Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Dean, John Wesley, III ... Decatur

Dean, John Wesley, III: U.S. lawyer who served as White House counsel during the Nixon administration (1970-73) and whose revelation of official participation in the Watergate Scandal ultimately led to the resignation of the president and the imprisonment of Dean himself and other top ...
Deane, Silas: first U.S. diplomat sent abroad (1776), who helped secure much-needed French aid for the American Revolutionary cause.
Dearborn: city, Wayne county, southeastern Michigan, U.S., adjacent to Detroit (north and east), on the River Rouge. The birthplace of Henry Ford, it is the headquarters of research, engineering, and manufacturing of the Ford Motor Company. Settled in 1795, it originated ...
Dearborn, Fort: blockhouse and stockade, built in 1803 because of Indian unrest, at a narrow bend in the Chicago River, northeastern Illinois, U.S., and named for Henry Dearborn, Revolutionary War hero. The fort was evacuated in 1812, but the garrison party was ...
Dearborn, Henry: U.S. army officer, congressman, and secretary of war for whom Ft. Dearborn-the site of which is located in what is now the heart of Chicago-was named. He abandoned the practice of medicine to fight in the American Revolution and kept ...
Deat, Marcel: French politician who was a leading collaborator with Nazi Germany.
death: the total cessation of life processes that eventually occurs in all living organisms. The state of human death has always been obscured by mystery and superstition, and its precise definition remains controversial, differing according to culture and legal systems.
death and gift tax: levy imposed on gratuitous transfers of property-that is, transfers made without compensation in either money or its equivalent. In this respect they differ from sales taxes imposed on transfers made in exchange for something of value, from property taxes and ...
death mask: a wax or plaster cast of a mold taken from a dead face. Death masks are true portraits, although changes are occasionally made in the eyes of the mask to make it appear as though the subject were alive. From ...
Death of God movement: radical Christian theological school, mainly Protestant, that arose in the United States during the 1960s, evoking prolonged attention, response, and controversy. Though thinkers of many varied viewpoints have been grouped in this school, basic to practically all of them is ...
death rate: frequency of deaths within a given population, conventionally calculated as the annual number of deaths per 1,000 inhabitants. See vital rates.
death rite: any of the ceremonial acts or customs employed at the time of death and burial.
death tax: a levy imposed on the estate left by a decedent or on the inheritance of a beneficiary. Like the gift tax, it is a levy imposed on gratuitous transfers of property-i.e., transfers made without compensation.
Death Valley: structural depression primarily in Inyo county, southeastern California, U.S. It is the lowest, hottest, driest portion of the North American continent. Death Valley is about 140 miles (225 km) long, trends roughly north-south, and is from 5 to 15 miles ...
death, dance of: medieval allegorical concept of the all-conquering and equalizing power of death, expressed in the drama, poetry, music, and visual arts of western Europe mainly in the late Middle Ages. Strictly speaking, it is a literary or pictorial representation of a ...
death-qualified jury: in law, a trial jury pronounced fit to decide a case involving the death penalty. The fitness of jurors to serve in death-punishable cases depends on their views on capital punishment. For example, jurors absolutely opposed to the death penalty ...
deathwatch beetle: (Xestobium refuvillosum), an anobiid, or borer insect, of the family Anobiidae (order Coleoptera). These beetles tend to be small (1 to 9 millimetres, or less than 12 inch) and cylindrical. When disturbed they usually pull in their legs and play ...
Deauville: seaside resort, northern France, Calvados departement, Basse-Normandie region, at the mouth of the Touques River, opposite Trouville, across the Seine estuary from Le Havre. It is 55 miles (89 km) west of Rouen by ...
Deba Habe: town, Bauchi State, northeastern Nigeria, on the road from Gombe to Numan. It was captured about 1810 by Buba Yero, the first Fulani emir of Gombe, and is still one of the largest towns in the Gombe area. A collecting ...
DeBakey, Michael: American surgeon and pioneer in surgical procedures for treatment of defects and diseases of the circulatory system.
debat: a type of literary composition popular especially in medieval times in which two or more usually allegorical characters discuss or debate some subject, most often a question of love, morality, or politics, and then refer the question to a judge. ...
debate: formal, oral confrontation between two individuals, teams, or groups who present arguments to support opposing sides of a question, generally according to a set form or procedure.
debenture stock: loan contract issued by a company or public body specifying an obligation to return borrowed funds and pay interest, secured by all or part of the company's property. Certificates specifying the amount of stock, with coupons for interest attached, are ...
debit card: small card, similar to a credit card, offering means of paying for a purchase through transfer of funds from the purchaser's bank account to the vendor. Financial institutions that process these transactions benefit from cheaper transaction costs (it is more ...
deble: wooden figure carved in the form of a woman by the Senufo people of West Africa and used as a "rhythm pounder" in certain rituals performed to promote the fertility of the soil. Initiates of the Poro (or Lo) male ...
