Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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E region ... Earth, geologic history of

E region: ionospheric region that extends from an altitude of 90 kilometres (60 miles) to about 160 kilometres (100 miles). As in the D region (70-90 kilometres), the ionization is primarily molecular-i.e., resulting from the splitting of neutral molecules-oxygen (O₂) and nitrogen ...
e-commerce: maintaining business relationships and selling information, services, and commodities by means of computer telecommunications networks.
e-mail: messages transmitted and received by digital computers through a network. An e-mail system allows computer users on a network to send text, graphics, and sometimes sounds and animated images to other users.
Ea: Mesopotamian god of water and a member of the triad of deities completed by Anu (Sumerian: An) and Enlil. From a local deity worshiped in the city of Eridu, Ea evolved into a major god, Lord of Apsu (also spelled ...
Eadbald: king of Kent, who succeeded his father Aethelberht in 616. He had not been influenced by the teaching of the Christian missionaries, and his first step on his accession was to marry his father's widow. After his subsequent conversion by ...
Eadred: king of the English from 946 to 955, who brought Northumbria permanently under English rule. Eadred was the son of the West Saxon king Edward the Elder (ruled 899-924), the half brother of King Athelstan (ruled 924-939), and the brother ...
Eadric Streona: ealdorman of the Mercians, who, though a man of ignoble birth, was advanced to the revived office of ealdorman by the English king Ethelred II, whose daughter Eadgyth Eadric married (1009).
Eads, James B.: American engineer best known for his triple-arch steel bridge over the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Mo. (1874). Another project provided a year-round navigation channel for New Orleans by means of jetties (1879).
Eadwig: king of the English from 955 to 957 and ruler of Wessex and Kent from 957 to 959. The eldest son of King Edmund I (ruled 939-946) and the nephew of King Eadred (ruled 946-955), he was probably no more ...
Eagan, Eddie: American boxer and bobsledder who was the only athlete to win gold medals at both the Summer and Winter Olympics.
Eagels, Jeanne: American actress who, through force of will and personality rather than training, forged a successful career onstage and in motion pictures.
eagle: any of many large, heavy-beaked, big-footed birds of prey belonging to the family Accipitridae (order Falconiformes). In general, an eagle is any bird of prey more powerful than a buteo. An eagle may resemble a vulture in build and flight ...
eagle owl: (Bubo bubo), bird of the family Strigidae (order Strigiformes), characterized by its large size (often 70 centimetres [about 2.3 feet] long), two tufts of feathers on the head (ear tufts), and large orange eyes. The overall coloration is tawny, mottled ...
Eagle Pass: city, seat (1856) of Maverick county, southwestern Texas, U.S., on the Rio Grande, bridged to Piedras Negras, Mexico, 130 miles (210 km) southwest of San Antonio. It evolved as a garrison town laid out as El Paso de Aguila (Spanish: ...
eagle ray: any of about two dozen species of exclusively marine rays constituting the family Myliobatidae (order Rajiformes), occurring in the major oceans. They have the enlarged, winglike pectoral fins characteristic of the order. Some species have a sharp-edged serrated spine at ...
Eagles, the: American band that cultivated country rock as the reigning style and sensibility of white youth in the United States during the 1970s. The original members were Don Henley (b. July 22, 1947, Gilmer, Texas, U.S., ), Glenn Frey (b. November ...
Eakins, Thomas: painter who carried the tradition of 19th-century American Realism to perhaps its highest achievement. He painted mainly portraits of his friends and scenes of outdoor sports, such as swimming and boating (e.g., "Max Schmitt in a Single Scull," 1871). Because ...
Ealdred: also spelled Aldred Anglo-Saxon archbishop of York from 1060, played an important part in secular politics at the time of the Norman conquest and legitimized the rule of William the Conqueror (William I) by crowning him king on Christmas Day, ...
Ealing: outer borough of London, part of the historic county of Middlesex, midway between central London and the western periphery. The borough was established in 1965 by the amalgamation of the former municipal boroughs of Ealing, Acton, and Southall, all in ...
Ealing Studios: English motion-picture studio, internationally remembered for a series of witty comedies that reflected the social conditions of post-World War II Britain. Founded in 1929 by two of England's best known producers, Basil Dean and Reginald Baker, with the financial support ...
EAM-ELAS: communist-sponsored resistance organization (formed September 1941) and its military wing (formed December 1942), which operated in occupied Greece during World War II. Fighting against the Germans and the Italians as well as against other guerrilla bands, particularly EDES (q.v.), EAM-ELAS ...
Eames, Charles; and Eames, Ray: American designers best known for the beauty, comfort, elegance, and delicacy of their mass-producible furniture. They also wrote books, made motion pictures, and designed exhibitions, fabrics, and industrial and consumer products.
