Baku Baku , sometimes known as Baky or Baki, is the capital and the largest city of Azerbaijan. It is located on the southern shore of the Absheron, at . Modern Baku consists of three parts: the Old Town , the boomtown and the Soviet Union-built town.
	Balaclava A balaclava, balaclava helmet or ski mask is a form of headgear covering the whole head, exposing only the face. The name "balaclava" comes from the town of Balaklava in Crimea. During the Crimean War, knitting balaclavas were sent over to the British army to help protect them from the bitter cold weather.
	Balalaika The balalaika is a stringed instrument of Russian origin, with a characteristic triangle body and 3 strings .
	Balance of payments The balance of payments measures the payment that flow between any individual country and all other countries. It is used to summarize all international economics transactions for that country during a specific time period, usually a year. The BOP is determined by the country's exports and imports of Good, service, and financial capital, as well as Transfer_Payments .
	Balance of trade The balance of trade is the difference between the monetary value of exports and International trades in an economy over a certain period of time. A positive balance of trade is known as a trade surplus and consists of exporting more than your imports; a negative balance of trade is known as a trade deficit or, informally, a trade gap.
	Balance wheel The balance wheel is the part of a mechanical watch that facilitates even passage of time, analogous to a pendulum in a pendulum clock. The balance wheel rotates in both directions, and its movement is controlled by the balance spring. As the wheel rotates back and forth, the impulse jewel strikes the pallet fork, which in turn allows the escapement to advance.
	Balanus Balanus is a genus of barnacles. It belongs to the phylum Arthropoda. Balanus amphitrite is small about 1.5 cm diameter. The color is whitish with purple or brown longitudinal stripes. Surface of test plates are longitudinally ribbed. The interlocking tergum and scutum, the paired structures which cover the animal inside are as pictured below.
	Balarama In Hinduism, Balarama is the elder brother of Krishna. Most South Indian Hindu traditions and many branches of Vaishnavism regard Balarama as being the ninth avatar of Vishnu. In either tradition, Balarama is acknowledged as being a manifestation of Shesha, the divine serpent on whom Vishnu rests.
	Balatá Balat is a species of Manilkara native to a large area of northern South America, Central America and the Caribbean. It is also the natural latex made from its sap. Balat is a large tree growing to 30-45 m tall. The leaf are alternate, elliptical, entire, and 10-20 cm long.
	Balbriggan Balbriggan is a town(Pop. 11,132) in North Dublin, Republic of Ireland, now forming part of Fingal. In recent years the town has been referred to as "the Brig" by some young local residents. According to P.W. Joyce the name arises from "Baile Bhrecan" which literally means "Bhrecan's Town").
	Balcony Balcony, a kind of platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade. The traditional Maltese balcony, is a wooden closed balcony projecting from a wall. Alternatively it does not protrude out of the building, but is an open part of an upper floor, with a balustrade only at the front, and walls on the sides.
	Bald Eagle The Bald Eagle , also known as the American Eagle, is a bird of prey found in North America, most recognizable as the national bird of the United States. The species was on the brink of extinction in the USA late in the 20th century, but now has a stable population and is in the process of being removed from the Federal government of the United States's list of endangered species.
	Bald-faced hornet The Bald-faced hornet Dolichovespula maculata is not a true hornet at all. It is actually more closely related to another type of American wasp called the yellowjacket than it is to true hornets like the Asian giant hornet or European hornet, but the term "hornet" is often used colloquially to refer to any vespine with an exposed aerial nest.
	Baldachin A baldachin, or baldaquin, is a canopy of state over an altar or throne, It had its beginnings as a cloth canopy,Baldac is a medieval Latin form for Baghdad, whence fine silks reached Europe. but in other cases it is a sturdy, permanent Architecture feature, particularly over high altars in cathedrals.
	Balder Balder is, in Norse Mythology, the god of innocence, beauty, joy, purity, and peace, and is Odin's second son. His wife is called Nanna and his son Forseti. Balder had a ship, the largest ever built, named Hringhorni, and a hall, called Breidablik. Phol may have been a German name for Balder, based on the second Merseburg Incantations, where the same person seems to be referred to as Phol and Balder.
	Baldness Baldness is a trait which involve the state of lacking hair where it often grows, especially on the head. The most common form of baldness is a progressive hair thinning condition called androgenic alopecia or 'male pattern baldness' that occurs in adult human males and some primate species.
	Baldrick Baldrick is a fictional character featured in the television series Blackadder. He serves as the servant, sidekick, and frequent punching bag of Edmund Blackadder, and is played by the actor Tony Robinson. Just as Blackadder exists in many incarnations throughout the ages, so does Baldrick; wherever there is a Blackadder there is a Baldrick serving him.
