Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

0-9

Daphnae ... Darling Downs

Daphnae: ancient fortress town (Fortress of Penhase), situated near Qantarah, in present-day ash-Sharqiyah muhafazah (governorate), northeastern Egypt. Excavations by Sir Flinders Petrie in 1886 uncovered a massive fort and enclosure surrounded by a wall 40 feet (13 m) thick, built by ...
Daphne: genus of about 50 species of flowering shrubs of the mezereum family (Thymelaeaceae) native to Eurasia but widely cultivated for their form and flower clusters. The most popular species include low-growing evergreen types that are often grown in borders and ...
Daphne: in Greek mythology, the personification of the laurel (Greek daphne), a tree whose leaves, formed into garlands, were particularly associated with Apollo (q.v.). Traditionally, the special position of the laurel was connected with Apollo's love for Daphne, the beautiful daughter ...
Daphnephoria: in Greek religion, festival held every ninth year at Thebes in Boeotia in honour of Apollo Ismenius (after the Theban river called Ismenus) or Apollo Chalazius (god of hail). It consisted of a procession in which the chief figure was ...
Daphnia: well-known water flea (q.v.) genus.
Daphnis: legendary hero of the shepherds of Sicily and the reputed inventor of bucolic poetry. According to tradition, Daphnis was the son of Hermes and a Sicilian nymph and was found by shepherds in a grove of laurels (Greek daphne). He ...
Dapitan: chartered city and port, western Mindanao, Philippines, situated on Dapitan Bay of the Sulu Sea. One of the principal cities located on the Zamboanga Peninsula, it lies 8 miles (12 km) northwest of Dipolog, the largest settlement of the region. ...
Daqahliyyah, Al-: muhafazah (governorate), northeastern Nile River delta, Lower Egypt, bordering on the Mediterranean Sea. Its triangular area, with the "point" to the south, is traversed by the Damietta branch of the Nile. Its name, an Arabicized form of ...
Daqiqi: poet, one of the most important figures in early Persian poetry.
Daquin, Louis-Claude: French harpsichordist, organist, and composer of keyboard music whose playing was noted for its neatness and precision and whose music was admired for its gentle charm.
Dar es Salaam: seat of government, largest city, industrial centre, and major port of Tanzania, eastern Africa. Its climate is hot and humid, with an annual rainfall of 43 inches (1,100 mm). Dar es Salaam was founded in 1862 by the sultan of ...
Dar'a: town, southwestern Syria. Dar'a, which is the chief town of the Hawran (a region of southwestern Syria), is a road and rail junction located less than 6 miles (10 km) from the Jordanian border on the Wadi Jride. It is ...
Darab: town southwestern Iran, at an elevation of about 4,000 feet (1,200 m) in a well-watered basin just south of some high ranges. The winter climate is mild, and fruits, cereals, cotton, and tobacco are grown, though the lower lands are ...
darabukka: goblet-shaped small drum that is widely played in Islamic classical and folk music throughout North Africa, Central Asia, and the Middle East. The darabukka is a single-headed drum usually made of clay or wood and is held upright, upside down, ...
Daranyi, Kalman: Hungarian statesman under whose premiership (1936-38) right-wing political elements gained increased influence in pre-World War II Hungary.
Darazi, Muhammad ibn Isma'il ad-: propagandist for the Isma'ili sect of Islam and the man for whom the religion of the Druze sect is named.
Darbhanga: town, northern Bihar state, northeastern India. It is situated just to the east of the Baghmati River, a tributary of the Ganges. The town was the capital of the Darbhanga raj, an estate established in the 16th century, and contains ...
Darboux, Jean-Gaston: French mathematician who made important contributions to geometry and analysis and after whom the Darboux integral is named.
Darby, Abraham: British ironmaster who first successfully smelted iron ore with coke.
Darcy's law: mathematical relationship discovered (1856) by the French engineer Henri Darcy that governs the flow of groundwater through granular media or the flow of other fluids through permeable material, such as petroleum through sandstone or limestone. As the basic relationship from ...
Darcy, Henri-Philibert-Gaspard: French hydraulic engineer who first derived the equation (now known as Darcy's law) that governs the laminar (nonturbulent) flow of fluids in homogeneous, porous media and who thereby established the theoretical foundation of groundwater hydrology.
Darcy, Thomas Darcy, Lord: powerful English nobleman who, disliking the separation of England from papal jurisdiction, was implicated in the rebellion in 1536, in the north, against the ecclesiastical policy of Henry VIII.
Dardanelles: narrow strait in northwestern Turkey, 38 mi (61 km) long, linking the Aegean Sea with the Sea of Marmara. It is 34 to 4 mi wide and lies between the peninsula of Gallipoli in Europe (northwest) and the mainland of ...
Dardanelles Campaign: (February 1915-January 1916), in World War I, an Anglo-French operation against Turkey, intended to force the 38-mile- (61-km-) long Dardanelles channel and to occupy Constantinople. Plans for such a venture were considered by the British authorities between 1904 and 1911, ...
Dardanus: in Greek legend, the son of Zeus and the Pleiad Electra, mythical founder of Dardania on the Hellespont. He was the ancestor of the Dardanians of the Troad and, through Aeneas, of the Romans.
