Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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H I region ... Hachinohe

H I region: in astronomy, interstellar matter composed of neutral hydrogen atoms. Most of the matter between the stars in the Milky Way Galaxy, to which the Earth belongs, as well as in other spiral galaxies, occurs in the form of relatively cold, ...
H II region: in astronomy, interstellar matter consisting of ionized hydrogen atoms. Such regions occur as hot, ionized gaseous clouds, sometimes called emission nebulae. The energy that is responsible for ionizing and heating the hydrogen in an emission nebula comes from a central ...
Ha: a Bantu-speaking people belonging to the Interlacustrine Bantu ethnolinguistic family who live in western Tanzania bordering on Lake Tanganyika. Their country, which they call Buha, comprises grasslands and open woodlands. Agriculture is their primary economic activity. Sorghum, millet, corn (maize), ...
Ha Giang: town, northern Vietnam. The town lies along the Lo River about 215 miles (350 km) northwest of Hanoi. It is a market centre in a forested mountainous region about 13 miles (20 km) southeast of the China-Vietnam border. The area ...
Ha Long Bay: bay on the northwest coast of the Gulf of Tonkin, near the city of Hong Gai, Quang Ninh province, northern Vietnam. Situated 102 miles (164 km) southeast of Hanoi, the 580-square-mile (1,500-square-kilometre) area contains some 3,000 rocky and earthen islands, ...
Ha'apai Group: central island cluster of Tonga, in the South Pacific Ocean about 2,000 miles (3,000 km) northeast of Sydney. Comprising 36 coral and volcanic islands, the group has a total land area of 43 square miles (110 square km), dispersed over ...
Ha'aretz: (Hebrew: "The Land"), newspaper published in Tel Aviv, Israel's oldest daily and generally considered the country's highest quality newspaper.
Ha'il: town, northwestern Saudi Arabia. It is situated between Mount Shammar on the north and Mount Salma on the south and is on one of the main pilgrimage routes from Iraq to Mecca. Ha'il superseded the former administrative centre of the ...
Ha-mi: city and oasis in eastern Uighur autonomous ch'u (region) of Sinkiang, China. An important stage on the roads from Kansu province into Central Asia and to the west, Ha-mi was known to the Chinese in early times as I-wu, the ...
Haakon I Adalsteinsfostre: Norwegian king and one of the most eminent Scandinavian rulers of his time. He fostered the growth of governmental institutions but failed in his attempt to Christianize the lesser Norwegian chieftains.
Haakon II Sigurdsson: king of Norway (1157-62), illegitimate son of Sigurd Munn (d. 1155).
Haakon III Sverresson: king of Norway (1202-04), the illegitimate son of King Sverre Sigurdsson.
Haakon IV Haakonsson: king of Norway (1217-63) who consolidated the power of the monarchy, patronized the arts, and established Norwegian sovereignty over Greenland and Iceland. His reign is considered the beginning of the "golden age" (1217-1319) in medieval Norwegian history.
Haakon Sigurdsson: Norwegian noble who defeated Harald II Graycloak, becoming the chief ruler (c. 970) of Norway; he later extended his rule over the greater part of the country. He resisted an attempt by the Danish king Harald III Bluetooth to Christianize ...
Haakon V Magnusson: king of Norway (1299-1319) whose anti-English foreign policy paved the way for the commercial domination of Norway by north German traders of the Hanseatic League. His reign marked the end of the "golden age" in medieval Norwegian history.
Haakon VI Magnusson: king of Norway (1355-80) whose marriage to Margaret, daughter of the Danish king Valdemar IV, in 1363 paved the way for the eventual union (1397) of the three major Scandinavian nations-Denmark, Norway, and Sweden-the Kalmar Union. Haakon was deeply embroiled ...
Haakon VII: first king of Norway following the restoration of that country's independence in 1905.
Haanja: morainal region of southeastern Estonia. The moraine is steep on the north but slopes more gently toward the south, extending slightly into Latvia. Deeply incised valleys separate the hills, and there are many lakes. Haanja is the highest and most ...
Haardt Mountains: mountain range in Rheinland-Pfalz Land (state), southwestern Germany. They comprise the eastern part of the Pfalzer Forest Mountains and lie west of the Rhine River basin, extending from the French border to a point about 20 miles (30 km) south ...
Haarlem: gemeente (commune) and capital, Noord-Holland provincie, western Netherlands. It lies along the Spaarne River, 4.5 miles (7 km) from the North Sea, just west of Amsterdam. Haarlem was mentioned in the 10th century and by the 12th century had become ...
Haarlem Lake: polder (area 45,700 acres [18,486 hectares]) coextensive with the gemeente (commune) of Haarlemmermeer in Noord-Holland provincie, western Netherlands. Originally, a number of lakes-with a combined area of about 14,000 acres (5,700 hectares) in 1531-were formed into one by successive inundations, ...
Haarlemmermeer: gemeente (commune), Noord-Holland provincie, The Netherlands, occupying the reclaimed Haarlem Lake, which was drained between 1840 and 1852. There is a network of roads and ditches at right angles within the enclosing canal and dike. The population is concentrated in ...