	Balé Bal? is one of the 45 Provinces of Burkina Faso of Burkina Faso, located in its Boucle du Mouhoun Region with Boromo as capital. Its area is 4,595 km?, and in 2006 had a population of 213,897. Most people in the province live in rural areas; 199,012 Burkinab? live in the countryside with only 14,885 people residing in urban areas.
	Balearic Islands The Balearic Islands are an archipelago in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the coast of Spain. They form one of the Autonomous Communities of Spain, the Autonomous Community of the Balearic Islands. The Community's capital city is Palma de Mallorca. Its only province is also called Illes Balears.
	Baleen Baleen is a substance made of keratin and is therefore stiff but somewhat elastic. Whalebone is a modification of the epidermis. A bony mineral, hydroxylapatite, is also present in baleen in small amounts, along with traces of manganese, copper, boron, iron, and calcium.
	Baleen whale The baleen whales, also called whalebone whales or great whales, form the Mysticeti, one of two suborders of the Cetacea. Baleen whales are characterized by having baleen plates for filtering food from water, rather than having teeth. This distinguishes them from the other suborder of cetaceans, the toothed whales or Odontoceti.
	Bali Bali is an Indonesian island located at , one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, and one of the country's 33 Provinces of Indonesia. It is in a chain with Java to the west and Lombok to the east. Bali is a tourism destination and, along with Java, known for its highly developed arts, including dance, sculpture, painting, leather and metalworking, and music, especially that played on the gamelan.
	Balkan Mountains The Balkan mountain range is an extension of the Carpathian Mountains mountain range, separated from it by the Danube River. The range runs 560 km from eastern Serbia eastward through central Bulgaria to Cape Emine on the Black Sea. The highest peak on the Balkan peninsula is Musala in the Rila mountains near Sofia with 2,925 m, closely followed by Mount Olympus in Greece and Vihren.
	Balkan Wars The Balkan Wars were two wars in South-eastern Europe in 1912-1913 in the course of which the Balkan League first conquered Ottoman Empire-held Macedonia , Albania and most of Thrace and then fell out over the division of the spoils. The background to the wars lies in the incomplete emergence of nation-states on the fringes of the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century.
	Balkans The Balkans is the historic and geographic name used to describe a subregion of southeastern Europe. The region has a combined area of 1 E11 m and a population of around 53 million. The archaic Greek language name for the Balkan Peninsula is the Peninsula of Haemus .
	Ball Balls are usually hollow and sphere but can be other shapes, such as ovoid or solid . In most games using balls, the play of the game follows the state of the ball as it is hit, kicked, or thrown by players.
	Ball bearing A ball bearing is a common type of rolling-element bearing, a kind of bearing. The term ball bearing sometimes means a bearing assembly which uses spherical bearings as the rolling elements. It also means an individual ball for a bearing assembly. The remainder of this entry uses the term ball for the individual component and ball bearing or just "bearing" for the assembly.
	Ball of Fire Ball of Fire is a 1941 in film comedy film by Billy Wilder. The story of a group of stuffy professorial encyclopedia and their encounter with a nightclub performer, the film stars Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Oskar Homolka, Henry Travers, Richard Haydn, Dana Andrews, Dan Duryea and Elisha Cook Jr..
	Ball valve A ball valve is a valve that opens by turning a handle attached to a sphere inside the valve. The ball has a hole, or port, through the middle so that when the port is in line with both ends of the valve, flow will occur. When the valve is closed, the hole is perpendicular to the ends of the valve, and flow is blocked.
	Ball-peen hammer A ball-peen hammer is a type of peening hammer used in metalworking. It is distinguished from a point-peen hammer or chisel-peen hammer by having a hemispherical peening head. Though the process of peening has become rarer in metal fabrication, the ball-peen hammer remains useful for many tasks such as tapping punches and chisels.
	Ballerina A ballerina is a female ballet dancer. A male ballet dancer is called a danseur. Although the term ballerina is used for any female ballet dancer, it was originally a rank given to an exceptional ballet soloist in the Russian Imperial Ballet. The rankings, from highest to lowest, were:
	Ballet Ballet is a specific dance form and ballet technique. Works of dance choreography using this technique are called ballets, and may include dance, Mime artist, acting, and ballet . Ballets can be performed alone or as part of an opera.
	Ballet Master Ballet Master is the term used for an employee of a ballet company who is responsible for the level of competence of the dancers in their company. Ballet masters are generally charged with teaching the daily company ballet class and rehearsing the dancers for both new and established ballets in the repertoire.
	Ballista The ballista was a powerful ancient crossbow. Early versions ejected heavy dart s or spherical stone projectiles of various sizes. It developed into a smaller sniper weapon . It is considered to be the most complex weapon made before the Industrial Revolution and the only pre-industrial weapon to be designed scientifically.
