Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Shop

0-9

diving ... Dobzhansky, Theodosius

diving: sport of plunging into water, usually head foremost, performed with the addition of gymnastic and acrobatic stunts. In its more elaborate, acrobatic form, diving originated in Europe early in the ...
diving bell: small diving apparatus that is used to transport divers between the seafloor or lower depths and the surface. Early bells consisted of a container open only at the bottom, usually ...
diving duck: any duck that obtains its food by diving to the bottom in deep water rather than by dabbling in shallows (see dabbling duck). On the basis of kinship and to ...
diving petrel: any of five species of small seabirds of the sub-Antarctic regions that constitute the family Pelecanoididae (order Procellariiformes). Although their nearest relatives are the storm petrels, shearwaters, and albatrosses, diving ...
diving suit: watertight costume for underwater use, connected to the surface or to a diving bell by a tube that provides the wearer with air. The suit, invented early in the 19th ...
Divini, Eustachio: Italian scientist, one of the first to develop the technology necessary for producing scientific optical instruments.
divining rod: instrument used in dowsing (q.v.).
Divinopolis: city, south-central Minas Gerais estado (state), Brazil. It is situated in highlands at 2,205 feet (672 metres) above sea level, near the Para River. It was made ...
division: in modern military organizations, the smallest formation that comprises a balanced team of all the arms and services needed for the independent conduct of operations. It usually numbers between 12,000 ...
divisionism: in painting, the practice of separating colour into individual dots or strokes of pigment. It formed the technical basis for Neo-Impressionism. Following the rules of contemporary colour theory, Neo-Impressionist artists ...
Divo: town, south-central Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast). It is the chief collecting centre among the Dida people for the bananas, pineapples, coffee, cocoa, timber, and rubber grown in the surrounding area ...
divorce: the act by which a valid marriage is dissolved, usually freeing the parties to remarry. In regions in which ancient religious authority still predominates, divorce may be difficult and rare, ...
Divrigi: town, central Turkey. It is situated near the Caltisuyu River, which is a tributary of the Euphrates. The town lies near the end of a fertile valley surrounded by orchards ...
Diwali: one of the major religious festivals in Hinduism, lasting for five days from the 13th day of the dark half of the lunar month Ashvina to the second day of ...
diwani script: cursive style of Arabic calligraphy developed during the reign of the early Ottoman Turks (16th-early 17th century). It was invented by Housam Roumi and reached its height of popularity under ...
Diwaniyah, ad-: town, south-central Iraq. The town lies in a riverine area about 20 miles west of a channel of the Euphrates River, and some nearby areas are under irrigation. Agriculture is ...
Dix, Dorothea Lynde: American educator, social reformer, and humanitarian whose devotion to the welfare of the mentally ill led to widespread reforms in the United States and abroad.
Dix, John Adams: political leader and U.S. Army officer who, as secretary of the treasury of the United States (1861), issued to a treasury officer in New Orleans the famous order: "If any ...
Dix, Otto: German painter and engraver who mixed compassion and Expressionist despair to create works harshly critical of society. He was associated and exhibited with the Neue Sachlichkeit (q.v.) group of painters.
Dixie: the Southern U.S. states, especially those that belonged to the Confederate States of America (1860-65). The name came from the title of a song composed in 1859 by Daniel Decatur ...
Dixiecrat: member of a right-wing Democratic splinter group in the 1948 U.S. presidential election organized by Southerners who objected to the civil rights program of the Democratic Party. It met at ...
Dixieland: in music, a style of jazz, often ascribed especially to the New Orleans pioneers of that movement, although many critics of popular music believe the term better describes the music ...
Dixon: city, seat (1839) of Lee county, northwestern Illinois, U.S. It lies on the Rock River, about 100 miles (160 km) west of Chicago. The area was settled in 1828 by ...
Dixon Entrance: narrow passage (50 mi [80 km] wide) of the eastern North Pacific, stretching 50 mi east from the open ocean to Hecate Strait (Canada). The Alexander Archipelago of southeastern Alaska ...
Dixon, George: English navigator whose exploration of the western coast of North America helped to establish a profitable English fur trade in what is now British Columbia.
