Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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D region ... daddy longlegs

D region: lowest ionospheric region, at altitudes of about 70 to 90 km (40 to 55 miles). The D region differs from the other ionospheric regions (denoted E and F) in that its free electrons almost totally disappear during the night because ...
d'Alembert's principle: alternative form of Newton's second law of motion, stated by the 18th-century French polymath Jean le Rond d'Alembert. In effect, the principle reduces a problem in dynamics to a problem in statics. The second law states that the force F ...
d'Amboise, Jacques: American dancer and choreographer of the New York City Ballet (1949-84), admired for his energetic, virile interpretations of both character and classical roles.
D'Annunzio, Gabriele: Italian poet, novelist, dramatist, short-story writer, journalist, military hero, and political leader, the leading writer of Italy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
D'Aquino, Iva Toguri: Japanese-American broadcaster from Japan to U.S. troops during World War II, who, after the war, was convicted of treason and served six years in a U.S. prison. She was later pardoned by President Gerald R. Ford.
D'Arcy, William Knox: English businessman who was the principal founder of the Iranian oil industry.
D'Entrecasteaux Channel: inlet of the Tasman Sea, extending northeast for about 35 miles (55 km) between Bruny Island (east) and the southeast coast of mainland Tasmania, Australia, to merge with the Derwent River estuary. Sighted in 1642 by the Dutch navigator Abel ...
D'Entrecasteaux Islands: islands in Papua New Guinea, lying across Ward Hunt Strait from the eastern tip of New Guinea, in the Solomon Sea, southwestern Pacific Ocean.
d'Oriola, Christian: French foil fencer who between 1947 and 1956 won four world titles and six Olympic medals, cementing his stature as one of the great fencers in the history of the sport.
D'Urban, Sir Benjamin: British general and colonial administrator chiefly remembered for his frontier policy as governor in the Cape Colony (now in South Africa).
D'Urfey, Thomas: English dramatist, satirist, and songwriter with a light satirical touch whose plays were very popular in their time; his comedies, with complicated plots carried forward by lively dialogue, to some extent pointed the way to sentimental comedy of the later ...
D-Day: (in World War II), first day of the Allied landing in Normandy, France. See Normandy Invasion.
D-lines: in spectroscopy, a pair of lines, characteristic of sodium, in the yellow region of the spectrum. Their separation is too small to be detected with a spectroscope of low resolving power. The line is the fourth prominent absorption line in ...
D.B.E.: dame commander of the British Empire, member of the second highest class of a British order of knighthood. See British Empire, The Most Excellent Order of the.
D.C.B.: dame commander of the Bath, member of the second highest rank of knightly class in a British order of knighthood. See Bath, The Most Honourable Order of the.
D.C.M.G.: dame commander of St. Michael and St. George, member of the second highest rank of a British order of knighthood. See Saint Michael and Saint George, The Most Distinguished Order of.
D.C.V.O.: dame commander of the Royal Victorian Order, member of the second highest rank of a British order of knighthood. See Royal Victorian Order.
D.S.O.: recipient of the Distinguished Service Order, a British military decoration. See Distinguished Service Order.
Da Lat: municipality, southern Vietnam, northeast of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). On a lake on the Lam Vien Plateau at 4,920 feet (1,500 m) above sea level, it sits among pine-covered hills with picturesque waterfalls nearby. Founded in the 19th ...
Da Nang: city, central Vietnam. Lying at the southern end of a horseshoe-shaped bay, it is one of the largest cities in Vietnam and the chief port of the central lowlands. Although partially enclosed on the northeast by the Annamese Cordillera (French: ...
Da Ponte, Lorenzo: Italian poet and librettist.
dab: any of the flatfishes of the genus Limanda, family Pleuronectidae, found in the North Atlantic and North Pacific. Dabs are right-eyed flatfish-i.e., the eyes are usually on the right side of the head. The dab of European waters is L. ...
dabbling duck: any of about 38 species of Anas and about 5 species in other genera, constituting the tribe Anatini, subfamily Anatinae, family Anatidae (q.v.; order Anseriformes). They feed mainly on water plants, which they obtain by tipping-up in shallows-uncommonly by diving ...
Dabola: town, central Guinea, western Africa, situated at the eastern edge of the Fouta Djallon plateau near the Bouka branch of the Tinkisso River. Dabola lies on the Conakry-Kankan railway near the intersection of roads from Mamou, Kouroussa, and Faranah. Dabola ...
Dabrowa Gornicza: city, Slaskie wojewodztwo (province), southern Poland, on the Czarna Przemsza River just northeast of Katowice. It flourished when coal mining began there in 1796. During the 19th century Dabrowa Gornicza served as a mining and metallurgical research ...
Dabrowska, Maria: Polish novelist and critic, a major 20th-century writer and moral authority.
Dabrowski, Jan Henryk: general, regarded as a Polish national hero for his part in Tadeusz Kosciuszko's rebellion against Russia (1794); he later organized and commanded the Polish legions in Napoleon's army.