	Ballistic missile A ballistic missile is a missile that follows a sub-orbital, ballistics flightpath with the objective of delivering a warhead to a predetermined target. The missile is only guided during the powered phase of flight and its course is governed by the laws of orbital mechanics and ballistics.
	Ballistic Missile Defense Organization The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization is an agency of the United States Department of Defense. It was known as the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization until it was renamed by the administration of President Bill Clinton in 1993. This change in name was accompanied by a shift in emphasis from national missile defense to theater missile defense, i.e.
	Ballistics Ballistics is the science that deals with the motion, behavior, and effects of projectiles, especially bullets, gravity bombs, rockets, or the like; the science or art of designing and hurling projectiles so as to achieve a desired performance.
	Balloon A balloon is a flexible bag normally filled with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide or Earth's atmosphere. Some balloons are purely decorative, others are used for specific purposes. Early balloons were made of dried animal urinary bladders. Modern balloons can be made from materials such as rubber, latex, chloroprene or a nylon fabric.
	Ballot A ballot is a device used to record choices made by voters. Each voter uses one ballot, and ballots are not shared. In the simplest elections, a ballot may be a simple scrap of paper on which each voter writes in the name of a candidate, but governmental elections use either pre-printed or electronic ballots, in a wide variety of designs.
	Ballot box A ballot box is a temporarily sealed container, usually cuboid, with a narrow slot in the top sufficient to accept a ballot in an election but which prevents anyone from accessing the votes cast until the close of the voting period. It will usually be located in a polling station although in some countries, notably Ireland, there may also be ballot boxes that are taken to people's homes where they would otherwise be unable to travel to the polling station.
	Ballpoint pen A ballpoint pen, also eponymously known in British English as a biro , is a modern writing instrument. Ballpoint pens have an internal chamber filled with a viscosity ink that is dispensed at the tip during use by the rolling action of a small metal sphere ; the ink dries almost immediately after contact with paper.
	Ballroom A ballroom is a large room inside a building, the designated purpose of which is holding formal dances called balls. Traditionally, most balls were held in private residences; many mansions contain one or more ballrooms. In other large houses, a large room such as the main drawing room, long gallery, or hall may double as a ballroom, but a good ballroom should have the right type of floor.
	Ballroom dance Ballroom dance, refers collectively to a set of partner dances, which originated in the Western world and are now enjoyed both social dance and competitive dance around the globe. Its performance dance and entertainment aspects are also widely enjoyed on Theater, in film, and on television.
	Ballyhoo The ballyhoo or bally is a baitfish of the halfbeak family. It is similar to the Balao halfbeak. Ballyhoo are frequently used as cut bait and for trolling purposes by salt water sportsmen. Ballyhoo is also used in colloquial English to refer to brashness or flamboyance.
	Balmoral Castle Balmoral Castle is a large mansion situated in the area of Aberdeenshire, Scotland known as Royal Deeside. The estate was purchased by Victoria of the United Kingdom consort Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and remains a favourite summer royal residence.
	Balsam Fir The Balsam Fir is a North American fir, native to most of eastern and central Canada and the northeastern United States. It is a small to medium-size evergreen tree typically 14-20 m tall, rarely to 27 m tall, with a narrow conic crown. The bark on young trees is smooth, grey, and with resin blisters, becoming rough and fissured or scaly on old trees.
	Balsam poplar The balsam poplars Populus sect. Tacamahaca are a group of about 10 species of poplars, indigenous to North America and eastern Asia, distinguished by the balsam scent of their buds, the whitish undersides of their leaf, and the leaf petiole being round in cross-section.
	Balsaminaceae Balsaminaceae is a family of dicotyledonous plants, comprising two genera and 850+ species of which all but one belong to Impatiens is by far the largest. The flowering plants may be annual plant or perennial and are found throughout temperate and tropical regions, including North America, Asia, Europe and Africa.
	Baltic Republics The term Baltic Republics referred to the three Republics of the Soviet Union of Estonian SSR, Latvian SSR, and Lithuanian SSR. They were so-called in Soviet contexts because they made up most of that country's coast on the Baltic Sea. The sovereign nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, who had gained sovereignty in 1918, were Occupation of Baltic Republics in 1940.
	Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is located in Northern Europe, from 53N to 66N latitude and from 20E to 26E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Northern Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Europe, and the Denmark islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the resund, the Great Belt and the Little Belt.
	Baltimore Oriole The Baltimore Oriole, Icterus galbula, is a small icterid, 18 cm long and weighing 34 g. Adults have a pointed bill and white bars on the wings. The adult male is orange on the underparts, shoulder patch and rump with black everywhere else. The adult female is yellow-brown on the upper parts with darker wings, dull orange on the breast and belly.