Dixon, George: Canadian-born American boxer, the first black to win a world boxing championship. He is considered one of the best fighters in the history of the bantamweight and featherweight divisions (present ...
Dixon, Henry Horatio: Irish botanist who investigated plant transpiration and, with John Joly, developed the tension theory of sap ascent.
Dixon, Jeremiah: British surveyor who, working with fellow surveyor Charles Mason, established the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania, known since as the Mason and Dixon Line.
Dixon, Joseph: American inventor and manufacturer who pioneered in the industrial use of graphite.
Dixon, Roland B: U.S. cultural anthropologist who, at the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, organized one of the world's most comprehensive and functional anthropological libraries. He also developed Harvard into a leading centre ...
Dixon, Thomas: U.S. novelist, dramatist, and legislator who vigorously propagated ideas of white supremacy. He is chiefly remembered for his novel The Clansman (1905), which presented a sympathetic picture of the Ku ...
Dixon, Willie: American blues musician who, as record producer, bassist, and prolific songwriter, exerted a major influence on the post-World War II Chicago style.
diyah: in Islam, the traditional compensation due for the shedding of blood. In pre-Islamic times, the compensation required for taking a life was 10 she-camels. The figure was increased to 100 ...
Diyala River: river, important tributary of the Tigris River, rising in the Zagros Mountains of western Iran near Hamadan as the Sirvan River and flowing westward across lowlands to join the Tigris ...
Diyarbakir: city, southeastern Turkey, on the right bank of the Tigris River. The name means "district (diyar) of the Bakr people." Amida, an ancient town predating Roman colonization in the 3rd ...
Dja River: stream in west-central Africa that forms part of the Cameroon-Congo (Brazzaville) boundary. It rises southeast of Abong-Mbang, southeastern Cameroon, and flows generally southeast past Moloundou to Ouesso, Congo, where it ...
Djebar, Assia: one of the most talented and prolific of contemporary Algerian women writers.
Djelfa: town, north-central Algeria, in the Oulad Nail Mountains at an elevation of 3,734 feet (1,138 m). It is situated between the towns of Bou Saada and Laghouat. Djelfa town is ...
Djenne: ancient trading city and centre of Muslim scholarship, southern Mali. It is situated on the Bani River on floodlands between the Bani and Niger rivers, 220 miles (354 km) southwest ...
Djibouti: strategically located nation on the northeast coast of the Horn of Africa. It is situated on the Strait of Mandeb, which lies to the east and separates the Red Sea ...
Djibouti: port city and capital of the Republic of Djibouti. It lies on the southern shore of the Gulf of Tadjoura, which is an inlet of the Gulf of Aden. Built ...
Djibouti, history of: history of Djibouti from independence in 1977 to the present.
Djilas, Milovan: prolific political writer and former Yugoslav communist official remembered for his disillusionment with communism. Much of his work has been translated into English from Serbo-Croatian.
Djoser: second king of the 3rd dynasty (c. 2650-c. 2575 BC) of Egypt, who undertook the construction of the earliest important stone building in Egypt. His reign, which probably lasted 19 ...
Dlugosz, Jan: Polish diplomat and historian whose monumental history of Poland, the first of its kind, inspired Poles with pride in their past and helped to favourably change the attitude of educated ...
Dmanisi: site of paleoanthropological excavations in southern Georgia, where in 1991 a human jaw and teeth showing anatomical similarities to Homo erectus were unearthed.
Dmitry Donskoy: prince of Moscow, or Muscovy (1359-89), and grand prince of Vladimir (1362-89), who won a victory over the Golden Horde (Mongols who had controlled Russian lands since 1240) at the ...
Dmitry, False: any of three different pretenders to the Muscovite throne who, during the Time of Troubles (1598-1613), claimed to be Dmitry Ivanovich, the son of Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible (reigned ...
Dmowski, Roman: Polish statesman, a leader of Poland's struggle for national liberation, and the foremost supporter of cooperation with Russia as a means toward achieving that goal.
DMT: powerful, naturally occurring hallucinogenic compound structurally related to the drug LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide). DMT blocks the action of serotonin (a transmitter of nerve impulses) in brain tissue. It is ...
