He then joined the Milwaukee Bucks; in 1975 he was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. Standing 7 ft l 3 /8 in. (2 m 17 cm), he was the domi¬ nant centre of his time and helped his teams to six NBA titles. By the time he retired in 1989, he had scored a record 38,387 points. He also set the record for most field goals (15,837) and most minutes played (57,446).
He was voted Most Valuable Player a record six times.
Abdul Rahman Putra Alhaj
Vab-dul-ra-'man-'put-ro-al-'hajV Prince (b. Feb. 8, 1903, Alor Star,
Kedah, Malaya—d. Dec. 6, 1990,
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) First prime minister of independent Malaya (1957-63) and then of Malaysia (1963-70). He was educated in England and served in the Malayan Federal Legal Department (1949-51) before pursuing a career in politics. As president of the United Malays National Organization, Abdul Rahman brought Chinese and Indian politi¬ cal groups into the Alliance Party, which won an overwhelming majority in the 1955 election. He negotiated for Malayan independence from Brit¬ ain (achieved in 1957); the federation of Malaysia was formed in 1963.
Abdulhamid V.ab-dol-ha-'medV II (b. Sept. 21, 1842, Constanti¬ nople—d. Feb. 10, 1918, Constantinople) Sultan (1876-1909) of the Ottoman Empire under whose rule the Tanzimat reform movement reached its climax. After initially promoting the first Ottoman constitution (pri¬ marily to ward off foreign intervention), he suspended it 14 months later and ruled thereafter as a despot. He used Pan-Islamism to rally Muslim opinion outside his empire; the Hejaz Railway was built with foreign contributions. Discontent with his absolutist rule and resentment over European intervention in the Balkans resulted in his overthrow by the Young Turks in 1908. See also Mustafa Kemal Ataturk; Enver Pasha; Midhat Pasha.
Abdullahi See Abd Allah Abel See Cain and Abel
Abelard, Peter (b. 1079, Le Pallet, near Nantes, Brittany—d. April 21, 1142, Priory of Saint-Marcel, near Chalon-sur-Saone, Burgundy) French theologian and philosopher. The son of a knight, he abandoned his inheritance to study philosophy. He became private tutor to Heloise, niece of a canon in Paris, c. 1114. They fell in love; Heloi'se became pregnant, and they married secretly. Her uncle had Abelard castrated, after which he became a monk and Heloise became a nun. Abelard’s Theologia was condemned as heretical in 1121. He accepted election as abbot of a mon¬ astery in Brittany in 1125, but his relations with the community deterio¬ rated and he had to flee for his life. From c. 1135 Abelard taught at Mont-
Kareem orig. (Ferdinand)
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 1987.
STEPHEN DUNN/GETTY IMAGES
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Abenaki ► Abilene I 5
Sainte-Genevieve, where he wrote Ethica, in which he analyzed the notion of sin. In 1140 he was again condemned for heresy, and he withdrew to the monastery at Cluny. His influential Sic et non , a collection of appar¬ ently contradictory writings by church fathers on various topics, was intended to bring readers to the truth by wrestling with divergent opin¬ ions. He also wrote an autobiography, Historia calamitatum, and his best- known work is the series of letters he exchanged with Heloi'se after they retired to monasteries.
Abenaki \,a-b3-'na-ke\ or Abnaki Confederacy of Algonquian- speaking North American Indian peoples living mostly in Quebec, Can., and Maine, U.S. The contemporary Abenaki consider their home territory to be southern Quebec and the U.S. states of Vermont and New Hamp¬ shire, as well as parts of Maine and New York. Their name means “people of the dawn” or “easterners.” The name is applied to a number of groups— including Androscoggin, Kennebec, Maliseet, Ouarastegouiak, Passama- quoddy, Patsuiket, Penobscot, Pigwacket, Micmac, Pennacook, Rocameca, Sokoni, and Wewenoc—who formed the Abenaki confedera¬ tion in order to resist the Iroquois Confederacy, especially the Mohawk. In the 17th century the Abenaki sided with the French against the English, but, after severe defeats, they withdrew to Canada, many eventually set¬ tling at Saint-Frangois-du-Lac and Becancour, near Trois-Rivieres, in Quebec. There are also reservations in Maine and in New Brunswick, Can. The total population of Abenaki is about 12,000.