Debo, Lac: situated in central Mali on a section of the Niger River between Mopti, located 50 mi (80 km) to the south, and Timbuktu, 150 mi to the northeast. In this region the Niger is joined by many lakes, creeks, and ...
Deborah: prophet and heroine in the Old Testament (Judg. 4 and 5), who inspired the Israelites to a mighty victory over their Canaanite oppressors (the people who lived in the Promised Land, later Palestine, that Moses spoke of before its conquest ...
Deborin, Abram Moiseyevich: Russian Marxist philosopher who advocated Hegelian dialectics.
DeBrazza's monkey: large brightly coloured guenon widely distributed through central Africa and into Ethiopia and western Kenya, particularly in forests near rivers and swamps. DeBrazza's monkey is a white-bearded primate with speckled yellow-gray fur and a white stripe along each thigh. Hands, ...
Debre, Michel: French political leader, a close aide of President Charles de Gaulle; after playing a prominent part in the writing of the constitution of the Fifth Republic, he served as its first premier.
Debrecen: since 1876, the seat of Hajdu-Bihar megye (county), and one of five Hungarian cities having county status. One of the most important cities in eastern Hungary, Debrecen is situated on the southwestern extremity of the sandy plain of the Nyirseg ...
Debrett's Peerage: guide to the British peerage (titled aristocracy), first published in London in 1802 by John Debrett as Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Debrett's Peerage contains information about the royal family, the peerage, Privy ...
Debreu, Gerard: French-born American economist, who won the 1983 Nobel Prize in Economics for his fundamental contribution to the theory of general equilibrium.
Debs, Eugene V.: labour organizer and Socialist Party candidate for U.S. president five times between 1900 and 1920.
debtor and creditor: relationship existing between two persons in which one, the debtor, can be compelled to furnish services, money, or goods to the other, the creditor. This relationship may be created by the failure of the debtor to pay damages to the ...
Deburau, Jean-Gaspard: Bohemian-born French pantomime actor, who transformed the character of Pierrot in the traditional harlequinade.
Debussy, Claude: French composer whose works have been a seminal force in the music of the 20th century. He developed a highly original system of harmony and musical structure that expressed in many respects the ideals to which the Impressionist and Symbolist ...
Debye, Peter: physical chemist whose investigations of dipole moments, X rays, and light scattering in gases brought him the 1936 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
Debye-Huckel equation: a mathematical expression derived to elucidate certain properties of solutions of electrolytes, that is, substances present in the solutions in the form of charged particles (ions). Such solutions often behave as if the number of dissolved particles were greater or ...
decadence: a period of decline or deterioration of art or literature that follows an era of great achievement. Examples include the Silver Age of Latin literature, which began about AD 18 following the end of the Golden Age, and the Decadent ...
Decadent: any of several poets or other writers of the end of the 19th century, including the French Symbolist poets in particular and their contemporaries in England, the later generation of the Aesthetic movement. Both groups aspired to set literature and ...
Decadentism: Italian artistic movement that derived its name but not all its characteristics from the French and English Decadents, who flourished in the last 10 years of the 19th century. Writers of the Italian movement, which did not have the cohesion ...
decal: design that is printed on specially prepared paper to form a film that can be transferred to any surface. Such films are widely used for decorating and labeling any objects that cannot be run through a press.
Decamps, Alexandre: one of the first French painters of the 19th century to turn from Neoclassicism to Romanticism.
decapod: (order Decapoda), any of more than 8,000 species of crustaceans that include shrimp, lobsters, crayfish, hermit crabs, and crabs.
Decapolis: league of 10 ancient Greek cities in eastern Palestine that was formed after the Roman conquest of Palestine in 63 BC, when Pompey the Great reorganized the Middle East to Rome's advantage and to his own. The name Decapolis also ...
DeCarava, Roy: American photographer whose images of African Americans chronicle subjects such as daily life in Harlem, the civil rights movement, and jazz musicians.
decathlon: athletic competition lasting two consecutive days in which contestants take part in 10 track-and-field events. It was introduced as a three-day event at the Olympic Games in 1912. Decathlon events are: (first day) 100-metre dash, running long (broad) jump, shot ...
Decatur: city, seat (1829) of Macon county, central Illinois, U.S. It lies along a bend in the Sangamon River (there dammed to form Lake Decatur), about halfway between Springfield and Champaign. First settled in 1820, the town was founded in 1829 ...
Decatur: city, seat (1891) of Morgan county, northern Alabama, U.S. It lies along the Tennessee River about 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Huntsville. Andrew Jackson gave land grants in the area to soldiers who marched with him to the Battle ...
Decatur: city, seat (1823) of DeKalb county, northwestern Georgia, U.S. It is an eastern suburb of Atlanta. Named for Stephen Decatur, the American naval hero of the War of 1812, it was originally a trading centre for small farmers, and stone ...