Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Cabral, Amilcar ... Cadwallon

Cabral, Amilcar: agronomist and nationalist politician, founder (1956) and secretary-general of the Partido Africano da Independencia da Guine e Cabo Verde (PAIGC; African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde). With Agostinho Neto he was cofounder (1956) of a liberation ...
Cabral, Pedro Alvares: Portuguese navigator who is frequently credited as the discoverer of Brazil (April 22, 1500).
Cabrera Infante, Guillermo: novelist, short-story writer, film critic, and essayist who was the most prominent Cuban writer living in exile and the best-known spokesman against Fidel Castro's regime. In 1998 he was awarded Spain's Cervantes Prize, the most prestigious and remunerative award for ...
Cabrera, Lydia: Cuban ethnologist and short-story writer noted for both her collections of Afro-Cuban folklore and her works of fiction. She is considered a major figure in Cuban letters.
Cabrera, Ramon: influential Spanish Carlist general and later one of the party's most controversial figures.
Cabrillo, Juan Rodriguez: soldier and explorer in the service of Spain, chiefly known as the discoverer of California.
Cabrini, Saint Frances Xavier: Italian-born founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart and first United States citizen to be canonized.
cabriole: ballet jump, formerly performed only by men, in which the dancer beats the calves of the legs together in the air, with a scissors-like movement. When the beat occurs, the legs are extended at either a 45° or 90° angle ...
cabriole leg: leg of a piece of furniture shaped in two curves-the upper one convex, the lower one concave. Its shape was based on the legs of certain four-footed animals. Known by the ancient Chinese and by the Greeks, it returned to ...
cabriolet: originally a two-wheeled, doorless, hooded, one-horse carriage, first used in 18th-century France and often let out for hire. The name is thought to derive from cabriole (French: "caper") because of the vehicle's light, bounding motion. Later cabriolets were built with ...
Cabrol, Fernand: Benedictine monk and noted writer on the history of Christian worship.
cacao: tropical tree, whose scientific name means "food of the gods" in Latin. Originating in the lowland rainforests of the Amazon and Orinoco river basins, cacao is grown commercially in the New World tropics as well as western Africa and tropical ...
caccia: (Italian: "hunt," or "chase"), one of the principal Italian musical forms of the 14th century. It consisted of two voices in strict canon at the unison (i.e., in strict melodic imitation at the same pitch), and often of a non-canonic ...
Caccini, Giulio: singer and composer whose songs greatly helped to establish and disseminate the new monodic music introduced in Italy about 1600. This is music in which an expressive melody is accompanied by evocative chords, as opposed to the traditional polyphonic style ...
Caceres: provincia of the Extremadura comunidad autonoma ("autonomous community"), western Spain, bordering Portugal on the west. The Tagus River runs through the province. Conquered by Alfonso IX from the Moors in 1229, it became part of the kingdom of Leon and ...
Caceres: town, capital of Caceres provincia, in the Extremadura comunidad autonoma ("autonomous community"), western Spain. It is built on a low east-west ridge, south of the Tagus River and about 50 miles (80 km) northeast of Badajoz. Originating as the Roman ...
cache memory: a supplementary memory system that temporarily stores frequently used instructions and data for quicker processing by the central processor of a computer. The cache augments, and is an extension of, a computer's main memory. Both main memory and cache are ...
cachet, lettre de: (French: "letter of the sign [or signet]"), a letter signed by the king and countersigned by a secretary of state and used primarily to authorize someone's imprisonment. It was an important instrument of administration under the ancien regime in France. ...
Cacheu: town, northwestern Guinea-Bissau. It lies along the south bank of the Cacheu River near its mouth. Cacheu was made an official Portuguese captaincy in 1588, and it gained economic importance as a centre for the slave trade in the 17th ...
Cachoeira do Sul: city and river port, central Rio Grande do Sul estado ("state"), southern Brazil. It lies along the Jacui River at 200 feet (60 m) above sea level. Founded in 1819 as Sao Joao de Cachoeira and given city status in ...
Cachoeiro de Itapemirim: city, southern Espirito Santo estado ("state"), eastern Brazil. It lies along the Itapemirim River, at 95 feet (29 m) above sea level and about 30 miles (48 km) inland from the Atlantic coast. It was given city status in 1889. ...
cacique: any of a dozen tropical American birds belonging to the family Icteridae (order Passeriformes) and resembling the related oropendolas. Caciques are smaller than oropendolas and have a less-powerful bill, which lacks a frontal shield. These striking black-and-yellow or black-and-red birds ...
caciquism: in Latin-American and Spanish politics, the rule of local chiefs or bosses (caciques). As a class, these leaders have often played a key role in their countries' political structure.
cacomistle: (Bassariscus), either of two species of large-eyed, long-tailed carnivores related to the raccoon (family Procyonidae). Cacomistles are grayish brown with lighter underparts and white patches over their eyes. The total length is about 60-100 cm (24-40 inches), about half of ...
Caconda: town, west-central Angola. It is located 140 miles (225 km) inland from the Atlantic Ocean on the Huila Plateau (a high tableland sloping westward to the Atlantic coast in a series of descending escarpments) at an elevation of about 5,400 ...
Cacops: extinct amphibian genus found as fossils in Early Permian rocks in North America (the Early Permian Epoch lasted from 286 to 258 million years ago). Cacops reached a length of about 40 cm (16 inches). The skull was heavily constructed, ...
cactus: dicotyledonous (characterized by two seed leaves) flowering plants belonging to the family Cactaceae, of the order Caryophyllales. (Some authorities place the cacti in a separate order, Cactales, with a single family.) Botanists estimate that there are about 1,650 species, grouped ...