Dardic languages: group of closely related Indo-Iranian languages spoken in Pakistan, Kashmir, and Afghanistan. They are often divided into three subgroups: Kafiri, or Western; Khowari, or Central (spoken in the Chitral district of northwestern Pakistan); and the Eastern group, which includes Shina ...
Dardistan: region inhabited by the so-called Dard peoples in the north of Pakistan and northern Kashmir. It includes Chitral, the upper reaches of the Panjkora River, the Kohistan (highland) of Swat, and the upper portions of the Gilgit Agency. Mentioned by ...
Dare, Virginia: the first English child born in the Americas. She was given the name Virginia because she was the first Christian born in Virginia.
Dares Phrygius: a Trojan priest of Hephaestus who appears as one of the characters in Homer's Iliad and is the reputed author of a lost pre-Homeric "eyewitness" account of the Trojan War. The Daretis Phrygii de Excidio Trojae historia, a Latin work ...
Dareste de la Chavanne, Antoine: French historian whose reputation rests on his authoritative major work, Histoire de France, 9 vol. (1865-79).
Daret, Jacques: early French Renaissance painter of Tournai whose work shows the strong influence of the Master of Flemalle. Only one group of his works is known, that from the period 1433-35. The Flemish realism developed by the Master of Flemalle was ...
Darfur: historical region of the Bilad al-Sudan (Arabic: "Land of the Fur"), roughly corresponding to the westernmost portion of the present-day Sudan. It lay between Kordofan to the east and Wadai to the west and extended southward to the Al-Ghazal (Gazelle) ...
Dargomyzhsky, Aleksandr: Russian composer of songs and operas whose works are now seldom performed.
Darhan: town, northern Mongolia, northwest of Ulaanbaatar. A large industrial complex, built in the late 1960s with Soviet and eastern European aid, makes Darhan one of the largest industrial centres in Mongolia. A building- industry combine produces concrete, lime cement, bricks, ...
Dari language: member of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian family of languages; it is, along with Pashto, one of the two official languages of Afghanistan. Dari is the Afghan dialect of Farsi (Persian). It is written in a modified Arabic alphabet, ...
Darien: city, seat (1818) of McIntosh county, southeastern Georgia, U.S. It is situated near the mouth of the Altamaha River on the Atlantic coast, about 20 miles (32 km) north of Brunswick. The site, near Fort King George, was settled in ...
Darien: town (township), Fairfield county, southwestern Connecticut, U.S., on Long Island Sound. Originally part of Stamford, the area was settled by colonists from Wethersfield about 1641, and a separate community life began in 1737 when the newly named Middlesex Parish was ...
Darien: geographic region of the easternmost Isthmus of Panama; it extends into northwestern Colombia, around the Gulf of Uraba (a section of the Gulf of Darien), and forms the physiographic link between Central and South America. A hot, humid area typified ...
Darien, Gulf of: triangular southernmost extension of the Caribbean Sea, bounded by Panama on the southwest and by Colombia on the southeast and east. The inner section, which is called the Gulf of Uraba, is a shallow, mangrove-lined arm lying between Caribana Point ...
Darin, Bobby: American singer and songwriter whose quest for success in several genres made him a ubiquitous presence in pop entertainment in the late 1950s and '60s.
Dario, Ruben: influential Nicaraguan poet, journalist, and diplomat. As a leader of the Spanish American literary movement known as Modernismo, which flourished at the end of the 19th century, he revivified and modernized poetry in Spanish on both sides of the Atlantic ...
Darius I: king of Persia in 522-486 BC, one of the greatest rulers of the Achaemenid dynasty, who was noted for his administrative genius and for his great building projects. Darius attempted several times to conquer Greece; his fleet was destroyed by ...
Darius II Ochus: Achaemenid king (reigned 423-404 BC) of Persia.
Darius III: the last king (reigned 336-330 BC) of the Achaemenid dynasty.
Darjeeling: town, extreme northern West Bengal state, northeastern India. Darjeeling lies 305 miles (491 km) north of Calcutta. The town is situated on a long, narrow mountain ridge of the Sikkim Himalayas that descends abruptly to the bed of the Great ...
Dark Ages: the early medieval period of western European history. Specifically, the term refers to the time (476-800) when there was no Roman (or Holy Roman) emperor in the West; or, more generally, to the period between about 500 and 1000, which ...
dark nebula: interstellar dust and gas concentrated sufficiently to produce conspicuous obscuring of the stars beyond (see nebula).
darkling beetle: any member of the approximately 12,000 species of the insect family Tenebrionidae (order Coleoptera), so named because of their nocturnal habits. These beetles tend to be short and dark; some, however, have bright markings. Although found on every continent, they ...
Darlan, Francois: French admiral and a leading figure in Marshal Philippe Petain's World War II Vichy government.
Darley, George: poet and critic little esteemed by his contemporaries but praised by 20th-century writers for his intense evocation, in his unfinished lyrical epic Nepenthe (1835), of a symbolic dreamworld. Long regarded as unreadable, this epic came to be admired in the ...
Darling Downs: pastoral and agricultural region in southeastern Queensland, Australia. It extends westward from the Great Dividing Range and southward to the Dumaresq and Macintyre rivers, generally occupying the basin of the Condamine River. The Darling Downs is a tableland that covers ...