Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Shop

0-9

Battle Creek ... Bay, Laguna de

Battle Creek: city, Calhoun county, south-central Michigan, U.S. It lies at the juncture of Battle Creek with the Kalamazoo River, 23 miles (37 km) east of Kalamazoo and 49 miles (79 km) ...
Battle of Brunanburh, The: Old English poem of 73 lines included in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the year 937. It relates the victory of the Saxon king Athelstan over the allied Norse, Scots, and ...
Battle of Maldon, The: Old English heroic poem describing a historical skirmish between East Saxons and Viking (mainly Norwegian) raiders in 991. It is incomplete, its beginning and ending both lost. The poem is ...
Battle, Kathleen: American opera singer, among the finest coloratura sopranos of her time.
battledore and shuttlecock: children's game played by two persons using small rackets called battledores, which are made of parchment, plastic, or rows of gut or nylon stretched across wooden frames, and shuttlecocks, made ...
Battleford: town, western Saskatchewan, Canada. It lies at the confluence of the Battle and North Saskatchewan rivers, opposite North Battleford. Established in 1876 as Fort Battleford, an outpost of the North ...
battlement: the parapet of a wall consisting of alternating low portions known as crenels, or crenelles (hence crenellated walls with battlements), and high portions called merlons. Battlements were devised in order ...
battleship: capital ship of the world's navies from about 1860, when it began to supplant the wooden-hulled, sail-driven ship of the line, to World War II, when its preeminent position was ...
Batu: grandson of Genghis Khan and founder of the Khanate of Kipchak, or the Golden Horde.
Batu Islands: group of three major islands and 48 islets, part of the Nias kabupaten (regency) of Sumatera Utara provinsi (province), Indonesia, west of Sumatra. The ...
Batu Pahat: port, West Malaysia (Malaya), on the Strait of Malacca at the mouth of the Batu Pahat River. It is a fishing town and a distribution centre; and, until the completion ...
Batumi: city and capital of Ajaria (Adzhariya), Georgia, on a gulf of the Black Sea about 9.5 miles (15 km) north of the Turkish frontier. The city's name comes from the ...
Baty, Gaston: French playwright and producer who exerted a notable influence on world theatre during the 1920s and '30s.
Batyushkov, Konstantin Nikolayevich: Russian elegiac poet whose sensual and melodious verses were said to have influenced the great Russian poet Aleksandr Pushkin.
Batz, Jean, baron de: royalist conspirator during the French Revolution.
Bau: in Mesopotamian religion, city goddess of Urukug in the Lagash region of Sumer and, under the name Nininsina, the Queen of Isin, city goddess of Isin, south of Nippur. In ...
Bauchau, Henry: Belgian novelist, poet, and playwright who was also a practicing psychoanalyst. Like his contemporary Dominique Rolin but unusually for a Belgian writer, Bauchau took his inspiration from psychoanalysis.
Bauchi: state, northeastern Nigeria. Before 1976 it was a province in former North-Eastern state. Bauchi is bounded by the states of Kano on the northwest; Kaduna on the west; Plateau, Taraba, ...
Bauchi: town, capital of Bauchi state and traditional emirate, northeastern Nigeria. Bauchi town lies on the railroad from Maiduguri to Kafanchan (where it joins the line to Port Harcourt) and has ...
Baudelaire, Charles: French poet, translator, and literary and art critic whose reputation rests primarily on Les Fleurs du mal (1857; The Flowers of Evil), which was ...
Baudissin, Wolf Heinrich, Graf von: German diplomat and man of letters who with Dorothea Tieck was responsible for many translations of William Shakespeare and thus contributed to the development of German Romanticism.
Baudot, Jean-Maurice-Emile: engineer who, in 1874, received a patent on a telegraph code that by the mid-20th century had supplanted Morse Code as the most commonly used telegraphic alphabet.
Baudouin de Courtenay, Jan Niecislaw: linguist who regarded language sounds as structural entities, rather than mere physical phenomena, and thus anticipated the modern linguistic concern with language structure. His long teaching career in eastern European ...
Baudouin I: king of the Belgians from 1951 to 1993, who helped restore confidence in the monarchy after the stormy reign of King Leopold III.
Bauer, Gustav: German statesman, chancellor of the Weimar Republic (1919-20).