Dmytryk, Edward: American motion-picture director, who was one of the "Hollywood Ten," a group of film-industry people who were blacklisted for their alleged communist association. His notable films include Crossfire (1947), The ...
DNA: organic chemical of complex molecular structure that is found in all prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells and in many viruses. DNA codes genetic information for the transmission of inherited traits.
DNA fingerprinting: in genetics, method of isolating and making images of sequences of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). The technique was developed in 1984 by the British geneticist Alec Jeffreys, after he noticed the ...
Dnieper River: river of Europe, the fourth longest after the Volga, Danube, and Ural. It is 1,367 miles (2,200 kilometres) in length and drains an area of about 195,000 square miles (505,000 ...
Dniester River: river of southwestern Ukraine and of Moldova, rising on the north side of the Carpathian Mountains and flowing south and east for 840 miles (1,352 km) to the Black Sea ...
Dniprodzerzhynsk: city, Dnipropetrovsk oblast (province), southern Ukraine, along the Dnieper River. Founded about 1750 as the Cossack settlement of Kamenskoye, the town grew after 1889 with the developing metallurgical industry. The ...
Dnipropetrovsk: oblast (province), southern Ukraine. It lies astride the Dnieper River, which there comprises three reservoirs dammed for hydroelectric power. The oblast consists of rolling plains of loess-covered sedimentary rocks, largely ...
Dnipropetrovsk: city and administrative centre, Dnipropetrovsk oblast (province), south-central Ukraine. It lies along the Dnieper River, near its confluence with the Samara. The river has been considerably widened by the construction ...
Dobell, Sydney Thompson: English writer of erratic poetry characterized by formlessness, chaotic imagery, and exaggerations of passion-one of a group of poets of what the writer Charles Kingsley called the Spasmodic school.
Dobereiner, Johann Wolfgang: German chemist whose observation of similarities among certain elements anticipated the development of the periodic system of elements.
Doberman pinscher: breed of working dog developed in Apolda, Ger., by Louis Dobermann, a night watchman and keeper of a dog pound, in the late 1800s. The Doberman pinscher is a sleek, ...
Doblin, Alfred: German novelist and essayist, the most talented narrative writer of the German Expressionist movement.
Dobrich: town, northeastern Bulgaria. It lies on the road and railway line between Varna and Constanta, Rom., and is a long-established market town. Under Turkish rule from the 15th century until ...
Dobrolyubov, Nikolay Aleksandrovich: radical Russian utilitarian critic who rejected traditional and Romantic literature.
Dobrovsky, Josef: scholar of the Czech language, antiquary, and a principal founder of comparative Slavic linguistics.
Dobruja: a region of the Balkan Peninsula, situated between the lower Danube River and the Black Sea. The larger, northern part belongs to Romania, the smaller, southern part to Bulgaria. It ...
Dobrynin, Anatoly Fyodorovich: Soviet diplomat, ambassador to the United States (1962-86), and dean of the Washington, D.C., diplomatic corps (1979-86).
Dobsina: mining village, Vychodni Slovensko kraj (region), Slovakia. It lies in the Slovak Ore Mountains, on the Slana River, northwest of Kosice. The settlement, founded in 1326 by immigrant German miners, ...
Dobson, Austin: English poet, critic, and biographer whose love and knowledge of the 18th century lent a graceful elegance to his poetry and inspired his critical studies.
Dobson, Frank: English sculptor who was influential in the promotion and development of modern sculpture in England.
Dobson, William: English portrait painter, one of the first distinguished native English painters.
dobsonfly: any insect of the family Corydalidae (order Megaloptera) with four net-veined wings. Dobsonflies are found in North and South America, Asia, Australia, and Africa.
Dobuni: an ancient British tribe centred on the confluence of the Severn and Avon rivers. The Dobuni, who were ruled by a Belgic aristocracy, apparently made peace with the Roman emperor ...
Doby, Larry: American baseball player, the second African American player in the major leagues and the first in the American League when he joined the Cleveland Indians in 1947.
Dobyns, Stephen: American poet and novelist whose works are characterized by a cool realism laced with pungent wit.
Dobzhansky, Theodosius: Ukrainian-American geneticist and evolutionist whose work had a major influence on 20th-century thought and research on genetics and evolutionary theory.