20 



THE STANDARD DICTIONARY OF FACTS 



followed the subjugation of Yemen by the Turks 

 in ; :ith Century; their expulsion in 



the Seventeenth Century; the dominion of the 

 Portuguese over Muscat, 1508-1 (>.">!>; the con- 

 quests of Oman and the temporary victories 

 gained by the Persians at the close of tin 

 teenth Century; and, lastly, the appearance of 

 the Wahabees (1770), whose moral influent 

 still felt. The latter took an im|>ortnnt part in 

 the {political affairs of Arabia, hut their proiy 

 was interrupted ly Mehemet AH. the Pasha of 

 ;>t. \\ho subjugated the coast-country of 

 Hedjaz. with some parts of the coa-t oi Yemen. 

 and in 1818 gained a decisive advantage through 

 the victory of Ibrahim Pasha. The subsequent 

 events of" the year 1840. in Syria, compelled 

 Mehemet, ho\vt\.r. t.i concentrate hi> forces 

 and to resign all claims upon the territories i 

 lying beyond t Sea. Politically, Hedjaz, 



on, and El Hasa are really three Turkish 

 provinces; the Sinaitic peninsula is in Egyptian 

 hand-: England exercises much influence in 

 Hadraniaut through her |n> r--ion of Aden; 

 the Sultan of Oman is practically independent, 

 and in alliance with England; Nejd, the seat of 

 the once powerful Wahabee state, may be said 

 to be independent, though the Emir of Shomer, 

 or Shammer, its most powerful potentate, pays 

 a small annual tribute to the Sherif of Mecca, 

 in recognition of Turkish supremacy. 



A re ho n (Qr'kon). One of the chief magis- 

 trates of the city and commonwealth of Athens. 

 At first the Archon succeeded to the kings, and 

 had regal power. Their authority was then 

 divided among nine, and was made annual. In 

 the time of the Romans, the archonship was 

 merely titular and honorary. 



Argentine Republic. In 1515, Juan 

 Diaz da Solis, while searching for a passage into 

 the Great South Sea newly seen by Balboa, 

 entered the Rio de La Plata. In 1526, Sebastian 

 Cabot, son of the discoverer of Newfoundland, 

 penetrated nearly to the confluence of the Parana 

 and the Paraguay, being arrested by the rapids, 

 which afterwards gave name to Corrientes. In 

 1535, Buenos Ayres was founded, to command, 

 though indirectly, the most practicable channel 

 of the only outlet of the country, a city, which, 

 in conjunction with its own colony of Monte 

 Video, on the opposite bank, has virtually 

 monopolized the history of a region equal in 

 extent to Western Europe. Gradually other 

 cities were planted, partly by colonists from 



Spain, and partly by adventurers from Peru, 

 nerally giving its own name to its 

 own provnce. The chief staples of the country 



each city generall 



horses and cattle had been largely intro- 

 duced before 1552. Down to 1775, the basin 

 of the Rio de La Plata was a dependency of the 

 viceroyalty of Lima. In that year, however, 

 was erected the viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres, 

 which, to the basin in question, added Bolivia, 

 under the name of Upper Peru, thus embracing 

 the headwaters of the Amazon, and also most 

 of the plateau of Titicaca. The year 1806 

 ushered in a new order of things. Spain, as an 

 ally of France, being then at war witn England, 

 both Buenos Ayres and Monte Video were occu- 

 pied by the English a change which, brief as 

 was its duration, virtually sowed the seeds of 



revolution. The colonists had felt the incon- 

 venience of belonging to a state which left them, 

 in a great measure, to defend themselves; they 

 had successfully tried their strength against a 

 foe more powerful than their own masters; and 

 they had been encouraged not less by the say- 

 ings, than by the doings, of their invaders to 

 assert their independence. These influences 

 were, in f-ict. instantaneously exemplified. The 

 triumphant militia, after deposing and expelling 

 the legitimate viceroy for cowardice, elected in 

 his stead the French officer who had led them to 

 victory. Thus had the viceroyalty of Buenos 

 Ayres become peculiarly ripe for taking its share 

 in the outbreak, which Napoleon's dethrone- 

 ment of the Bourbons, in the spring of 1808, 

 almost immediately occasioned throughout Span- 

 ish America. The constituents of the Argentine 

 Republic did not, however, submit to the sov- 

 ereignty of Joseph Bonaparte when he was 

 shuffled on to the Spanish throne to replace 

 Ferdinand VII. In 1810, they organized a gov- 

 ernment in the name of the latter monarch. 

 This arrangement, which lasted only for a short 

 and inglorious period, ended, like a great many 

 others, in utter confusion. In 1816, a General 

 Congress declared the independence of the 

 "United Provinces of Rio de La Plata"; but 

 those provinces, in 1827, returned once more to 

 a state of isolation. In 1831, Buenos Ayres, 

 Entre Rios, Corrientes, and Santa F, sometimes 

 classed as the coast or riverine states, entered 

 into a federal compact, and invited the others 

 to form a voluntary alliance with them. This 

 Argentine Confederation led to little but anarchy 

 till 1835, when General Rosas was elected cap- 

 tain-general or governor of it, with all but 

 absolute power. He secured quiet and order for a 

 time; but the great aim of his policy, both 

 warlike and commercial, being to achieve the 

 supremacy of Buenos Ayres, the struggles with 

 this end in view, to which he was goaded on 

 also by personal ambition and reckless daring, 

 led to his ultimate overthrow in 1851. Buenos 

 Ayres, refusing to submit to Urquiza, the next 

 governor of the Argentine Republic, declared 

 itself independent in 1854; but was compelled 

 by a signal defeat at Cepeda in 1859 to reenter 

 the confederation. Continuing restless, how- 

 ever, another war, in which its army was ably 

 led by General Mitre", placed that province in 

 the position of supremacy which it still holds. 

 In 1865, the Argentine Republic became in- 

 volved along with Brazil and Uruguay in a 

 war against Paraguay, which ended only with 

 the death of Lopez, President of Paraguay, in 

 1870, and which accomplished little in the inter- 

 est or to the credit of the Argentine Republic. 

 In 1881, the Argentine Republic, in conjunction 

 with Chile, came into possession of Patagonia 

 and Tierra del Fuego. A financial crisis in 1890 

 did much to temporarily retard the industrial 

 progress of the republic. In 1906^07, immigra- 

 tion was encouraged on an extensive scale, and 

 railroad building received a renewed impetus. 



Arkansas. The name, derived from the 

 Indian, signifies "smoky water," with a French 

 prefix meaning "bow." The State was origin- 

 ally a portion of the Louisiana Territory pur- 

 chased from the French in 1803. When the 



