Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Banks Island ... Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland

Banks Island: westernmost island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Inuvik region, Northwest Territories; it lies northwest of Victoria Island and is separated from the mainland (south) by Amundsen Gulf. About 250 miles (400 km) long and 110-180 miles (180-290 km) wide, it ...
Banks Islands: volcanic group in Vanuatu, southwestern Pacific Ocean. They include the islands of Vanua Lava, Santa Maria (Gaua), Mota, and Mota Lava (Saddle) and numerous islets. First explored in 1793 by Captain William Bligh of the British navy and named by ...
Banks Peninsula: peninsula in eastern South Island, New Zealand, extending 30 miles (48 km) into the Pacific Ocean. It is bounded by Pegasus Bay (north) and Canterbury Bight (south) and has a total land area of about 500 square miles (1,300 square ...
Banks, Ernie: American professional baseball player, regarded as one of the finest power hitters in the history of the game. Banks starred for the Chicago Cubs from 1953 to 1971. An 11-time All-Star, Banks was named the National League's (NL) Most Valuable ...
Banks, Nathaniel P.: American politician and Union general during the American Civil War, who during 1862-64 commanded at New Orleans.
Banks, Russell: American novelist known for his portrayals of the interior lives of characters at odds with economic and social forces.
Banks, Sir Joseph, Baronet: British explorer, naturalist, and long-time president of the Royal Society, known for his promotion of science.
Bankside: loosely defined area along the south bank of the River Thames in the London borough of Southwark. Bankside is also the name of a street in the district, which lies between Blackfriars Bridge (west) and London Bridge (east) and more ...
Bankura: town, western West Bengal state, northeastern India. It lies just north of the Dhaleswari (Dhalkisor) River. As a major Grand Trunk Road and rail junction, Bankura is an agricultural distributing centre. Rice and oilseed milling, cotton weaving, metalware manufacture, and ...
Bann, River: river, the largest in Northern Ireland, falling into two distinct parts. The upper Bann rises in the Mourne Mountains and flows northwest to Lough (lake) Neagh. The lower Bann flows northward through Lough Beg and carries the waters of Lough ...
Bannatyne, George: compiler of an important collection of Scottish poetry from the 15th and 16th centuries (the golden age of Scottish literature).
Banneker, Benjamin: mathematician, astronomer, compiler of almanacs, inventor, and writer, one of the first important black American intellectuals.
Banner system: the military organization used by the Manchu tribes of Manchuria (now Northeast China) to conquer and control China in the 17th century. The Banner system was developed by the Manchu leader Nurhachi (1559-1626), who in 1601 organized his warriors into ...
banneret: a European medieval knight privileged to display in the field a square banner (as distinct from the tapering pennon of a simple knight). The term was used in countries of French and English speech from the 13th to the 16th ...
banning: in South Africa, an administrative action by which publications, organizations, or assemblies could be outlawed and suppressed and individual persons could be placed under severe restrictions of their freedom of travel, association, and speech. Banning was an important tool in ...
Bannister, Sir Roger: English neurologist who was the first athlete to run a mile in less than four minutes.
bannock: flat, sometimes unleavened bread eaten primarily in Scotland. Although most commonly made of oats, bannocks of barley, ground dried peas, and a combination of grains are sometimes encountered. Selkirk bannock is made from wheat flour and contains fruit.
Bannock: Indian tribe of the Great Basin area of North America. In historical times and probably before 1700 the Bannock ranged through southern Idaho, especially along the Snake River and its tributaries. Linguistically they were most closely related to the Northern ...
Bannockburn: town, Stirling council area, historic county of Stirlingshire, Scotland. Located slightly to the east of the famous battlefield to which it lent its name, Bannockburn was known in the 18th and 19th centuries for cottage weaving and the manufacture of ...
Bannockburn, Battle of: (June 23-24, 1314), decisive battle in Scottish history, whereby the Scots under Robert the Bruce defeated the English under Edward II, regained their independence, and established Bruce on his throne as Robert I.
Bannu: town, central part of North-West Frontier province, Pakistan, just south of the Kurram River. The nearby Akra mounds have revealed finds dating to about 300 BC. In ancient and medieval times, the Kurram-Bannu route into the Indian subcontinent was used ...
Bansang: town, east-central Gambia, on the south bank of the Gambia River. Bansang is a local trade centre for peanuts (groundnuts), rice, and fish among the Malinke, Fulani, and Wolof peoples, and it is a port of call for the government ...
Banshan ware: type of Chinese Neolithic painted pottery. Its name is derived from the grave site in the Gansu province of north China at which the pottery was found in 1924.
banshee: ("woman of the fairies") supernatural being in Irish and other Celtic folklore whose mournful "keening," or wailing screaming or lamentation, at night was believed to foretell the death of a member of the family of the person who heard the ...
Banska Bystrica: town, capital of Stredni Slovensko kraj, Slovakia. It lies in the Hron River valley, surrounded by mountains. An ancient town, it has been an important mining centre since the 13th century, when it was chartered. Gothic and Renaissance-style buildings, including ...
Banswara: city, southern part of Rajasthan state, northwestern India. Banswara is an agricultural market centre. Its principal industries include cotton ginning, flour milling, handweaving, and woodworking. A walled city, it was founded in the early 16th century. A government college there ...