Eames, Emma: American lyric soprano, admired for her beauty and for the technical control and dramatic expressiveness of her voice.
ear disease: any of the diseases or disorders that affect the human ear and hearing.
ear shell: any of various marine snails of the subclass Prosobranchia (class Gastropoda) that constitute the genus Haliotis and family Haliotidae. The characteristic planispiral shell has a broad, oblique aperture, which gives it an earlike shape. A series of perforations through the ...
ear squeeze: effects of a difference in pressure between the internal ear spaces and the external ear canal. These effects may include severe pain, inflammation, bleeding, and rupture of the eardrum membrane. Underwater divers and airplane pilots are sometimes affected.
ear, human: organ of hearing and equilibrium that detects and analyzes noises by transduction (or the conversion of sound waves into electrochemical impulses) and maintains the sense of balance (equilibrium).
Earhart, Amelia: American aviator, one of the world's most celebrated, who was the first woman to fly alone over the Atlantic Ocean.
Earl of Leicester's Men: earliest organized Elizabethan acting company. Formed in 1559 from members of the Earl of Leicester's household, the troupe performed at court the following year. A favourite of Queen Elizabeth, the company was granted a license by royal patent. In 1576 ...
Earle, Alice Morse: American writer and antiquarian whose work centred on the manners, customs, and handicrafts of various periods of American history.
Earle, John: Anglican clergyman, best known as author of Micro-cosmographie. Or, A Peece of the World Discovered; in Essayes and Characters (1628; enlarged 1629 and 1630).
Earlham College: private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Richmond, Ind., U.S. It is affiliated with the Society of Friends (Quakers). A four-year liberal arts college, it offers bachelor's degree programs in the humanities, social sciences, religion, fine arts, and natural sciences ...
Early American furniture: furniture made in the last half of the 17th century by American colonists. Furniture made by the earliest settlers, none of which is known to have survived, was probably crude and makeshift. The earliest known American-made furniture dates from the ...
Early Christian art: architecture, painting, and sculpture from the beginnings of Christianity until about the early 6th century, particularly the art of Italy and the western Mediterranean. (Early Christian art in the eastern part of the Roman Empire is usually considered to be ...
Early Netherlandish art: sculpture, painting, architecture, and other visual arts created in the several domains that in the late 14th and 15th centuries were under the rule of the dukes of Burgundy, coincidentally counts of Flanders. As "Burgundian" and "Flemish" describe only parts ...
Early, Jubal A: Confederate general in the American Civil War (1861-65) whose army at one time threatened Washington, D.C., but whose series of defeats during the Shenandoah Valley campaigns of late 1864 and early 1865 led to the final collapse of the South. ...
Earn: loch (lake) and river, central Scotland. Loch Earn lies on the boundary between the council area of Stirling and the council area of Perth and Kinross, and the River Earn flows through Perth and Kinross. Loch Earn is 6.5 miles ...
Earnhardt, Dale: American stock-car racer who was the dominant driver in the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) during the 1980s and '90s.
Earnshaw, Thomas: English watchmaker, the first to simplify and economize in producing chronometers so as to make them available to the general public.
Earp, Wyatt: legendary frontiersman of the American West, who was an itinerant saloonkeeper, gambler, lawman, gunslinger, and confidence man. The first major biography, Stuart N. Lake's Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal (1931), written with Earp's collaboration, established the rather fictionalized portrait of a ...
earphone: small loudspeaker held or worn close to the listener's ear or within the outer ear. Common forms include the hand-held telephone receiver; the headphone (q.v.), in which one or two earphones are held in place by a band worn over ...
earplug: type of ear ornament usually inserted in pierced and distended earlobes and generally worn by traditional peoples. Earplugs were the direct forerunners of today's pierced earrings.
earring: a personal ornament worn pendent from the ear, usually suspended by means of a ring or hook passing through a pierced hole in the lobe of the ear or, in modern times, often by means of a screwed clip on ...
Earth: third planet from the Sun and the fifth in the solar system in terms of size and mass. Its single most outstanding feature is that its near-surface environments are the only places in the universe known to harbour life. It ...
Earth exploration: the investigation of the surface of the Earth and of its interior.
Earth impact hazard: the danger of collision posed by astronomical small bodies whose orbits around the Sun carry them near Earth. These objects include the rocky asteroids and their larger fragments and the icy nuclei of comets.
Earth Mother: in ancient and modern nonliterate religions, an eternally fruitful source of everything. Unlike the variety of female fertility deities called mother goddesses (q.v.), the Earth Mother is not a specific source of vitality who must periodically undergo sexual intercourse. She ...
Earth satellite: man-made object launched into a temporary or permanent orbit around the Earth. Spacecraft of this type may be either manned or unmanned, the latter being the most common.
Earth sciences: the fields of study concerned with the solid Earth, its waters, and the air that envelops it. Included are the geologic, hydrologic, and atmospheric sciences.
Earth tide: deformation of the solid Earth as it rotates within the gravitational fields of the Sun and Moon. Earth tides are similar to ocean tides. The Earth deforms because it has a certain degree of elasticity; were it perfectly rigid, there ...
Earth, geologic history of: evolution of the continents, oceans, atmosphere, and biosphere. The layers of rock at the Earth's surface contain evidence of the evolutionary processes undergone by these components of the terrestrial environment during the times at which each layer was formed. By ...