Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Hawaiian ... Hayagriva

Hawaiian: any of the aboriginal people of Hawaii, descendants of Polynesians who migrated to Hawaii in two waves: the first from the Marquesas Islands, probably about AD 400; the second from Tahiti in the 9th or 10th century. Numbering about 300,000 ...
Hawaiian honeycreeper: any of 23 species of birds found only in the forests of the Hawaiian Islands. They constitute the family Drepanididae, order Passeriformes. Most of the species are called by native names (see amakihi; apapane; iiwi; mamo). Habitat destruction and the ...
Hawarden: town, historic and present county of Flintshire (Sir Fflint), northeastern Wales. Hawarden Castle (1752) was the home of William E. Gladstone, the Victorian prime minister, for 60 years. St. Deiniol's Library was founded by Gladstone in 1895, and there is ...
Hawatmeh, Na'if: Palestinian politician who founded the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and was its secretary-general from 1969.
Hawd Plateau: plateau sloping southeastward and spanning the northern Ethiopian-Somali border, southeast of the northern Somalian highlands. It covers an area of about 25,000 square miles (64,750 square km) and slopes from about 4,000 feet (1,220 m) in the northwest to about ...
Hawea Lake: lake in west-central South Island, New Zealand. The lake lies at the heart of a resort area 182 miles (293 km) northwest of Dunedin by road. It occupies 54 square miles (141 square km) of a valley dammed by a ...
Hawera: town, Taranaki local government region, western North Island, New Zealand. The original settlement, situated on the east Waimate Plain, 2 miles (3 km) from the coast of South Taranaki Bight, on the Tasman Sea, grew around a blockhouse built in ...
Hawes, Harriet Ann Boyd: American archaeologist who gained renown for her discoveries of ancient remains in Crete.
Hawes, Stephen: poet and courtier who served King Henry VII of England and was a follower of the devotional poet John Lydgate.
Hawick: small burgh (town), largest town in the Scottish Borders council area of southeastern Scotland, in the historic county of Roxburghshire. It lies at the confluence of the Rivers Slitrig and Teviot 15 miles (24 km) from the English border. Border ...
hawk: any of various small to medium-sized falconiform birds, particularly those in the genus Accipiter, known as the true hawks, and including the goshawks and sparrowhawks. The term hawk is often applied to other birds in the family Accipitridae (such as ...
hawk moth: (family Sphingidae), any member of cosmopolitan insects (order Lepidoptera), named for their hovering, swift flight patterns. These stout-bodied moths have long, narrow forewings and shorter hindwings, with wingspans ranging from 5 to 20 cm (2 to 8 inches). Many species ...
hawk owl: any of numerous birds of prey of the family Strigidae (order Strigiformes).
hawk's-eye: variety of the semiprecious quartz tiger's-eye (q.v.).
Hawke's Bay: local government region, eastern North Island, New Zealand. It consists mostly of the hill country fronting Hawke Bay to the east, stretches from the Mahia Peninsula in the northeast to the vicinity of Cape Turnagain in the southeast, and is ...
Hawke, Edward Hawke, 1st Baron: British admiral whose naval victory in 1759 put an end to French plans to invade Great Britain during the Seven Years' War (1756-63).
Hawke, Robert: Australian labour leader and prime minister of Australia from 1983 to 1991.
Hawkes, John: American author whose novels achieve a dreamlike (often nightmarish) intensity through the suspension of traditional narrative constraints. He considered a story's structure his main concern; in one interview he stated that plot, character, and theme are "the true enemies of ...
Hawkesbury River: river rising in the Great Dividing Range north of Lake George, New South Wales, Australia, and flowing 293 miles (472 km) north and east to the Tasman Sea at Broken Bay. It drains an area of about 8,390 square miles ...
Hawkesworth, John: English writer, Samuel Johnson's successor as compiler of parliamentary debates for the Gentleman's Magazine.
Hawking, Stephen W.: English theoretical physicist whose theory of exploding black holes drew upon both relativity theory and quantum mechanics. He also worked with space-time singularities.
Hawkins, Coleman: American jazz musician whose improvisational mastery of the tenor saxophone, which had previously been viewed as little more than a novelty, helped establish it as one of the most popular instruments in jazz. He was the first major saxophonist in ...
Hawkins, Sir John: English magistrate, writer, and author of the first history of music in English.
Hawkins, Sir John: English naval administrator and commander, one of the foremost seamen of 16th-century England and the chief architect of the Elizabethan navy.
Hawkins, Sir Richard: English seaman and adventurer whose Observations in His Voyage Into the South Sea (1622) gives the best extant idea of Elizabethan life at sea and was used by Charles Kingsley for Westward Ho!.
Hawks, Howard: U.S. motion-picture director who maintained a consistent personal style within the framework of the traditional film genres. His pictures, which starred Hollywood's most noted actors, were marked by the effective establishment and sustenance of mood and by an intimacy created ...
