Main Page

New World Encyclopedia integrates facts with values. Written by certified experts.

Featured Article: Khaleda Zia

Khaleda Zia in 2010

Khaleda Zia (August 15, 1945 - December 30, 2025) was the Prime Minister of Bangladesh from 1991 to 1996, the first woman in the country's history to hold that position, and then again from 2001 to 2006. The widow of assassinated President of Bangladesh Ziaur Rahman, she became leader of his old party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. She was elected to five separate parliamentary constituencies in the general elections of 1991, 1996, and 2001, a feat never achieved by any other politician in Bangladeshi history. During her period in office, the leader of the official opposition was also a woman, Bangladesh's second female Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina. The bitter rivalry between these two women dominated Bangladeshi politics for two decades.

Popular Article: Thermoreception

Thermoreceptors of the skin sense the temperature of water

Thermoreception or thermoception is the sense by which an organism perceives the temperature of the external environment and the internal environment (body temperature). The process involves the impact made by heat energy (temperature) on specialized sense organs known as thermoreceptors, allowing living things to detect temperature. The sensory capacity to detect hot and cold temperatures allows automatic homeostatic mechanisms in warm-blooded animals to adjust internal temperatures to keep them stable at desired levels; it allows cold-blooded animals to adjust their behavior in ways favorable to those organisms.

Did you know?

Sir Walter Scott organized the visit of King George IV to Edinburgh in 1822, the first visit to Scotland by a reigning British monarch since Charles I of England visited in 1633 (source: Walter Scott)

> more interesting facts