Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Hachioji ... Hafez

Hachioji: city, Tokyo Metropolis (to), Honshu, Japan, on the Chuo Line (railway), west of Tokyo. A castle town in the Middle Ages, it prospered as a market and post town during the Tokugawa era (1603-1867). Hachioji has long been well known ...
hacienda: in Spanish America, a large landed estate, one of the traditional institutions of rural life. Originating in the colonial period, the hacienda survived in many places late into the 20th century. Labourers, ordinarily Indians, who worked for hacendados (landowners) were ...
hackberry: any of several trees of the genus Celtis, with about 70 species in the elm family (Ulmaceae), that are valued for their wood or for ornamental qualities. They are distributed primarily in temperate and tropical areas.
Hackensack: city, seat (1713) of Bergen county, northeastern New Jersey, U.S., on the Hackensack River, just west of the Hudson River and Manhattan Island, New York City. Originally settled by the Dutch in the 1640s, who called it New Barbadoes, it ...
Hackenschmidt, George: professional wrestler who ranked with Tom Jenkins and Frank Gotch among the greatest in the history of freestyle, or catch-as-catch-can, wrestling. He also held several weight-lifting records.
Hackett, James Henry: U.S. actor, important chiefly for his encouragement of native American drama.
Hackl, Georg: German luger who was the only singles luger to win three consecutive Olympic gold medals (1992, 1994, and 1998). Hackl's cool demeanour and ability to adapt his sled to race conditions forged his reputation as the dominant luger of his ...
Hackman, Gene: American motion-picture actor known for his rugged appearance and his emotionally honest and natural performances. His solid dependability in a wide variety of roles endeared him to the public.
hackney: any carriage plying for hire, although hackney coach usually refers to a four-wheeled carriage drawn by two horses and holding six passengers. Hackneys were introduced into England early in the 17th century and may have been named for a section ...
Hackney: inner borough of London, in the historic county of Middlesex. Hackney lies north of the City of London and Tower Hamlets, and its eastern boundary is the River Lea. It was created a borough in 1965 by the amalgamation of ...
Hackney: stylish carriage horse breed, now used primarily as a show horse. It was developed in the 18th century by crossing Thoroughbreds with the Norfolk trotter, a large-sized trotting harness horse originating in and around Norfolk. An important sire was the ...
Hackney pony: heavy harness pony breed derived from the cross of a Hackney horse and a Welsh pony, used almost entirely as a show pony. It has the conformation and high-stepping action of the Hackney horse. Hackney ponies are shown in classes ...
Hadad: the Old Testament Rimmon, West Semitic god of storms, thunder, and rain, the consort of the goddess Atargatis. His attributes were identical with those of Adad of the Assyro-Babylonian pantheon. He was the chief baal ("lord") of the West Semites ...
Hadamard, Jacques-Salomon: French mathematician who proved the prime number theorem, which states that as n approaches infinity, pi(n) approaches nln n, where pi(n) is the number of positive prime numbers not greater than n.
Hadano: city, Kanagawa Prefecture (ken), Honshu, Japan, stretching between Tanzawa-yama (Mt. Tanzawa; north; 5,141 ft [1,567 m]) and the Hadano basin (south). It was a regional commercial centre during the Tokugawa era (1603-1867), when the cultivation of tobacco was introduced. The ...
Hadar: site of paleoanthropological excavations in the lower Awash River valley in the Afar region of Ethiopia. It lies along the northernmost part of Africa's Eastern (Great) Rift Valley, about 185 miles (300 km) northeast of Addis Ababa. The lower valley ...
Hadassah: American religious organization dedicated to preserving and promoting Jewish social and religious values in the United States and to strengthening ties between U.S. and Israeli Jewish communities.
Haddad, Malek: Algerian poet, novelist, and cultural adviser. Haddad abandoned law studies in Aix-en-Provence to write for French and Algerian weeklies and magazines during the Algerian war. His first published book was a collection of poetry, Le Malheur en danger (1956; "Trouble ...
Haddington: royal burgh (town), East Lothian council area and historic county, southeastern Scotland, on the left bank of the River Tyne. Lying in the direct route of English invaders from the south, the town, designated a royal burgh in 1130, was ...
haddock: (Melanogrammus aeglefinus), valuable North Atlantic food fish of the cod family, Gadidae, that is often smoked and sold as "finnan haddie." The haddock is a bottom dweller and a carnivore, feeding on invertebrates and some fishes. It resembles the cod ...
Haddon, Alfred Cort: one of the founders of modern British anthropology. Virtually the sole exponent of anthropology at Cambridge for 30 years, it was largely through his work and especially his teaching that the subject assumed its place among the observational sciences.
Haddonfield: borough (town), Camden county, southwestern New Jersey, U.S., a southeastern suburb of Camden. First settled by Francis Collins in 1682, it was later named by Elizabeth Haddon, an English Quaker girl who settled there about 1701. The story of her ...
Hadejia: town and traditional emirate, eastern Jigawa state, northern Nigeria. It lies on the northern bank of the Hadejia River (a seasonal tributary of the Komadugu Yobe, which flows into Lake Chad). The emirate's savanna area originally included Hadejia and six ...
