by Two and a half centuries ago this year, the first comprehensive Dictionary of the English Language was published. The lexicographer (def. “a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge”) was Dr. Samuel Johnson, better known then as an essayist and moralist, and (as is more obvious now than then) a serious Christian in a deistic, even skeptical age. Nine years earlier, a bookseller named Robert Dodsley asked the 36-year-old Johnson about compiling a dictionary. Dodsley considered it a rebuke to national pride that England lacked anything to equal the great dictionaries of France and Italy, each the product of teams of academics. At first Johnson declined,
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UAE leader Mohammed bin Zayed has emerged as a power player in the Middle East â and in Washington. Here s everything you need to know:
Who is Mohammed bin Zayed? As crown prince of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, known as MBZ, is one of the most powerful leaders in the Middle East. Jutting out from the southeastern edge of Saudi Arabia, the UAE is a tiny federation of city-states, home to 1 million citizens and 8 million foreign workers. But it sits in a strategically crucial spot opposite Iran on the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway in the Persian Gulf through which much of the world s oil is exported. The UAE was founded 49 years ago by MBZ s father, Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, and in that time the Sunni Muslim nation has tran