Haas, Ernst: Austrian-born photojournalist who was influential for his innovations in colour photography.
Haas, Walter A.: American business executive credited with saving the foundering Levi Strauss & Co., the major manufacturer of "blue jean" denim pants. Haas's efforts after World War II laid the groundwork for the company's dramatic growth during the blue-jean boom of the ...
Haasse, Hella S.: Dutch novelist noted for her innovative historical fiction.
Haavelmo, Trygve: Norwegian economist who was a pioneer in what became the field of economic forecasting. He was awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize for Economics.
Haavikko, Paavo: Finnish humanist poet, novelist, and dramatist. His work is modernistic, experimental, and linguistically innovative.
Haba, Alois: Czech composer noted for his experiments with microtonal music.
Habad: Jewish movement and its doctrine, an offshoot of the religious and social movement known as Hasidism; its name derives from the initial letters of three Hebrew words that distinguish and characterize the movement: hokhma ("wisdom"), bina ("intelligence"), and da'at ("knowledge"). ...
Habakkuk, The Book of: the eighth of 12 Old Testament books that bear the names of the Minor Prophets. The book betrays the influence of liturgical forms, suggesting that either Habakkuk was a cult prophet or that those responsible for the final form of ...
Habash, George: militant Palestinian and leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Habbaniyah, Hawr al-: lake in al-Anbar muhafazah (governorate), western Iraq. It is a shallow body of slightly saline water, 54 sq mi (140 sq km) in area, separated from the Euphrates River to the north by the Asibi and Zaban ridges. The lake ...
habeas corpus: an ancient common-law writ, issued by a court or judge directing one who holds another in his custody to produce the body of the person before the court for some specified purpose. Although there have been and are many varieties ...
Habeneck, Francois-Antoine: French violinist, conductor, and composer.
Haber, Fritz: German physical chemist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1918) for his development of a method of synthesizing ammonia. With Carl Bosch, he invented a process for the large-scale production of ammonia for use in nitrogen fertilizer.
Haber-Bosch process: method of directly synthesizing ammonia from hydrogen and nitrogen, developed by the German physical chemist Fritz Haber. He received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1918 for this method, which made the manufacture of ammonia economically feasible. The method was ...
Haberlandt, Gottlieb: Austrian botanist, pioneer in the development of physiological plant anatomy, and the first person to study plant tissue culture (1921).
Haberler, Gottfried von: Austrian-born American economist, writer, and educator whose major field of expertise was international trade.
Habib, Philip Charles: U.S. diplomat who had a distinguished 30-year career as a U.S. foreign-service officer, notably in his efforts in the Middle East in the 1970s and '80s.
Habibollah Khan: ruler of Afghanistan from 1901 to 1919. Maintaining satisfactory relations with British India, he introduced needed reforms in Afghanistan and steered his country on a moderate political course.
Habima: (Hebrew: "Stage"), Hebrew theatre company originally organized as Habima ha-'Ivrit (Hebrew: "the Hebrew Stage") in Bialystok, in Russian Poland, in 1912 by Nahum Zemach. The troupe traveled in 1913 to Vienna, where it staged Osip Dymov's Hear O Israel before ...
habit: in psychology, any regularly repeated behaviour that requires little or no thought and is learned rather than innate. A habit-which can be part of any activity, ranging from eating and sleeping to thinking and reacting-is developed through reinforcement and repetition. ...
habitat: place where an organism or a community of organisms lives, including all living and nonliving factors or conditions of the surrounding environment. A host organism inhabited by parasites is as much a habitat as a terrestrial place such as a ...
habitual offender: person who frequently has been convicted of criminal behaviour and is presumed to be a danger to society. In an attempt to protect society from such criminals, penal systems throughout the world provide for lengthier terms of imprisonment for them ...
habituation: the waning of an animal's behavioral response to a stimulus, as a result of a lack of reinforcement during continual exposure to the stimulus. It is usually considered to be a form of learning involving the elimination of behaviours that ...
haboob: hot and moist, strong wind that occurs along the southern edges of the Sahara in The Sudan and is associated with large sandstorms and duststorms and may be accompanied by thunderstorms and small tornadoes. It usually lasts about three hours, ...
Habsburg, House of: royal German family, one of the principal sovereign dynasties of Europe from the 15th to the 20th century.
Habshi: African and Abyssinian slaves in pre-British India. The name derives from the Arabic word Habashi, meaning Abyssinian, through its Persian form. Such slaves, frequently employed by the chiefs of Muslim India, especially in the Deccan, were believed to have great ...
Hachette, Louis-Christophe-Francois: French publisher who issued a wide range of textbooks, dictionaries, and numerous other publications that gave impetus to French education and culture.
Hachiman: one of the most popular Shinto deities of Japan; the patron deity of the Minamoto clan and of warriors in general; often referred to as the god of war. Hachiman is commonly regarded as the deification of Ojin, the 15th ...
Hachinohe: city, Aomori Prefecture (ken), Honshu, Japan, facing the Pacific Ocean. It was a castle town during the Tokugawa era (1603-1867) and served as a small commercial centre and port for the excellent fishing grounds off southeastern Hokkaido. The processing of ...