Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Baptist World Alliance ... barb

Baptist World Alliance: international advisory organization for Baptists, founded in 1905 in London. Its purpose is to promote fellowship and cooperation among all Baptists. It sponsors regional and international meetings for various groups for study and promotion of the gospel, and it works ...
Baptiste: one of the leading actors of sentimental comedy (comedie larmoyante) in France.
baptistery: hall or chapel situated close to, or connected with, a church, in which the sacrament of baptism is administered. The form of the baptistery originally evolved from small, circular Roman buildings that were designated for religious purposes (e.g., the Temple ...
Baqdash, Khalid: Syrian politician who acquired control of the Syrian Communist Party in 1932 and remained its most prominent spokesman until 1958, when he went into exile.
Baqqarah: (Arabic: "Cattlemen"), nomad Arabs who have been forced by circumstance to live in a part of Africa that will support the cow but not the camel-south of latitude 13° and north of latitude 10° from Lake Chad eastward to the ...
Bar: port in Montenegro, Serbia and Montenegro, on the Adriatic Sea. It is the country's principal port and the only maritime outlet for the landlocked republic of Serbia. The current city is known as Novi ("New") Bar. Stari ("Old") Bar's ruins ...
bar association: group of attorneys, whether local, national, or international, that is organized primarily to deal with issues affecting the legal profession. In general, bar associations are concerned with furthering the best interests of lawyers. This may mean the advocacy of reforms ...
bar code: a printed series of parallel bars or lines of varying width that is used for entering data into a computer system. The bars are typically black on a white background, and their width and quantity vary according to application. The ...
Bar form: in music, the structural pattern aab as used by the medieval German minnesingers and meistersingers, who were poet-composers of secular monophonic songs (i.e., those having a single line of melody). The modern term Bar form derives from a medieval verse ...
Bar Harbor: coastal town, Hancock county, southern Maine, U.S. It is on Mount Desert Island at the foot of Cadillac Mountain (1,530 feet [466 metres]) facing Frenchman Bay, 46 miles (74 km) southeast of Bangor. Settled in 1763, it was incorporated in ...
Bar Hebraeus: medieval Syrian scholar noted for his encyclopaedic learning in science and philosophy and for his enrichment of Syriac literature by the introduction of Arabic culture.
Bar Kokhba: Jewish leader who led a bitter but unsuccessful revolt (AD 132-135) against Roman dominion in Palestine.
Bar Mitzvah: Jewish religious ritual and family celebration commemorating the religious adulthood of a boy on his 13th birthday. The boy, now deemed personally responsible for fulfilling all the commandments, may henceforth don phylacteries (religious symbols worn on the forehead and left ...
bar Sauma, Rabban: Nestorian Christian ecclesiastic, whose important but little-known travels in western Europe as an envoy of the Mongols provide a counterpart to those of his contemporary, the Venetian Marco Polo, in Asia.
Bar, Confederation of: league of Polish nobles and gentry that was formed to defend the privileges of the Roman Catholic church and the independence of Poland from Russian encroachment. Its activities precipitated a civil war, foreign intervention, and the First Partition of Poland.
Bar, Francois de: French historiographer and scholar of ecclesiastical law, whose church histories are considered the most detailed and complete of his time.
Bar-le-Duc: capital of Meuse departement, Lorraine region, northeastern France. It extends out along the narrow valley of the Ornain River, west of Nancy. To the northeast is the Canal de la Marne au Rhin, on ...
Bar-Salibi, Jacob: the great spokesman of the Jacobite (monophysite) church in the 12th century.
Bara: Malagasy people who live in south-central Madagascar and speak a dialect of Malagasy, a West Austronesian language.
Bara Banki: town, east-central Uttar Pradesh state, northern India. It lies northeast of Lucknow and includes the larger town of Nawabganj. Nawabganj is an agricultural market and cotton-weaving centre. The two towns are on a main road between Lucknow and Faizabad and ...
Bara, Theda: American silent-film star who was the first screen vamp who lured men to destruction. Her films set the vogue for sophisticated sexual themes in motion pictures and made her an international symbol of daring new freedom.
Barabbas: in the New Testament, a prisoner or criminal mentioned in all four gospels who was chosen by the crowd, over Jesus Christ, to be released by Pontius Pilate in a customary pardon before the feast of Passover.
Baraboo: city, seat (1847) of Sauk county, south-central Wisconsin, U.S. It lies in a hilly region on the Baraboo River, about 35 miles (55 km) northwest of Madison. Ho-Chunk Nation (Winnebago), Fox, Sauk, and Kickapoo Indians were early inhabitants of the ...
Baracaldo: industrial municipality, northern Biscay (Vizcaya) provincia, in the autonomous Basque Country, northeastern Spain. It lies on the south bank of the Nervion River. Baracaldo consists of the Bilbao suburbs of El Regato, San Vicente de Baracaldo, Irauregui, and Alonsotegui. It ...
Baracoa: port city, Guantanamo provincia, eastern Cuba. It is situated on the extreme eastern part of the island, along a small semicircular bay on the north coast. Surrounded by rugged mountains, Baracoa was isolated from the rest of Cuba until a ...
Barada: river of western Syria. It rises in the Anti-Lebanon Mountains and flows southward for 52 miles (84 km) through Damascus to intermittent Lake Al-'Utaybah and its marshes. The Barada sets out peacefully on its course only to become within 20 ...