Bauer, Harold: British-born American pianist who introduced to the United States works by Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, and Cesar Franck. His playing combined traits of both 19th-century Romanticism and 20th-century restraint and ...
Bauer, Otto: theoretician of the Austrian Social Democratic Party and statesman, who proposed that the nationalities problem of the Austro-Hungarian Empire be solved by the creation of nation-states and who, after World ...
Bauer, Sebastian Wilhelm Valentin: German pioneer inventor and builder of submarines.
Bauernfeld, Eduard von: Austrian dramatist who dominated the Vienna Burgtheater for 50 years with his politically oriented drawing room comedies.
Baugh, Sammy: first outstanding quarterback in the history of American professional gridiron football, who led the National Football League (NFL) in forward passing in 6 of his 16 seasons (1937-52) with the ...
Bauhaus: school of design, architecture, and applied arts that existed in Germany from 1919 to 1933. It was based in Weimar until 1925, Dessau through 1932, and Berlin in its final ...
Bauhin, Gaspard: Swiss physician, anatomist, and botanist who introduced a scientific binomial system of classification to both anatomy and botany.
Baul: member of an order of religious singers of Bengal known for their unconventional behaviour and for the freedom and spontaneity of their mystical verse. Their membership consists both of Hindus ...
Baule: an African people inhabiting Cote d'Ivoire between the Comoe and Bandama rivers. The Baule are an Akan group, speaking a Tano language of the Kwa branch of the Niger-Congo language ...
Baum, L. Frank: American writer known for his series of books for children about the imaginary land of Oz.
Baum, Vicki: Austrian-born American novelist whose Menschen im Hotel (1929; "People at the Hotel"; Eng. trans. Grand Hotel) became a best-seller and was adapted as a successful play (1930), an Academy Award-winning ...
Baumann Peak: mountain in southwestern Togo, near the border with Ghana. An extreme western outlier of the Atacora Chain of adjacent Benin, it rises to 3,235 feet (986 m) and is the ...
Baumbach, Rudolf: German writer of popular student drinking songs and of narrative verse.
Baumes Laws: several statutes of the criminal code of New York state, U.S., enacted on July 1, 1926-most notably, one requiring mandatory life imprisonment for persons convicted of a fourth felony. A ...
Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb: German philosopher and educator who coined the term aesthetics and established this discipline as a distinct field of philosophical inquiry.
Baumgartner, Bruce: American wrestler who won four Olympic medals and was one of the most successful American superheavyweights of all time.
Baunsgaard, Hilmar: Denmark's leading nonsocialist politician during the 1960s and '70s. He served as prime minister of a coalition government from 1968 until 1971.
Baur, Ferdinand Christian: German theologian and scholar who initiated the Protestant Tubingen school of biblical criticism and who has been called the father of modern studies in church history.
Bauria: extinct genus of advanced reptiles found as fossils in South African rocks of the Early Triassic Period (245 to 240 million years ago). The skull of Bauria had several mammallike ...
Bauru: city, central Sao Paulo estado (state), Brazil, lying near the Batalha River at 1,640 feet (500 metres) above sea level. Formerly known as Divino Espirito da Fortaleza, ...
Bauta: city, northwestern La Habana provincia, west-central Cuba. It is a commercial and manufacturing centre for the surrounding agricultural lands, known primarily for their tobacco and sugarcane, although pineapples and various ...
Bautzen: city, Saxony Land (state), eastern Germany. It lies in the Oberlausitz (Upper Lusatia) region, on a granite elevation above the Spree River. Bautzen was originally the Slavic ...
bauxite: rock largely composed of a mixture of hydrous aluminum oxides. Bauxite is the principal ore of aluminum.
Bavand Dynasty: (665-1349), Iranian dynasty that ruled Tabaristan in what is now northern Iran.
Bavaria: largest Land (state) of Germany. It comprises the entire southeast portion of Germany. Bavaria is bounded on the west by the Lander of Baden-Wurttemberg and Hesse, on the north by ...
Bavarian Alps: northeastern segment of the Central Alps along the German-Austrian border. The mountains extend east-northeastward for 70 miles (110 km) from the Lechtaler Alps to the bend of the Inn River ...
