Arab League

Arab League, an organization of Arab nations, officially called the League of Arab States.

Assassins

Assassins, in the original sense, members of a Muslim secret order of fanatics. The name, from the Arabic hashshashin , "hashish eaters," refers to the supposed practice of using the drug hashish to excite a religious fervor in members chosen to kill persons marked for death by the order's leaders.

Babylon

Babylon, the largest city of ancient Mesopotamia and capital of the Babylonian Empire.

Black Hole of Calcutta

Black Hole of Calcutta, a military jail. During the struggle between Great Britain and France for control of India in 1756, Siraj-ud-Daula, the Muslim nabob (deputy ruler) of Bengal, attacked the British and captured Fort William at Calcutta (now Kolkata).

East India Company

East India Company , the name given to a number of companies set up in the 17th and 18th centuries by various European countries to trade with the East Indies, India, and China.

Galatia

Galatia, in ancient times, a region in central Asia Minor, mostly within present-day Turkey.

Marco Polo

Polo, Marco (1254?-1324), an Italian traveler to the Far East. Marco Polo, his father, and his uncle are the first Europeans known to have crossed the entire width of Asia.

Montreux Convention

Montreux Convention, June, 1936, an international agreement signed at Montreux, Switzerland.

Nine-power Treaty

Nine-power Treaty, February 6, 1922, a treaty signed at Washington, D.C. The signers were China and the United States, Great Britain (for the British Empire), Japan, Italy, France, Belgium, Portugal, and the Netherlands, who agreed to respect the sovereignty, independence, and territorial and administrative integrity of China.

Roy Chapman Andrews

Andrews, Roy Chapman (1884–1960), a United States naturalist, explorer, and author.

Samurai

Samurai, the warrior class of feudal Japan. The samurai, also known as bushi (military gentry), were the elite fighters in the feudal armies of Japan.

Shogun

Shogun, the military governor of Japan for most of the period from 1192 to 1868. Japan since the fifth century B.C.

Sir Richard Burton

Burton , Sir Richard Francis (1821–1890), a British traveler, linguist, and author.

Straits Settlements

Straits Settlements, a former British crown colony in Southeast Asia, occupying coastal areas of the Malay Peninsula and nearby islands.

Turkestan

Turkestan, or Turkistan, a large, indefinite region in Central Asia. It extends eastward from the Caspian Sea through Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and southern Kazakhstan into Xinjiang in China.