Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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hand ... Hans Adam II, prince of Liechtenstein

hand: ancient unit of length, now standardized at 4 inches (10.16 cm) and used today primarily for measuring the height of horses from the ground to the withers (top of the shoulders). The unit was originally defined as the breadth of ...
hand: grasping organ at the end of the forelimb of certain vertebrates, exhibiting great mobility and flexibility in the digits and in the whole organ. It is made up of the wrist joint, the carpal bones, metacarpal bones, and phalanges. The ...
hand tool: any of the implements used by craftsmen in manual operations, such as chopping, chiseling, sawing, filing, or forging. Complementary tools, often needed as auxiliaries to shaping tools, include such implements as the hammer for nailing and the vise for holding. ...
Hand, Learned: American jurist whose tough and sometimes profound mind, philosophical skepticism, and faith in the United States were employed throughout a record tenure as a federal judge (52 years, from April 10, 1909, until his death). Although he was never a ...
Handa: city, Aichi ken (prefecture), Honshu, Japan. Handa lies on the Chita Peninsula, facing Chita Bay of the Pacific Ocean. It served as an important commercial port during the Tokugawa period (1603-1867), when the local production of processed foods and cotton ...
handball: any of a family of games played in walled courts or against a single wall, with a small rubber ball that is struck with hand or fist against the wall. The object is to cause the ball to rebound with ...
handbell: small bell-usually of brass or bronze but sometimes of copper, clay, porcelain, glass, or other hard material-with an attached stem, loop, or leather strap for a handle. The earliest handbells were probably of beaten copper, but since the Bronze Age ...
handcuffs: device for shackling the hands, used by police on prisoners under arrest. Until modern times, handcuffs were of two kinds: (1) the figure 8, which confined the hands close together either in front of or behind the body, and (2) ...
handedness: a tendency to use one hand rather than the other to perform most activities; it is the usual practice to classify persons as right-handed, left-handed, or ambidextrous. See laterality.
Handel, George Frideric: German-born English composer of the late Baroque era, noted particularly for his operas, oratorios, and instrumental compositions. He wrote the most famous of all oratorios, the Messiah (1741), and is also known for such occasional pieces as ...
handgun: any firearm small enough to be held in one hand when fired. It usually fires a single projectile or bullet, and additional ammunition may be available in a revolving mechanism or magazine. Handguns may be used for target shooting, hunting ...
handicap: in sports and games, method of offsetting the varying abilities or characteristics of competitors in order to equalize their chances of winning. Handicapping takes many, often complicated, forms. In horse racing, a track official known as the handicapper may assign ...
Handke, Peter: avant-garde Austrian playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist, one of the most original German-language writers in the second half of the 20th century.
Handl, Jacob: also called Jacobus Gallus German-Austrian composer known for his sacred music.
Handlin, Oscar: American historian and educator noted for his examinations of immigration and other social topics in American history.
hands, imposition of: ritual act in which a priest or other religious functionary places one or both hands palms down on the top of another person's head, usually while saying a prayer or blessing. The imposition of hands was first practiced in Judaism ...
Handsome Lake cult: longest-established prophet movement in North America. Its founder was Ganioda'yo (q.v.), a Seneca chief whose name meant "Handsome Lake"; his heavenly revelations received in trance in 1799 rapidly transformed both himself and the demoralized Seneca. Their Christian beliefs, which came ...
Handy, W.C.: black American composer who changed the course of popular music by integrating the blues idiom into the then-fashionable ragtime. Among his best-known works is the classic "St. Louis Blues."
hang gliding: sport of flying in lightweight unpowered aircraft which can be carried by the pilot. Takeoff is usually achieved by launching into the air from a cliff or hill. Hang gliders were developed by the pioneers of practical flight. In Germany, ...
Hang-chou: city in northern Chekiang sheng (province), China. It is the provincial capital. The city stands on the north bank of the Ch'ien-t'ang River estuary at the head of Hang-chou Bay. It has water communications with the interior of Chekiang to ...
Hangayn Mountains: range in central Mongolia. It extends northwest-southeast for about 500 miles (805 km), parallels the Mongolian Altai Mountains (south), and rises to a height of 12,812 feet (3,905 m) in Otgon Tenger Peak. Most of its northern drainage flows into ...
hanging: execution by strangling or breaking the neck by a suspended noose. The traditional method, still in use on the continent of Europe, involves suspending the victim from a gallows or crossbeam until he has died of asphyxiation. Elsewhere, the condemned ...
Hanging Gardens of Babylon: one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The gardens, built within the walls of the royal palace at Babylon, the capital of Babylonia (now in southern Iraq), did not actually "hang" but were instead "up in the air"-that is, ...
Hangul: alphabetic system used for writing the Korean language. The system, known as Choson muntcha in North Korea, consists of 24 letters, including 14 consonant and 10 vowel symbols. The consonant symbols are formed with curved or angled lines; vowel symbols ...
Hani: non-Han Chinese people living on the high southwestern plateau of Yunnan sheng (province), China, specifically concentrated in the southwestern corner. There are also several thousands of Hani in northern Southeast Asia, notably Thailand.
hanif: in the Qur'an, the sacred scripture of Islam, an Arabic designation for true monotheists (especially Abraham) who were not Jews, Christians, or worshipers of idols. The word appears to have been borrowed from a Syriac word meaning "heathen" and, by ...