Cacus and Caca: in Roman religion, brother and sister, respectively, originally fire deities of the early Roman settlement on the Palatine Hill, where "Cacus' stairs" were later situated. The Roman poet Virgil described Cacus as the son of the flame god Vulcan and ...
Cadalso y Vazquez, Jose de: Spanish writer famous for his Cartas marruecas (1793; "Moroccan Letters"), in which a Moorish traveler in Spain makes penetrating criticisms of Spanish life. Educated in Madrid, Cadalso traveled widely and, although he hated war, enlisted in the army against the ...
Cadbury, George: English businessman and social reformer who, with his elder brother, Richard, took over their father's failing enterprise (April 1861) and built it into the highly prosperous Cadbury Brothers cocoa- and chocolate-manufacturing firm. George was perhaps more important for his improvements ...
caddisfly: any of the mothlike aquatic insects that constitute the order Trichoptera. The adult, attracted to light at night, often lives near lakes or rivers. Because fish feed on immature, aquatic stages and trout take flying adults, caddisflies are used as ...
Caddo: one of a confederacy of tribes of North American Indians that composed the Caddoan linguistic family. The Caddo proper originally occupied the lower Red River area in what are now Louisiana and Arkansas. In the late 17th century they numbered ...
caddy: container for tea. A corrupt form of the Malay kati, a weight of a little more than a pound (or about half a kilogram), the word was applied first to porcelain jars filled with tea and imported ...
Cade, Jack: leader of a major rebellion (1450) against the government of King Henry VI of England; although the uprising was suppressed, it contributed to the breakdown of royal authority that led to the Wars of the Roses (1455-85) between the houses ...
cadence: in music, formula signifying the end of a phrase or half-phrase, section, or entire composition. The concept of cadence implies broadly acknowledged conventions, especially of a harmonic nature, conveying a sense of relative completion, analogous to the use of punctuation ...
cadenza: (Italian: "cadence"), unaccompanied bravura passage introduced at or near the close of a movement of a composition and serving as a brilliant climax, particularly in solo concerti of a virtuoso character. Until well into the 19th century such interpolated passages ...
Cadillac: city, seat (1869) of Wexford county, northwestern lower Michigan, U.S., on the shores of Lakes Cadillac and Mitchell (linked by a canal), 97 miles (156 km) north of Grand Rapids. Settled by lumbermen in the 1860s and incorporated in 1875 ...
Cadillac, Antoine Laumet de La Mothe: French soldier, explorer, and administrator in French North America, founder of the city of Detroit (1701), and governor of Louisiana (1710 to 1716 or 1717). Going to Canada in 1683, he fought against the Iroquois Indians, lived for a time ...
Cadiz: city, capital and principal seaport of Cadiz provincia, in the comunidad autonoma ("autonomous community") of Andalusia (Spanish: Andalucia), southwestern Spain. The city is situated on a long narrow peninsula extending into the Gulf of Cadiz (an inlet of the Atlantic ...
Cadiz: chartered city and port, northern Negros Island, Philippines. It is one of five chartered cities and one of the principal ports on the island where most of the country's sugar is grown and refined and where fishing is a major ...
Cadiz: provincia, in the comunidad autonoma ("autonomous community") of Andalusia, southwestern Spain, fronting the Mediterranean Sea (southeast) and the Atlantic Ocean (west). It was formed in 1833 from districts taken from Seville. The enclave of Ceuta on the Moroccan coast was ...
Cadiz, Bay of: small inlet of the Gulf of Cadiz on the North Atlantic Ocean. It is 7 miles (11 km) long and up to 5 miles (8 km) wide, indenting the coast of Cadiz province, southwestern Spain. It receives the Guadalete River ...
Cadiz, Gulf of: wide embayment of the Atlantic Ocean along the southwestern Iberian Peninsula, stretching about 200 miles (320 km) from Cape Saint Vincent (Portugal) to Gibraltar. At the Portuguese end-the south-facing area of the Algarve-the coastline consists of bold headlands and high ...
Cadman, Charles Wakefield: one of the first American composers to become interested in the music and folklore of the American Indian.
cadmium: chemical element, metal of Group IIb, or the zinc group, of the periodic table.
cadmium poisoning: toxic effects of cadmium or its compounds on body tissues and functions. Poisoning may result from the ingestion of an acid food or drink prepared in a cadmium-lined vessel (e.g., lemonade served from cadmium-plated cans). Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and prostration ...
Cadmus: in Greek mythology, the son of Phoenix or Agenor (king of Phoenicia) and brother of Europa. Europa was carried off by Zeus, king of the gods, and Cadmus was sent out to find her. Unsuccessful, he consulted the Delphic oracle, ...
Cadogan, William Cadogan, 1st Earl: British soldier, an outstanding staff officer who was the friend and trusted colleague of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough.
Cadorna, Luigi: general who completely reorganized Italy's ill-prepared army on the eve of World War I and who was chief of staff during the first 30 months of that conflict.
caduceus: staff carried by Hermes, the messenger of the gods, as a symbol of peace. Among the ancient Greeks and Romans it became the badge of heralds and ambassadors, signifying their inviolability. Originally the caduceus was a rod or olive branch ...
Cadwallon: British king of Gwynedd (in present north Wales) who, with the Mercian king Penda, invaded Northumbria in 632, killed the Northumbrian king Edwin in battle, and devastated the region. A year later Cadwallon was defeated and slain by Oswald, who ...