	Baltimore Orioles The Baltimore Orioles are a Major League Baseball team based in Baltimore, Maryland. They are in the American League East of the American League. They are owned by attorney Peter Angelos.
	Baluster A baluster is a moulded shaft, square or circular, in stone or wood and sometimes in metal, supporting the coping of a parapet or the handrail of a stairway, an assemblage of them being known as a "balustrade". The earliest examples are those shown in the bas-reliefs representing the Assyrian palaces, where they were employed as window balustrades and apparently had Ionic order capitals.
	Bamako Bamako, population about 1,500,000 , is the capital of Mali, and is the biggest city in the country. It is located on the Niger River, in the southwestern part of the country. Bamako is the nation's administrative center, as well as a river port and a major regional trade center.
	Bamboo Bamboos are a group of woody perennial evergreen plants in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Some of its members are giants, forming by far the largest members of the grass family. There are 91 genera and about 1,000 species of bamboo.
	Bamboo Curtain The Bamboo Curtain was the east Asian version of the Iron Curtain. It marked the border between the communist states of East Asia, especially the People's Republic of China during the Cold War, but excluding the eastern Soviet Union. The term was less often applied to the border between North Korea and South Korea or the flexible border between Communism and the west in Southeast Asia.
	Bambusa Bambusa is a large genus of clumping bamboos. These species are usually giant ones, with numerous branches at a node and one or two much larger than the rest. They are found in Tropics and subtropical areas of Asia, especially in the monsoon and wet Tropics.
	Banana Banana is the common name used for herbaceous plants in the genus Musa , which because of their size and structure, are often mistaken for trees. Bananas are cultivated for their fruit which bear the same name, and to a lesser extent as ornamental plants. Bananas are of the family Musaceae.
	Banana Boat Banana Boat is a Poland male vocal quintet, specializing in contemporary songs of the sea as well as in close-harmony interpretations of classical sea shanty, and recently also experimenting with other genres of music. The group was founded in 1994, and suspended activity 1996–1998, but returned to stage at the end of 1998 with a new lineup.
	Banana bread Banana bread is a sweet, cakelike bread which contains mashed bananas. Banana bread is a quick bread which typically uses sodium bicarbonate as the leavening agent instead of yeast. Rather than dough, the bread is baked from thick batter, which does not require kneading.
	Banana Republic Banana Republic is a chain of "casual luxury" clothes stores owned by Gap, which also operates Gap, Old Navy, and Forth & Towne clothing stores. The original Banana Republic was founded by Mel Ziegler and Patricia Ziegler in 1978.
	Banana split A banana split is an ice cream-based dessert. In its classic form it is served in a long dish called a "boat". A banana is cut in two lengthwise and laid in the dish. Variations abound, but the classic banana split is made with scoops of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice cream served in a row on the split banana.
	Banana Splits The Banana Splits Adventure Hour, syndicated as The Banana Splits and Friends Show, was an hour-long United States package television program featuring both live action and animation segments, that ran for 31 episodes on National Broadcasting Company Saturday morning cartoon from September 7, 1968 to September 5, 1970.
	Band saw A band saw is a saw that can be used for woodworking, metal working, and a variety of other materials. It gets its name from its blade, consisting of a narrow band of toothed metal. This band rides on two wheels in the same vertical plane with a space between them. Band saws are particularly useful for cutting irregular shapes.
	Band-tailed Pigeon The Band-tailed Pigeon, Patagioenas fasciata, is a medium-sized bird of the Americas. It ranges from British Columbia, Utah, and Colorado south in higher elevations through Mexico and Central America to northern Argentina. In autumn it bird migration out of the part of its range north of California, New Mexico, and west Texas.
	Bandage A bandage is a piece of material used to support a medical device such as a dressing or splint. Other than an Sticking plaster, tape in its many varieties is probably the most commonly used bandage, but bandages can and often are improvised as needed.
	Bandicoot A bandicoot is any of about 20 species of small to medium-sized, terrestrial marsupial omnivores in the order Peramelemorphia. The word bandicoot is an anglicised form of the Telugu language word pandi-kokku, which originally referred to the unrelated Indian Bandicoot Rat.
	Bandstand A bandstand is a circular or semicircular structure set in a park, garden, or pier, designed to accommodate musical bands performing outdoor concerts. A simple construction which not only creates an ornamental focal point it also serves acoustic requirements whilst providing shelter for the changeable weather. Many bandstands in the United Kingdom originated in the Victorian era as the British brass band movement gained popularity.
	Bandung Bandung, /b?nd??/, is the provincial capital of West Java, Indonesia.
	Bandwidth Bandwidth is a measure of frequency range and is typically measured in hertz. Bandwidth is a central concept in many fields, including information theory, radio communications, signal processing, and spectroscopy. Bandwidth also refers to data rates when communicating over certain media or devices.