Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Dimbleby, Richard ... Dinkelsbuhl

Dimbleby, Richard: pioneer radio news reporter and the first of Britain's great broadcast journalists. He was the first war correspondent for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC); his voice became familiar to most Britons via radio, and early in the television era his ...
Dimbokro: town, south-central Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast). It lies along the Nzi River, which is a tributary of the Bandama River. A local trade centre (yams, bananas, and palm oil and kernels) among the Baule (Baoule) people, it has been a ...
dime novel: a type of inexpensive, usually paperback, melodramatic novel of adventure popular in the United States roughly between 1860 and 1915; it often featured a western theme. One of the best-known authors of such works was E.Z.C. Judson, whose stories, some ...
dimenhydrinate: antihistamine used to treat nausea, chiefly that which occurs in motion sickness, and also in the symptomatic treatment of vertigo, such as in Meniere syndrome, a disease of the inner ear. Dimenhydrinate, a synthetic drug introduced into medicine in 1949, ...
dimension: in common parlance, the measure of the size of an object, such as a box, usually given as length, width, and height. In mathematics, the notion of dimension is an extension of the idea that a line is one-dimensional, a ...
dimensional analysis: technique used in the physical sciences and engineering to reduce physical properties, such as acceleration, viscosity, energy, and others, to their fundamental dimensions of length (L), mass (M), and time (T). This technique facilitates the study of interrelationships of systems ...
dimercaprol: drug that was originally developed to combat the effects of the blister gas lewisite, which was used in chemical warfare. By the end of World War II, dimercaprol had also been found useful as an antidote against poisoning by several ...
dimethoate: any systemic insecticide that acts by inhibiting cholinesterases, enzymes involved in transmitting nerve impulses. Chemically, it is an organophosphate. Like all organophosphates it is related to the nerve gases and is among the most toxic of all pesticides to vertebrates, ...
dimethyl sulfoxide: simplest member of the sulfoxide family of organic compounds; see sulfoxide.
Dimetrodon: extinct relative of primitive mammals that lived from about 286 million to 270 million years ago during the Early Permian Period, fossils of which are found in North America.
diminished responsibility: legal doctrine that absolves an accused person of part of the liability for his criminal act if he suffers from such abnormality of mind as to substantially impair his responsibility in committing or being a party to an alleged violation. ...
diminishing returns: economic law stating that if one input in the production of a commodity is increased while all other inputs are held fixed, a point will eventually be reached at which additions of the input yield progressively smaller, or diminishing, increases ...
Dimitrijevic, Dragutin: Serbian army officer and conspirator, leader of the terrorist secret society Crna Ruka ("Black Hand").
Dimitrios: 269th ecumenical patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox church.
Dimitrov, Georgi Mikhailovich: Bulgarian communist leader who became the post-World War II prime minister of Bulgaria. He also won worldwide fame for his defense against Nazi accusations during the German Reichstag Fire trial of 1933.
Dimitrovgrad: city, Ulyanovsk oblast (province), western Russia at the confluence of the Melekes and Bolshoy (Great) Cheremshan rivers. Founded in 1714, it became a town in 1919 and is an agricultural processing centre, with sawmilling and metalworking industries. ...
Dimitrovgrad: town, south-central Bulgaria, in the fertile lowlands of the Maritsa River valley; it is a rail junction on the Belgrade-Sofia-Istanbul rail line. The new town, built in 1947 by Bulgarian youth, incorporated three existing villages-Rakovski, Mariino, and Chernokonovo-and is named ...
dimity: (from Greek dimitos, "of double thread"), lightweight, sheer cotton fabric with two or more warp threads thrown into relief, forming fine cords. Originally dimity was made of silk or wool, but since the 18th century it has been woven almost ...
Dimona: town of the Negev, southern Israel, on the main highway from Beersheba (Be'er Sheva') to Sedom (Sodom). It is named for the biblical city of Dimonah, mentioned (Joshua 15:21-22) as "belonging to&elipsis;Judah in the extreme South."
Dimorphodon: primitive flying reptiles found as fossils in European deposits from the Early Jurassic Period (206 million to 180 million years ago). Dimorphodon is among the earliest known pterosaurs, an extinct group of reptiles related to the dinosaurs. It was about ...
Din-i Ilahi: (Persian: "Divine Faith"), an elite eclectic religious movement, which never numbered more than 19 adherents, formulated by the Mughal emperor Akbar in the late 16th century AD.
Dinah: in the Old Testament (Genesis 30:21; 34; 46:15), daughter of Jacob by Leah; Dinah was abducted and raped near the city of Shechem, by Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite (the Hivites were a Canaanitish people). Because Shechem then wished ...
Dinajpur: town, northwestern Bangladesh, just east of the Punarbhaba River. The old city and the former residence of the maharaja of Dinajpur are located in the northeastern quarter of the town. Dinajpur contains jute and rice mills, jute-seed farms, and a ...
Dinan: town, northwestern France, in Cotes-d'Armor departement, Brittany region, dominating the upper Rance estuary. It stands on a height above the left bank of the river 14 miles (22 km) south of the coast at ...
dinanderie: type of late medieval brass ware made in and around Dinant, Belg.