Abeokuta ya-'ba-o-.kii-taX City (pop., 2002 est.: 529,700), southwest¬ ern Nigeria. Located about 50 mi (80 km) north of Lagos, Abeokuta was established c. 1830 as a refuge from intertribal wars. It was the chief town of the Egba, who long maintained a working relationship with the Brit¬ ish; not until 1914 was it incorporated into British Nigeria. The modem town is an agricultural and exporting centre.
Aberdeen City, council area (pop., 2001: 212,125), and commercial port on the North Sea, eastern Scotland. It constitutes the council area of Aberdeen, an enclave within the surrounding council area of Aberdeen¬ shire, which was also the name of the historic county of which Aberdeen was the seat. Situated at the mouths of the Rivers Dee and Don, it is the chief port of northern Scotland. It was a royal burgh from the 12th cen¬ tury and a Scottish royal residence in the 12th-14th centuries. It supported Robert the Bruce in wars for Scottish independence, and for a time it was the headquarters of Edward I. From the 1970s Aberdeen developed rap¬ idly as the principal British centre of the North Sea oil industry and its associated service and supply industries.
Aberdeen, George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th earl of (b. Jan. 28, 1784, Edinburgh, Scot.—d. Dec. 14, 1860, London, Eng.) British foreign secretary and prime minister (1852-55). As special ambassador to Aus¬ tria in 1813, he helped form the coalition that defeated Napoleon. As for¬ eign secretary (1828-30, 1841-46), he settled boundary disputes between Canada and the U.S. with the Webster-Ashburton Treaty and the Oregon Treaty (see Oregon Question). As prime minister, he formed a coalition government, but his indecision hampered peacekeeping efforts and led to Britain’s involvement in the Crimean War. Constitutionally responsible for the mistakes of British generals in the war, he resigned in 1855.
Aberhart Va-bor-.hartA, William (b. Dec. 30, 1878, Kippen, Ont., Can.—d. May 23, 1943, Vancouver, B.C.) Canadian politician and the country’s first Social Credit Party premier (Alberta, 1935-43). Aberhart was a high school principal in Calgary, Alta. (1915-35). An active lay preacher, he founded the Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute (1918). In 1932 he used his evangelical rhetoric to promote monetary-reform theories to solve the economic problems created in Alberta by the Great Depression, proposing to issue dividends (social credit) to each person, based on the real wealth of the province. When his party won a majority in the 1935 provincial election, he became premier and minister of education, but his social-credit proposals were disallowed by the federal government.
Abernathy Vab-or-.nath-eN, Ralph David (b. March 11, 1926, Lin¬ den, Ala., U.S.—d. April 17, 1990, Atlanta, Ga.) U.S. pastor and civil rights leader. He was educated at Alabama State University and Atlanta University. Ordained a Baptist minister in 1948, he became pastor of the First Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala., in 1951. He met Martin Luther King, Jr., a few years later when the latter became pastor of another Bap¬ tist church in Montgomery. In 1955-56 the two men organized a nonvio¬ lent boycott of the city bus system, marking the beginning of the U.S. CIVIL rights movement. In 1957 they founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Abernathy became its president on King’s assassination in
1968; in 1977 he resigned to resume work as a pastor in Atlanta. His autobiography, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, appeared in 1989.
aberration Deviation of light rays by LENSes or curved mirrors which causes the images to be blurred. Spherical aberration occurs because cur¬ vature in a lens or mirror causes rays falling on the outer edges to be brought to a focus at a different point than those falling on the middle. This makes the images formed appeal - blurred. Chromatic aberration, which occurs in lenses but not mirrors, is the failure of a lens to focus all colours (wavelengths) of light in the same plane; the image appears blurred and shows rainbow-coloured fringes around the edges. See also astigmatism.