Dacang Jing: the total body of Buddhist literature deemed canonical in China and Japan and comprising works of the most varied character numbering more than 2,000 in the standard Chinese edition and more than 3,000 in the latest Japanese edition. Unlike canons ...
dace: any of a number of small, slim, active freshwater fishes of the carp family, Cyprinidae. In England and Europe, the dace is Leuciscus leuciscus, a relative of the chub. Usually found in moderately swift streams and rivers, the European dace ...
Dach, Simon: Prussian poet who was best known as the leader of the 17th-century Konigsberg circle of middle-class poets, important in the early Baroque movement in literature, which reflects the stress and turmoil of the period of the Thirty Years' War.
Dachau: the first Nazi concentration camp in Germany, established on March 10, 1933, slightly more than five weeks after Adolf Hitler became chancellor. Built at the edge of the town of Dachau, about 12 miles (16 km) north of Munich, it ...
Dachau: city, Bavaria Land (state), southern Germany. It lies on the Amper River, just northwest of Munich. First mentioned in 805, it remained a small market town until the 20th century, attaining civic status in 1934. Dachau is ...
Dache, Lilly: French-born milliner who established a flourishing hat business in the United States with made-to-order creations.
Dachlan, Kijai Hadji Ahmad: founder of Muhammadiyah, an Islamic reform movement with great impact on the practice of Islam in Indonesia and strong influence on many nationalist leaders.
dachshund: dog breed of hound and terrier ancestry developed in Germany to pursue badgers into their burrows. The dachshund is a long-bodied, characteristically lively dog with a deep chest, short legs, tapering muzzle, and long ears. Usually reddish brown or black-and-tan, ...
Dachstein: mountain massif of the northern Alps, Austria, on the borders of the Bundeslander (federal provinces) Oberosterreich, Salzburg, and Steiermark, reaching its maximum elevation at Hoher Dachstein (9,826 ft [2,995 m]). Among the massif's higher reaches are the easternmost and northernmost ...
Dacia: in antiquity, the area of the Carpathian Mountains and Transylvania, in present north-central and western Romania. The Dacian people had earlier occupied lands south of the Danube and north of the mountains, and the Roman province eventually included wider territories ...
Dacier, Andre: classical scholar and translator who with his wife, Anne Dacier, was responsible for some of the famous Delphin series of editions of Latin classics.
Dacier, Anne: classical commentator, translator, and editor, famous throughout Europe for her translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey, for her part in the French literary controversy between the "ancients and moderns," and for her work, with her husband, Andre Dacier, on ...
dacite: volcanic rock that may be considered a quartz-bearing variety of andesite. Dacite is primarily associated with andesite and trachyte and forms lava flows, dikes, and sometimes massive intrusions in the centres of old volcanoes. Like andesite, dacite consists mostly of ...
Dacke War: (1542-43), a Swedish peasant revolt against the autocratic Reformation policies of Gustav I Vasa (ruled 1523-60). Although unsuccessful, the revolt proved a challenge to the King's centralizing efforts and caused Gustav to moderate his regime.
Dacko, David: president of the Central African Republic from 1960 to 1965 and from 1979 to 1981.
Dacorum: borough (district), administrative and historic county of Hertfordshire, England. The borough, in the northwestern corner of the county, includes part of the range of chalk hills known as the Chilterns, which border the London Basin on the north. Dacorum embraces ...
dacryocystitis: inflammation and infection of the lacrimal sac, usually stemming from obstruction of the flow of tears into the nose. Tears leave the eye through small openings called puncta in the inner corner of the eye and flow into the lacrimal, ...
dactyl: metrical foot consisting of one long (classical verse) or stressed (English verse) syllable followed by two short, or unstressed, syllables. Probably the oldest and most common metre in classical verse is the dactylic hexameter, the metre of Homer's Iliad and ...
Dactylella: a genus of 15 species in the Fungi Imperfecti (form-class Deuteromycetes; q.v.). They capture and kill nematodes (roundworms) by penetrating their bodies. A penetration tube grows out of a hypha (one of the filaments that make up the body of ...
Dactylorhiza: genus of orchids, family Orchidaceae, containing about 30 species of plants with palmately lobed root tubers. They grow in meadows and damp places throughout Eurasia and in parts of North Africa, Alaska, and some Atlantic islands.
Dada: nihilistic movement in the arts that flourished primarily in Zurich, Switzerland; New York City; Berlin, Cologne, and Hannover, Germany; and Paris in the early 20th century.
Daddah, Moktar Ould: statesman who was independent Mauritania's first president (1961-78). He was noted for his progress in unifying his ethnically mixed, dispersed, and partly nomadic people under his authoritarian but enlightened rule.
Daddi, Bernardo: early Italian Renaissance painter who was a pupil of Giotto and was influenced by Lorenzetti. Daddi's efforts to fuse the plastic qualities of Giotto's art with some aspects of Sienese art came to represent the dominant style of painting directly ...
daddy longlegs: any of about 7,000 species of arachnids that differ from spiders (order Araneida or Araneae) by the extreme length and thinness of the legs and by the shape of the body. Unlike true spiders, in which the body is divided ...