Dinant: municipality, Namur province, southern Belgium, on the Meuse River below steep limestone cliffs, south of Namur. Inhabited in Roman times, Dinant's name probably derives from Diana, Roman goddess of the hunt. A fortified burgh in Merovingian and Carolingian times, it ...
Dinarchus: professional speech writer at Athens whose work is generally thought to reflect the incipient decline of Attic oratory.
Dinaric Alps: southeastern division of the Eastern Alps, running parallel to the Dalmatian (Adriatic) coast from Trieste and Slovenia south to Albania. Bounded by the Soca (Italian Isonzo) and Sava rivers (north), the Drina River (south), the Kolubara, Ibar, and Sitnica rivers ...
Dinawari, ad-: , in full Abu Hanifah Ahmad Ibn Da'ud Al-dinawari Persian astronomer, botanist, and historian, whose interest in Hellenism and the Arabic humanities has been compared with that of the Iraqi scholar al-Jahiz.
Dinder National Park: park, eastern Sudan. The park lies in the clayish flood plain of the Nahr (river) ad-Dindar and Nahr ar-Rahad, at an elevation of 2,300 to 2,600 ft (700 to 800 m). Established in 1935, it covers an area of 2,750 ...
Dinder River: tributary of the Blue Nile, rising in the Ethiopian highlands west of Lake Tana. It flows northwest past Dongur, descends into the Sudanese plain, and runs in numerous meanders to join the Blue Nile below Sannar, The Sudan. The river, ...
Dindigul: city, Tamil Nadu state, southeastern India. Situated between the Palni and Sirumalai hills, it is a road transport hub. Its name, derived from the words tintu kal ("pillow rock"), refers to the bare hill dominating the city. The fortress, built ...
Dindshenchas: (Gaelic: "Lore of Places"), studies in Gaelic prose and verse of the etymology and history of place-names in Ireland-e.g., of streams, raths (strongholds of ancient Irish chiefs), mounds, and rocks. These studies were preserved in variant forms in monastic manuscripts ...
Dine, Jim: American painter, graphic artist, sculptor, and poet who emerged during the Pop Art period as an innovative creator of works that combine the painted canvas with ordinary objects of daily life.
Dines, William Henry: British meteorologist who invented instruments to measure atmospheric properties.
Dinesen, Isak: Danish writer whose finely crafted stories, set in the past and pervaded with an aura of supernaturalism, incorporate the themes of eros and dreams.
ding: type of ancient Chinese cooking or holding vessel, usually with two handles on the rim, that is supported by three or four columnar legs.
Ding Ling: one of China's most popular 20th-century authors. In her early career Ding Ling initially wrote highly successful short stories centring on young, unconventional Chinese women. About 1930, with a distinct change in her artistic tendency, she became a major literary ...
Ding ware: Chinese glazed stoneware produced for many centuries, beginning in the 8th century AD.
Dingane: Zulu king of Natal (1828-40) who assumed power after taking part in the murder of his half brother Shaka in 1828. In November 1837 Dingane promised the Boer leader Piet Retief almost all of Natal in return for the recovery ...
Dingelstedt, Franz Ferdinand, Freiherr von: German poet, playwright, and theatrical producer known for his biting political satires.
Dingiswayo: chieftain, from 1807, of the Mtetwa clan of the North (Natal) Nguni division of the Bantu people.
Dingle: peninsula and bay in County Kerry, on the southwestern coast of Ireland. The peninsula begins south of Tralee as the Slieve Mish range, with elevations of more than 2,000 feet (600 m); but in the west it becomes a mixture ...
dingo: Australian wild dog, one of the few mammals of Australia that is not a marsupial. As wild dogs, dingoes are members of the canine family, Canidae. Authorities regard them as either their own species (Canis dingo), a ...
Dinguiraye: town, north-central Guinea. It lies at the eastern edge of the Fouta Djallon plateau. The town was once the seat of the imamate (region ruled by a Muslim religious leader) of 'Umar Tal, whose jihad (holy war) led to the ...
Dinh Bo Linh: reign title Dinh Tien Hoang emperor and founder of the second Vietnamese dynasty, who, after a decade of anarchy, reunified his country, winning official recognition of Vietnam as a state independent from China.
Dinichthys: extinct genus of arthrodires, i.e., primitive, armoured, fishlike animals that dominated ancient seas. Dinichthys lived during the Late Devonian Period (374 to 360 million years ago) and is found fossilized in rocks of that age in Europe, northern Asia, and ...
Dinis: sixth king of Portugal (1279-1325), who strengthened the kingdom by improving the economy and reducing the power of the nobility and the church.
Dinis, Julio: poet, playwright, and novelist, the first great novelist of modern Portuguese middle-class society. His novels, extremely popular in his lifetime and still widely read in Portugal today, are written in a simple and direct style accessible to a large public.
Dinka: people who live in the savanna country surrounding the central swamps of the Nile basin in the southern part of The Sudan. Numbering more than 4,000,000 at the turn of the 21st century, the Dinka speak a Nilotic language classified ...
Dinkelsbuhl: city, Bavaria Land (state), southern Germany. It lies along the Wornitz River about 20 miles (30 km) southwest of Ansbach. Mentioned in 928, it was fortified in the 10th century and became a free imperial city in ...