Haden, Charlie: American bass virtuoso and bandleader, one of the first improvisers to play free jazz and possibly its most influential bassist.
Hadera: city, western Israel. It lies on the Plain of Sharon midway between Tel Aviv-Yafo and Haifa, near the Mediterranean Sea. The first Jewish settlement on the northern coastal plain, Hadera (from Arabic khadhir, "green") was founded in 1890 by Jewish ...
Haderslev: city, Sonderjylland amtskommune (county commune), southeastern Jutland, Denmark. It lies along Haderslev Fjord 9 miles (14 km) from the Little Belt (strait). First recorded in 1228 and chartered in 1292, it suffered in the 15th-century wars between Schleswig (Slesvig) and ...
Hades: in the Greek Old Testament, translation of the Hebrew Sheol, the dwelling place of the dead. See hell.
Hades: ("the Rich"), in Greek religion, son of the Titans Cronus and Rhea, and brother of the deities Zeus and Poseidon. After Cronus was killed, the kingdom of the underworld fell by lot to Hades. There he ruled with his queen, ...
Hadfield, Sir Robert Abbott, Baronet: British metallurgist who developed manganese steel, an alloy of exceptional durability that found uses in the construction of railroad rails and rock-crushing machinery.
Hadhramaut: region in east-central Yemen, on the Gulf of Aden. The region comprises a hilly area near the coast and an inland valley occupied by a seasonal watercourse, the Wadi Hadramawt, that runs parallel to the coast before turning southeastward to ...
Hadi, al-: fourth caliph of the 'Abbasid dynasty (reigned 785-786).
Hadi, Sayyid Shaykh bin Ahmad, al-: Malay Islamic writer and polemicist, journalist, and publisher who made significant contributions to modern Malay nationalism.
Hadid, Zaha: Iraqi-born British architect known for her radical deconstructivist designs. In 2004 she became the first woman to be awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
Hadith: record of the traditions or sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, revered and received as a major source of religious law and moral guidance, second only to the authority of the Qur'an, or scripture of Islam. It might be defined as ...
Hadley cell: simple model of the Earth's atmospheric circulation that was proposed by George Hadley (1735). It consists of a single wind system in each hemisphere, with westward and Equatorward flow near the surface and eastward and poleward flow at higher altitudes. ...
Hadley Rille: valley on the Moon, typical of the class of features known as sinuous rilles, which are believed to be ancient lava flow channels. The feature was a primary site of exploration for the Apollo 15 lunar-landing mission.
Hadley, George: English physicist and meteorologist who first formulated an accurate theory describing the trade winds and the associated meridional circulation pattern now known as the Hadley cell (q.v.).
Hadley, Henry: one of the most prominent American composers of his day.
Hadley, John: British mathematician and inventor who improved the reflecting telescope, producing the first such instrument of sufficient accuracy and power to be useful in astronomy.
Hadramawt: ancient South Arabian kingdom that occupied what are now southern and southeastern Yemen and the present-day Sultanate of Oman (Muscat and Oman). Hadramawt maintained its political independence until late in the 3rd century AD, when it was conquered by the ...
Hadrian: Roman emperor (AD 117-138), the emperor Trajan's nephew and successor, who was a cultivated admirer of Greek civilization and who unified and consolidated Rome's vast empire.
Hadrian's Villa: country residence built (c. AD 125-134) at Tivoli near Rome by the emperor Hadrian. This villa is considered the epitome in architecture of the opulence and elegance of the Roman world. Covering approximately 7 square miles (18 square km), the ...
Hadrian's Wall: continuous Roman defensive barrier that guarded the northwestern frontier of the province of Britain from barbarian invaders. The wall extended from coast to coast across the width of northern Britain; it ran for 73 miles (118 km) from Wallsend (Segedunum) ...
hadron: any member of a class of subatomic particles that are built from quarks and thus react through the agency of the strong force. The hadrons embrace mesons, baryons (e.g., protons, neutrons, and sigma particles), and their many resonances. All observed ...
Hadrumetum: ancient Phoenician colony some 100 miles (160 km) south of Carthage, on the east coast of the Al-Hammamat Gulf in what is now Tunisia. Hadrumetum was one of the most important communities within the Carthaginian territory in northern Africa because ...
Haeckel, Ernst: German zoologist and evolutionist who was a strong proponent of Darwinism and who proposed new notions of the evolutionary descent of man.
Haedo Range: range of hills, north-central Uruguay. With the Grande Range (Cuchilla Grande) to the east, it defines the basin of the Negro River, Uruguay's major river. The range extends southward from a rugged highland area near the Brazilian border for approximately ...
Haeju: city, southwestern North Korea. Situated on Haeju Bay, facing the Yellow Sea, it is the only port on the west coast of North Korea that does not freeze over in winter. Haeju was the centre for trade with China until ...
Haemophilus: genus of very small rod-shaped bacteria of uncertain affiliation. All species of Haemophilus are strict parasites occurring in the respiratory tracts of warm-blooded animals, including humans, and in certain cold-blooded animals. All Haemophilus are gram-negative, aerobic or facultative anaerobic and ...
Haetzer, Ludwig: Anabaptist, iconoclast, and Reformer.
Hafez: one of the finest lyric poets of Persia.