instead of two hole cards, Omaha players are dealt four hole cards to start the betting. Then there is a flop of three community cards before the last round of betting. Furthermore,…

Omaha, North American Indian people of the Dhegiha branch of the Siouan language stock. It is thought that Dhegiha speakers, which include the Osage, Ponca, Kansa, and Quapaw as well as the Omaha, migrated westward from the Atlantic coast at some point in prehistory and that their early settlements

Omaha, city, seat (1855) of Douglas county, eastern Nebraska, U.S. It is situated on the west bank of the Missouri River opposite Council Bluffs, Iowa. Omaha is Nebraska’s biggest city and a regional manufacturing, transportation, trade, and service hub. From the 1890s through the mid-20th century

Omaha, (foaled 1932), American racehorse (Thoroughbred) who in 1935 became the third winner of the American Triple Crown—the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes. He was sired by Gallant Fox (winner of the Triple Crown in 1930) and was the only Triple Crown winner sired by a

Omaha Beach, second beach from the west among the five landing areas of the Normandy Invasion of World War II. It was assaulted on June 6, 1944 (D-Day of the invasion), by units of the U.S. 29th and 1st infantry divisions, many of whose soldiers were drowned during the approach from ships offshore

Kaukauveld, westward extension of the Kalahari (desert) in Namibia and extreme northwestern Botswana, locally called the omaheke (sandveld). It has an area of about 32,000 square miles (83,000 square km), lies east of the town of Grootfontein, and is bordered on the north and south by two

Omagh, town, Fermanagh and Omagh district, western Northern Ireland. Situated on the River Strule, Omagh is a market, shopping, and light-manufacturing centre for the district. Traditional crafts (such as table linens and crochet lace) continue to be produced in the town. It is also a major

omakase, Japanese word meaning to “leave to someone else,” which diners at Japanese sushi restaurants use to indicate that they are leaving their meal to the chef’s discretion. The term omakase can also refer to such a meal, which usually consists of a series of small servings or courses of sushi

Jean-Baptiste-Julien d’ Omalius d’Halloy was a Belgian geologist who was an early proponent of evolution. D’Omalius was educated first in Liège and afterward in Paris. While a youth he became interested in geology (over the protests of his parents) and, having an independent income, was able to

omalizumab, monoclonal antibody used in the treatment of moderate to severe allergic asthma, chronic spontaneous urticaria (hives), and nasal polyps. Omalizumab is the first monoclonal antibody designed to specifically block the effects of the antibody immunoglobulin E (IgE), which plays a key role

Oman, country occupying the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula at the confluence of the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. Much of the country’s interior falls within the sandy, treeless, and largely waterless region of the Arabian Peninsula known as the Rubʿ al-Khali. The region is still the

bullhead shark: …the Oman bullhead shark (H. omanensis) of the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea.

Arabian Desert: Physiography: The Oman Mountains divide short, steeply graded, northeast-sloping wadis from the less steep wadis sloping southwest into the eastern Rubʿ al-Khali.

national flag consisting of horizontal stripes of white, red, and green and, at the hoist, a vertical red stripe with the national coat of arms. The flag generally has a width-to-length ratio of 1 to 2, but ratios of 4 to 7 or 5 to 9 are sometimes used.A plain red flag was used in Oman as early as

Gulf of Oman, northwest arm of the Arabian Sea, between the eastern portion (Oman) of the Arabian Peninsula to the southwest and Iran to the north. The gulf is 200 miles (320 km) wide between Cape al-Ḥadd in Oman and Gwādar Bay on the Pakistan–Iran border. It is 350 miles (560 km) long and connects

Oman: History: This discussion focuses on Oman since the 18th century. For a treatment of earlier periods and of the country in its regional context, see history of Arabia.

John Wood Oman was a British Presbyterian theologian. After graduating from Edinburgh University and the theological college of the United Presbyterian Church, Oman studied in Germany. After serving as an assistant pastor in Paisley, Scot., he transferred to the ministry of the Presbyterian Church

eastern Africa: The Omani ascendancy: There ensued, after the Omani victory, a century during which, despite a succession of Omani incursions, the East African coast remained very largely free from the dominance of any outside power. Oman itself suffered an invasion by the Persians and was long distracted…

Arabia: Geology: The Omani highlands are geologically more closely related to the Zagros Mountains of western Iran than to other mountains in Arabia. (The sea is only about 50 miles wide at the Strait of Hormuz.)

Oman: Transportation and telecommunication: Government-owned Omantel (formerly known as General Telecommunications Organization) is Oman’s primary telecommunications provider. During the 1990s it instituted plans that increased the number of phone lines, expanded the fibre-optic network, and introduced digital technology. The Internet became available in 1997, with Omantel as the official provider.…

Omar Khadr case, the imprisonment, trial, and eventual release of Omar Khadr, a Toronto-born Canadian, captured by U.S. soldiers after a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002 when he was 15 years old. The only minor since World War II to be convicted of purported war crimes, Khadr was held for nearly 13

Omar Khayyam was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, and poet, renowned in his own country and time for his scientific achievements but chiefly known to English-speaking readers through the translation of a collection of his robāʿīyāt (“quatrains”) in The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1859), by the

Omar Vizquel: His autobiography, Omar! My Life on and off the Field, written with Bob Dyer, was published in 2002. Vizquel was inducted into the Cleveland Indians Hall of Fame in 2014 and the Latino Baseball Hall of Fame in 2015.

Ilhan Omar is an American policy analyst, organizer, public speaker, advocate, and politician who began representing Minnesota’s 5th congressional district, which includes Minneapolis and surrounding suburbs, in 2019. Upon her inauguration to the U.S. House of Representatives, she became the first

Mohammad Omar was an Afghan militant and leader of the Taliban (Pashto: Ṭālebān [“Students”]) who was the emir of Afghanistan (1996–2001). Mullah Omar’s refusal to extradite al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden prompted the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 that overthrew the Taliban government

Dome of the Rock, shrine in Jerusalem built by the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān in the late 7th century ce. It is the oldest extant Islamic monument. The structure is situated on a flat elevated plaza known to Muslims as al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf (“The Noble Sanctuary”) and to Jews as the

Mohammad Omar was an Afghan militant and leader of the Taliban (Pashto: Ṭālebān [“Students”]) who was the emir of Afghanistan (1996–2001). Mullah Omar’s refusal to extradite al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden prompted the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 that overthrew the Taliban government

artiodactyl: Digestive system: … (or paunch), the reticulum, the omasum (psalterium or manyplies)—which are all believed to be derived from the esophagus—and the abomasum (or reed), which corresponds to the stomach of other mammals. The omasum is almost absent in chevrotains. Camels have a three-chambered stomach, lacking the separation of omasum and abomasum; the…