Bavarian cream: custard enriched with whipped cream and solidified with gelatin. Bavarian creams can be flavoured with chocolate, coffee, fruits, and the like and are usually molded in fancy shapes and garnished ...
Bavarian Forest: mountain region in east-central Bavaria Land (state), southeastern Germany. The Bavarian Forest occupies the highlands between the Danube River valley and the Bohemian Forest along Bavaria's eastern frontier with the ...
Bavarian State Picture Galleries: in Munich, museum composed of several collections, the major ones being the Neue Pinakothek, the Alte Pinakothek, and the Schack Gallery. It also embraces, however, the State Gallery of Modern ...
Bavarian Succession, War of the: (1778-79), conflict in which Frederick II the Great of Prussia blocked an attempt by Joseph II of Austria to acquire Bavaria.
bawu: Chinese single free-reed wind instrument, an aerophone particularly popular in southwestern China. It is played in a manner similar to that of playing the flute except that all the air ...
Bax, Sir Arnold: British composer whose work is representative of the neoromantic trend in music that occurred between World Wars I and II.
Baxter, Andrew: Scottish metaphysical rationalist who maintained the essential distinction between matter and spirit, resisting the more advanced British epistemology of his century.
Baxter, George: English engraver and printer who invented a process (patented 1835) of colour printing that made reproductions of paintings available on a mass scale.
Baxter, James K: poet whose mastery of versification and striking imagery made him a central figure among New Zealand writers after World War II.
Baxter, Richard: Puritan minister who influenced 17th-century English Protestantism. Known as a peacemaker who sought unity among the clashing Protestant denominations, he was the centre of nearly every major controversy in England ...
bay: concavity of a coastline or reentrant of the sea, formed by the movements of either the sea or a lake. The difference between a bay and a gulf is not ...
bay: in architecture, any division of a building between vertical lines or planes, especially the entire space included between two adjacent supports; thus, the space between two columns, or pilasters, or ...
Bay Bridge: complex crossing that spans San Francisco Bay from the city of San Francisco to Oakland via Yerba Buena Island. One of the preeminent engineering feats of the 20th century, it ...
Bay City: city, seat (1857) of Bay county, east-central Michigan, U.S. It lies along the Saginaw River near the latter's juncture with Saginaw Bay (Lake Huron), 13 miles (21 km) north of ...
Bay Islands: group of small islands of northern Honduras. They have an area of 101 square miles (261 square km) and lie about 35 miles (56 km) offshore in the Caribbean Sea. ...
bay leaf: leaf of the sweet bay tree, Laurus nobilis, an evergreen of the family Lauraceae, indigenous to countries bordering the Mediterranean. A popular spice used in pickling and marinating and to ...
Bay of Pigs invasion: (April 17, 1961), abortive invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs (Bahia de los Cochinos), on the southwestern coast by some 1,500 Cuban exiles opposed to Fidel Castro. The ...
Bay of Plenty: local government region, eastern North Island, New Zealand. It encompasses the narrow 100-mile- (160-kilometre-) long lowlands fronting the Bay of Plenty and extends from Matakana Island eastward to Cape Runaway. ...
bay owl: uncommon and atypical Asian owl classified with the barn owls (family Tytonidae). It has a heart-shaped facial disk, which has two earlike extensions that aid sound reception. The bay owl ...
Bay Psalm Book: (1640), perhaps the oldest book now in existence that was published in British North America. It was prepared by Puritan leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, ...
Bay Saint Louis: city, seat (1860) of Hancock county, southern Mississippi, U.S. It lies along Mississippi Sound (an embayment of the Gulf of Mexico) at the entrance to St. Louis Bay, 58 miles ...
bay tree: any of several small trees with aromatic leaves, especially the sweet bay, or bay laurel (Laurus nobilis), source of the bay leaf (q.v.) used in cooking. The California laurel (q.v.; ...
bay window: window formed as the exterior expression of a bay within a structure, a bay in this context being an interior recess made by the outward projection of a wall. The ...
Bay, Josephine Holt Perfect: American financier, the first woman to head a member firm of the New York Stock Exchange.
Bay, Laguna de: lake, the largest inland body of water in the Philippines, on Luzon just southeast of Manila. Probably a former arm or extension of Manila Bay cut off by volcanism, Laguna ...