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Possible definitions for qua

Guam
Island (pop., 1993 est.: 143,000), largest and southernmost of the Mariana Islands, Micronesia. Guam is an unincorporated U.S. territory; its capital is Agana. With an area of 209 sq mi (541 sq km), it is divided into a N plateau and a S chain of volcanic hills. The native people are the Chamorro, of Malayo-Indonesian stock with a considerable admixture of Spanish, Filipino, and Mexican. They speak Chamorro in addition to English, the official language. Possibly visited by F. Magellan in 1521, it was formally claimed by Spain in 1565 and remained Spanish for two centuries. It was ceded to the U.S. after the Spanish-Amer. War in 1898. In World War II the Japanese occupied the island 1941-44. It subsequently became a major U.S. air and naval base. In 1950 it was made a U.S. territory and placed under the Department of the Interior. The naval and air bases are the island's economic mainstay, followed by tourism.


Qutb
Egyptian religious leader and writer executed by Pres. G. A. Nasser. He was from a family of rural notables who had fallen on hard times. His most important book, Signposts, harshly criticized Nasser's rule. When the Muslim Brotherhood tried to assassinate Nasser in 1954, he was among those arrested and imprisoned (1954-64). Rearrested in 1966, he was accused of conspiracy, convicted of treason, and executed.


Adal
Historic Islamic state, E Africa, southwest of the Gulf of Aden, with its capital at Harer (now in Ethiopia). Its rivalry with Christian Ethiopia began in the 14th cent. In the 16th cent. Adal launched a series of attacks, led by Ahmed Gran, who succeeded by 1533 in gaining control of most of central Ethiopia. Gran was killed in battle in 1543, and the Oromo invasions of the later 16th cent. ended Adal's power.


Adana
City (pop., 1995: 1,066,000), S central Turkey, on the Seyhan River. An agricultural and industrial center and one of Turkey's largest cities, it probably overlies a Hittite settlement that dates from c.1400 BC. Conquered by Alexander the Great in 335-334 BC, it was later a Roman military station. It came under the rule of the Abbasid Arabs at the end of the 7th cent. AD and changed hands intermittently until the establishment of the Turkmen dynasty in 1378. Adana's prosperity has long derived from the fertile valleys behind it and its position as a bridgehead on the Anatolian-Arabian trade routes.


Adapa
Legendary sage of the Sumerian city of Eridu. Endowed with great intelligence by Ea but still mortal, he was the hero of the Sumerian myth of the Fall of Man. Adapa was fishing when he was blown into the sea by the S wind, whose wings he broke in rage. The heavenly doorkeepers Tammuz and Ningishzida interceded for him when he was summoned before Anu for punishment, but when Anu offered him the bread and water of eternal life, he refused, and humankind thus became mortal.


Agana
Town (pop., 1990: ...

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