Mysore, Maheshasoora, or Maisur. A raj or native principality of Southern India. It was ruled by Hyder Ali, who acquired the sovereignty in 1761, and afterwards by his son Tippoo Sahib, who was slain when Seringapatam (May 4, 1799) was stormed and taken, and the country occupied by the British, who set up, in the same year, an heir of the ancient Hindoo royal family of Mysore to rule in his stead. The state is now subsidiary to the British.
Mytilene, Mitylene, or Metelin. The city of Lesbos. At the beginning of the 7th century B.C., the possession of its colony, Sigeum, at the mouth of the Hellespont, was disputed in war between the Mytileneans and Athenians, and assigned to the latter by the award of Periander, tyrant of Corinth. Mytilene submitted to the Persians after the conquest of Ionia and Æolis, and furnished contingents to the expeditions of Cambyses against Egypt and of Darius against Scythia; it was active in the Ionian revolt; became again subject to Persia, and took part in the expedition of Xerxes against Greece. After the Persian war it formed an alliance with Athens, and remained one of the most important members of the Athenian confederacy. In 428 B.C. it headed a revolt of the greater part of Lesbos, the progress and suppression of which forms one of the most interesting episodes in the history of the Peloponnesian war. Mytilene fell under the power of the Romans after the Mithridatic war.
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Naas. A town of Ireland, in the county of Kildare, 18 miles southwest from Dublin. Here the insurgent Irish were defeated by a body of the king’s forces, May 24, 1798; the insurgents lost about 300 killed and many wounded.
Nabatæi, or Nabathæ (in the Old Testament Nebaioth). An Arabian people, descended from the eldest son of Ishmaël, had their original abodes in the northwestern part of the Arabian peninsula, east and southeast of the Moabites and Edomites. After the Babylonian conquest of Judæa, the Nabathæans extended west into the Sinaitic peninsula and the territory of the Edomites. They resisted all the attacks of the Greek kings of Syria. Under Augustus the Nabathæans are found, as nominal subjects of the Roman empire, assisting Ælius Gallius in his expedition into Arabia Felix; under Trajan they were conquered by A. Cornelius Palma, and Arabia Petræa became a Roman province, 105-107. The Mohammedan conquest finally overthrew the power of the Nabathæans.
Nachod. A town of Bohemia, near where the Prussians, under their crown prince, defeated the Austrians after a severe conflict, June 27, 1866. In this battle, the superiority of the Prussian Uhlans over the Austrian cavalry was demonstrated.
Nafels. A small town of Switzerland, in the canton of Glarus, 4 miles north from Glarus. Here in 1388, 1500 men of Glarus, under Matthias am Buhl, overthrew an Austrian force of from 6000 to 8000 men The event is still celebrated yearly.
Nagarkana. In the East Indies, the place where all the drums and war-music are kept, is so called.
Naggur (Ind.). The principal drum in Asiatic armies, commonly allowed only to persons of high dignity; the bass drum.