Hanish Islands: archipelago in the southern Red Sea that as of November 1, 1998, was officially recognized as sovereign territory of Yemen. Long under Ottoman sovereignty, the island group's political status was purposely left indeterminate by the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), under ...
haniwa: unglazed terra-cotta cylinders and hollow sculptures arranged on and around the mounded tombs (kofun) of the Japanese elite dating from the Tumulus period (c. AD 250-552). The first and most common haniwa were barrel-shaped cylinders (haniwa means "circle of clay") ...
hank: in textile manufacture, unit of measure applied to a length of yarn or to a loose assemblage of fibres forming a single strand, and varying according to the fibre origin. A hank of cotton or of the spun silk made ...
Hanks, Nancy: American public official whose position as chair of the National Endowment for the Arts allowed her to dramatically increase funding for and programs in the arts.
Hanks, Tom: American film actor whose cheerful, everyman persona made him a natural for starring roles in many popular films. In the 1990s he expanded his comedic repertoire and began portraying lead characters in dramas.
Hanlin Academy: elite scholarly institution founded in the 8th century AD in China to perform secretarial, archival, and literary tasks for the court and to establish the official interpretation of the Confucian Classics, which were the basis of the civil-service examinations necessary ...
Hanna, Mark: American industrialist and prototype of the political kingmaker; he successfully promoted the presidential candidacy of William McKinley in the election of 1896 and personified the growing influence of big business in American politics.
Hanna, William; and Barbera, Joseph: American motion-picture animators and partners in Hanna-Barbera Productions, founded in 1957. The two collaborated for more than half a century.
Hannah: (11th century BC), mother of Samuel, the Jewish judge. Childless as one of the two wives of Elkanah, she prayed for a son, promising to dedicate him to God. Her prayers were answered, and she brought the child Samuel to ...
Hannah, Barry: American author of darkly comic, often violent novels and short stories set in the Deep South.
Hannibal: Carthaginian general, one of the great military leaders of antiquity, who commanded the Carthaginian forces against Rome in the Second Punic War (218-201 BC).
Hannibal: city, Ralls and Marion counties, northeastern Missouri, U.S., on the Mississippi River, 100 miles (160 km) north of St. Louis. Noted as the boyhood home of Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Hannibal was the setting for some of his books, including ...
Hannington, James: English Anglican missionary and first bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa.
Hanno: also called Hanno The Great leader of the aristocratic pro-Roman faction at Carthage during the Second Punic War (218-201) between Rome and Carthage. In 241 Hanno was given command against the Carthaginian mercenaries who had raised a rebellion among the ...
Hanno: Carthaginian who conducted a voyage of exploration and colonization to the west coast of Africa sometime during the 5th century. Setting sail with 60 vessels holding 30,000 men and women, Hanno founded Thymiaterion (now Kenitra, Mor.) and built a temple ...
Hannover: city, capital of Lower Saxony Land (state), northwestern Germany. It lies on the Leine River and the Mittelland Canal, where the spurs of the Harz Mountains meet the wide North German Plain.
Hanoi: capital, from 1976, of Vietnam; capital, 1954-76, of North Vietnam; and former capital of French Indochina. The city is situated in northern Vietnam on the western bank of the Red River, about 85 miles (140 km) inland from the South ...
Hanotaux, Gabriel: statesman, diplomat, and historian who directed a major French colonial expansion in Africa and who championed a Franco-Russian alliance that proved important in the events leading to World War I.
Hanover: borough (town), York county, southern Pennsylvania, U.S. It lies in the Conewago Creek valley, 20 miles (32 km) southwest of York. Laid out in 1763 by Colonel Richard McAllister, it was incorporated as a borough in 1815 and named for ...
Hanover: village, seat of Hanover county, east-central Virginia, U.S. It lies immediately east of Ashland, near the Pamunkey River, 15 miles (24 km) north of Richmond. Founded in 1720 and named for the elector of Hanover (afterward King George I of ...
Hanover: town (township), Grafton county, western New Hampshire, U.S. It lies along the Connecticut River and includes the communities of Hanover and Etna. It was settled in 1765 and named for Hanover, Connecticut, the home of many of its early settlers. ...
Hanover: former state of northwestern Germany, first an electorate (1692-1806) of the Holy Roman Empire, then a kingdom (1814-66), and finally a Prussian province (1866-1945). After World War II the state was administratively abolished; its former territory formed about 80 percent ...
Hanover, House of: British royal house of German origin, descended from George Louis, elector of Hanover, who succeeded to the British crown, as George I, in 1714. The dynasty provided six monarchs: George I (reigned 1714-27), George II (reigned 1727-60), George III (reigned ...
Hanriot, Francois: commander in chief of the Paris national guard during the supremacy of the Jacobin Club radicals, led by Maximilien Robespierre, in the French Revolution.
Hans Adam II, prince of Liechtenstein: member of the ruling family of Liechtenstein who became prince (head of state) in 1989.