Baragwanathia: a genus of fossil plants from the Early Devonian Epoch (about 408 to 387 million years ago) of Australia, of interest as being perhaps the earliest club moss class (or subdivision) Lycopsida. The plants exceeded the size of present-day lycopsids, ...
Barahona: city, southwestern Dominican Republic. It lies along Neiba Bay, off the Caribbean Sea, at the northeastern foot of the Sierra de Bahoruco. The gateway to the Dominican Republic's lake district, Barahona is an important port and fishing centre. Sugarcane is ...
Barahona de Soto, Luis: Spanish poet who is remembered for his Primera parte de la Angelica (1586; "The First Part of the Angelica"), more commonly known as Las lagrimas de Angelica ("The Tears of Angelica"), a continuation of the Angelica and Medoro episode in ...
Baraita: any of the ancient oral traditions of Jewish religious law that were not included in the Mishna (the first authoritative codification of such laws). The Baraitot that are found dispersed singly throughout the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds are often recognizable ...
Barak, Ehud: soldier and politician who was the prime minister of Israel from 1999 to 2001.
Baraka, Amiri: writer who presented the experiences and anger of black Americans with an affirmation of black life.
Barakzay Dynasty: ruling family in Afghanistan in the 19th and 20th centuries. The Barakzay brothers seized control of Afghanistan and in 1826 divided the region between them. Dost Mohammad Khan gained preeminence and founded the dynasty about 1837. Thereafter his descendants ruled ...
Baram River: river in northwestern Borneo. Rising in the Iran Mountains, it flows 250 miles (400 km) west and northwest, mostly through primary rain forest to the South China Sea at Baram Point. Above the lowest 100 miles, gorges and rapids make ...
Baramula: town in the northwestern part of the Indian-held sector of Jammu and Kashmir state, in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent. It is situated on the Jhelum River about 7 miles (11 km) beyond the river's emergence from Wular ...
Baranagar: town, southeastern West Bengal state, northeastern India, just east of the Hooghly River, part of the Calcutta urban agglomeration. Originally a Portuguese settlement, it became the seat of a Dutch trading station and an important river anchorage for Dutch shipping; ...
Baranauskas, Antanas: Roman Catholic bishop and poet who wrote one of the greatest works in Lithuanian literature, Anykysciu silelis (1858-59; The Forest of Anyksciai). The 342-line poem, written in East High Lithuanian dialect, describes the former beauty of a pine grove near ...
barangay: type of early Filipino settlement; the word is derived from balangay, the name for the sailboats that originally brought settlers of Malay stock to the Philippines from Borneo. Each boat carried a large family group, and the master of the ...
Barani, Ziya'-ud-Din: the first known Muslim to write a history of India; he resided for 17 years at Delhi as nadim (boon companion) of Sultan Muhammad ibn Tughluq.
Baranovichi: town, Brest oblast (province), Belarus, on the southern edge of the Novogrudok Hills. It developed from a small village in the late 19th century into a major railway junction, with lines to Moscow, Warsaw, and other eastern ...
Barante, Amable-Guillaume-Prosper Brugiere, baron de: French statesman, historian, and political writer, a liberal representative under the Bourbon restoration and a leading member of the narrative school of Romanticist historians who portrayed historical episodes with high literary style and in the vivid and intimate manner of ...
Barany, Robert: Austrian otologist who won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1914 for his work on the physiology and pathology of the vestibular (balancing) apparatus of the inner ear.
Baranya: megye (county), southern Hungary, bounded to the south by the Drava River, and by the Mecsek Mountains in its northwestern area. Its area of 1,732 square miles (4,487 square km) is hilly, forested terrain. With adjacent Somogy ...
Barari Ghat, Battle of: (Jan. 9, 1760), in Indian history, one of a series of Afghan victories over the Marathas in their war to gain control of the decaying Mughal Empire, which gave the British time in which to consolidate their power in Bengal. ...
Barasat: town, southeastern West Bengal state, northeastern India. Connected by road and rail with Calcutta and Howrah, it is an important trade centre for rice, legumes, sugarcane, potatoes, and coconuts; cotton weaving is the major industry. An annual fair held in ...
barasingha: (species Cervus duvauceli), graceful deer, belonging to the family Cervidae (order Artiodactyla), found in open forests and grasslands of India and Nepal. The barasingha stands about 1.1 m (45 inches) at the shoulder. In summer, its coat is reddish or ...
Barat, Saint Madeleine-Sophie: nun and founder of the Society of the Sacred Heart.
Barataria Bay: inlet of the Gulf of Mexico, about 15 miles (24 km) long and 12 miles (19 km) wide, in southeastern Louisiana, U.S. Its entrance, largely blocked by Grand Isle and the Grand Terre Islands, is via a narrow Gulf channel ...
Baratieri, Oreste: general and colonial governor who was responsible for both the development of the Italian colony of Eritrea and the loss of Italian influence over Ethiopia.
Baratynsky, Yevgeny Abramovich: foremost Russian philosophical poet contemporary with Aleksandr Pushkin. In his poetry he combined an elegant, precise style with spiritual melancholy in dealing with abstract idealistic concepts.
barb: (genus Barbus), any of numerous freshwater fishes belonging to a genus in the carp family, Cyprinidae. The barbs are native to Europe, Africa, and Asia. The members of this genus typically have one or more pairs of barbels (slender, fleshy ...