Bantam: former city and sultanate of Java, Indonesia. It lay near the site of present-day Banten, on Banten Bay, at the extreme northwest of the island, just north of Serang. Now in ruins, Bantam was the most important Javanese port for ...
banteng: (species Bos banteng), a species of wild Southeast Asian cattle, family Bovidae (order Artiodactyla), found in hill forests. A shy animal resembling a domestic cow, the banteng attains a shoulder height of about 1.5-1.75 m (60-69 inches). It has a ...
Banti, Anna: Italian biographer, critic, and author of fiction about women's struggles for equality of opportunity.
Banting, Sir Frederick Grant: Canadian physician who, with Charles H. Best, was the first to extract (1921) the hormone insulin from the pancreas. Injections of insulin proved to be the first effective treatment for diabetes, a disease in which glucose accumulates in abnormally high ...
Bantock, Sir Granville: English composer known especially for his large-scale works in the grand manner.
Bantry Bay: long inlet of the Atlantic Ocean, southwestern County Cork, Ireland. The bay has a maximum length of 30 miles (48 km) and is 10 miles (16 km) wide at its broadest point; it separates the Beara peninsula to the north ...
Bantu languages: a group of some 500 languages belonging to the Bantoid subgroup of the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo language family. The Bantu languages are spoken in a very large area, including most of Africa from southern Cameroon eastward to Kenya ...
Bantu peoples: the approximately 85 million speakers of the more than 500 distinct languages of the Bantu subgroup of the Niger-Congo language family, occupying almost the entire southern projection of the African continent. The classification is primarily linguistic, for the cultural patterns ...
Banville, Theodore de: respected French poet of the mid-19th century who was a late disciple of the Romantics, a leader of the Parnassian movement, and an influence on the Symbolists. His first book of verse, Les Cariatides (1842; "The Caryatids"), owed much to ...
Banyak Islands: group of more than 60 small islands, in Aceh daerah istimewa (special district), Indonesia. The largest of the islands are Great Banyak, or Pulau (island) Tuangku, and Pulau Bangkaru. With an area of 123 square miles (319 square km), the ...
banyan: (Ficus benghalensis, or F. indica), unusually shaped tree of the fig genus in the mulberry family (Moraceae) native to tropical Asia. Aerial roots that develop from its branches descend and take root in the soil to become new trunks. The ...
Banyuwangi: city, Jawa Timur propinsi (East Java province), Java, Indonesia. A major port on the Selat (strait) Bali, opposite Bali just to the east, it is located 120 miles (193 km) southeast of Surabaya, the capital of Jawa Timur. It is ...
Banzer Suarez, Hugo: soldier and politician who was president of Bolivia from 1971 to 1978 and from 1997 to 2001.
Bao Dai: the last reigning emperor of Vietnam (1926-45).
baobab: (Adansonia digitata), tree of the bombax family (Bombacaceae) of the order Malvales, native to Africa. The barrel-like trunk may reach a diameter of 9 metres (30 feet) and a height of 18 m. The large, gourdlike, woody fruit contains a ...
Baoding: city, Hebei sheng (province), China. It is situated on the edge of the North China Plain at the foot of the Wuhui Mountains, a section of the Taihang Mountains, and stands on the Tang River, a tributary of the Daqing ...
Baol: in the 14th century, a satellite state of the Wolof empire of West Africa. Situated along the coast and inland to the south of Dakar in present Senegal, it was conquered some time after 1556 by the neighbouring state of ...
Baotou: city, central Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, northern China. A prefecture-level municipality, Baotou is situated on the north bank of the Huang He (Yellow River) on its great northern bend, about 100 miles (160 km) west of Hohhot, the capital of ...
Baotou carpet: floor covering handwoven in Baotou, in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region of China, noted for its high-quality of workmanship and materials. The designs usually consist of landscapes or religious symbols, although horse, stag, lion, and dragon motifs are also used.
Baptism: a sacrament of admission to the Christian Church. The forms and rituals of the various churches vary, but Baptism almost invariably involves the use of water and the Trinitarian invocation, "I baptize you: In the name of the Father, and ...
Baptist: member of a group of Protestant Christians who share the basic beliefs of most Protestants but who insist that only believers should be baptized and that it should be done by immersion rather than by the sprinkling or pouring of ...
Baptist Federation of Canada: cooperative agency for several Canadian Baptist groups, organized in 1944 in Saint John, N.B., by the United Baptist Convention of the Maritime Provinces, the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec, and the Baptist Union of Western Canada.
Baptist General Conference: conservative Baptist denomination that was organized in 1879 as the Swedish Baptist General Conference of America; the present name was adopted in 1945. It developed from the work of Gustaf Palmquist, a Swedish immigrant schoolteacher and lay preacher who became ...
Baptist Missionary Association of America: association of independent, conservative Baptist churches, organized as the North American Baptist Association in Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S., in 1950, in protest against the American Baptist Association's policy of seating at meetings messengers who were not members of the churches ...
Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland: largest Baptist group in the British Isles, organized in 1891 as a union of the Particular Baptist and New Connection General Baptist associations. These groups were historically related to the first English Baptists, who originated in the 17th century.