Hawkshaw, Sir John: British civil engineer noted for his work on the Charing Cross and Cannon Street railways, with their bridges over the River Thames, and the East London Railway, which utilized Sir Marc Isambard Brunel's Thames Tunnel.
Hawksmoor, Nicholas: English architect whose association with Sir Christopher Wren and Sir John Vanbrugh long diverted critical attention from the remarkable originality of his own Baroque designs for churches and other institutional buildings.
hawkweed: any of the weedy plants of the genus Hieracium of the family Asteraceae, containing more than 200 species native to temperate regions of the world. Mouse-ear hawkweed (H. pilosella), orange hawkweed (H. aurantiacum), and common hawkweed (H. vulgatum) are widely ...
Hawkwood, Sir John: mercenary captain who for 30 years played a role in the wars of 14th-century Italy.
Haworth: town, Bradford metropolitan borough, metropolitan county of West Yorkshire, historic county of Yorkshire, England, overlooking the River Worth and adjoining the town of Keighley. In 1820 the Reverend Patrick Bronte brought his wife and six children-including Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, ...
Haworth, Sir Norman: British chemist, cowinner, with the Swiss chemist Paul Karrer, of the 1937 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work in determining the chemical structures of carbohydrates and vitamin C.
Hawran: region of southwestern Syria extending southeastward from Mount Hermon to the Jordanian frontier. Although rock-strewn and almost completely devoid of trees, the plain has very fertile soil and sufficient rainfall to make it a productive wheat-growing region. Other crops include ...
Hawrani, Akram al-: radical politician and leader of the peasants, who had a determining influence on the course of Syrian politics in the two decades after World War II.
hawthorn: any of a number of thorny shrubs or small trees of the genus Crataegus, in the rose family (Rosaceae), native to the North Temperate Zone. Many species are native to North America. The hawthorn's leaves are simple, and usually toothed ...
Hawthorn, John Michael: automobile racer who became the first British world-champion driver (1958).
Hawthorne research: socioeconomic experiments conducted by Elton Mayo in 1927 among employees of the Hawthorne Works factory of the Western Electric Company in Cicero, Illinois. For almost a year, a group of female workers were subjected to measured changes in their hours, ...
Hawthorne, Nathaniel: American novelist and short-story writer who was a master of the allegorical and symbolic tale. One of the greatest fiction writers in American literature, he is best-known for The Scarlet Letter (1850) and The House of the Seven Gables (1851).
Hawtrey, Sir Ralph: British economist who developed a concept that later became known as the multiplier.
Hay: town, south-central New South Wales, Australia, on the Murrumbidgee River. The settlement originated in 1840 as a coach station known as Lang's Crossing Place. Surveyed in 1858, it became a town the following year and was named after John Hay, ...
hay: in agriculture, dried grasses and other foliage used as animal feed. Usually the material is cut in the field while still green and then either dried in the field or mechanically dried by forced hot air. Typical hay crops are ...
hay fever: seasonally recurrent bouts of sneezing, nasal congestion, and tearing and itching of the eyes caused by allergy to the pollen of certain plants, chiefly those depending upon the wind for cross-fertilization, such as ragweed in North America and timothy grass ...
Hay River: town, southern Fort Smith region, Northwest Territories, Canada, on the southwestern shore of Great Slave Lake. The settlement, at the mouth of the Hay River, was established in 1868 as a Hudson's Bay Company trading post. With the arrival of ...
Hay, John: U.S. secretary of state (1898-1905) who skillfully guided the diplomacy of his country during the critical period of its emergence as a great power; he is particularly associated with the Open Door policy toward China.
Hay, Oliver Perry: American paleontologist who did much to unify existing knowledge of North American fossil vertebrates by constructing catalogs that have become standard references.
Hay, Sir Gilbert: also called Sir Gilbert Of The Haye Scottish translator of works from the French, whose prose translations are the earliest extant examples of literary Scots prose.
Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty: (Nov. 18, 1903), agreement between the United States and Panama granting exclusive canal rights to the United States across the Isthmus of Panama in exchange for financial reimbursement and guarantees of protection to the newly established republic. The United States ...
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty: (1900-01), either of two agreements between Britain and the United States, the second of which freed the United States from a previous commitment to accept international control of the Panama Canal. After negotiations between U.S. Secretary of State John Milton ...
Haya: East African people who speak a Bantu language (also called Hays) and inhabit the northwestern corner of Tanzania between the Kagera River and Lake Victoria.
Haya de la Torre, Victor Raul: Peruvian political theorist and activist who founded and led the Aprista Party, which has been the vehicle for radical dissent in Peru since 1924.
Hayagriva: (Sanskrit: "Horse Neck"), in northern Buddhism, one of the eight fierce protective deities. See dharmapala.