Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

0-9

Indian Museum ... Indochina

Indian Museum: in Calcutta, oldest museum in India and one of the most comprehensive in the Orient; its collections depict the cultural history of India from prehistoric to Muslim times. The present building, opened in 1875, comprises sections devoted to geology, zoology, ...
Indian Mutiny: (1857-58), widespread but unsuccessful rebellion against British rule in India begun by Indian troops (sepoys) in the service of the British East India Company. It began in Meerut and then spread to Delhi, Agra, Cawnpore, and Lucknow.
Indian National Congress: broadly based political party of India. Formed in 1885, the Indian National Congress dominated the Indian movement for independence from Great Britain and formed most of India's governments from the time of independence through the mid-1990s.
Indian National Trade Union Congress: largest trade-union federation in India. INTUC was established in 1947 in cooperation with the Indian National Congress, which favoured a less militant union movement than the All-India Trade Union Congress. INTUC is largely anticommunist; it is affiliated with the International ...
Indian Ocean: body of salt water, covering approximately one-fifth of the total ocean area of the world. It is the smallest, youngest, and physically most complex of the world's three major oceans. It stretches for more than 6,200 miles (10,000 kilometres) between ...
Indian paint brush: any plant of the genus Castilleja (family Scrophulariaceae), which contains about 200 species of partially or wholly parasitic plants that derive nourishment from the roots of other plants. For this reason the plants are seldom cultivated successfully in the flower ...
Indian philosophy: the systems of thought and reflection that were developed by the civilizations of the Indian subcontinent. They include both orthodox (astika) systems, namely, the Nyaya, Vaisesika, Samkhya, Yoga, Purva-mimamsa, and Vedanta schools of philosophy, and unorthodox (nastika) systems, such as ...
Indian pipe: nongreen herb, of the family Monotropaceae, that is saprophytic in habit; i.e., it lives upon the remains of dead plants. It occurs in Asia and throughout North America and is commonly found in moist, shady areas.
Indian Removal Act: (May 28, 1830), first major legislative departure from the U.S. policy of respecting the legal and political rights of the American Indians. The act authorized the president to grant Indian tribes unsettled western prairie land in exchange for their desirable ...
Indian Reorganization Act: (June 18, 1934), measure enacted by the U.S. Congress, aimed at decreasing federal control of American Indian affairs and increasing Indian self-government and responsibility. In gratitude for the Indians' services to the country in World War I, Congress in 1924 ...
Indian sculpture: the sculptural traditions, forms, and styles of the civilizations of the Indian subcontinent.
Indian Shaker Church: Christianized prophet cult among Northwest American Indians; it is not connected with the Shaker communities developed from the teachings of Ann Lee. In 1881 near Olympia, Wash., John Slocum, a Squaxon logger and a baptized Roman Catholic, reported that he ...
Indian summer: period of dry, unseasonably warm weather in late October or November in the central and eastern United States. The term originated in New England and probably arose from the Indians' practice of gathering winter stores at this time. This autumn ...
Indian Territory: originally "all of that part of the United States west of the Mississippi, and not within the States of Missouri and Louisiana, or the Territory of Arkansas." Never an organized territory, it was soon restricted to the present state of ...
Indian tobacco: (species Lobelia inflata), annual plant of the family Lobeliaceae, native to open woodlands of North America. It was once considered a medicinal plant because of the emetic alkaloid present in the plant parts, especially the roots, but is now regarded ...
Indiana: county, west-central Pennsylvania, U.S., bounded to the south by the Conemaugh River. It consists of a hilly region on the Allegheny Plateau that rises to the Allegheny Mountains in the southeast and is drained by Crooked, Yellow, Two Lick, Blacklick, ...
Indiana: constituent state of the United States of America. The state sits, as its motto claims, at "the crossroads of America." It borders Lake Michigan and the state of Michigan on the north, Ohio on the east, Kentucky on the south, ...
Indiana: borough (town), seat of Indiana county, west-central Pennsylvania, U.S., in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains, 46 miles (74 km) northeast of Pittsburgh. Settled about 1764, it was laid out in 1805 on land donated for a county seat by ...
Indiana Dunes: area of sand dunes, woodlands, wetlands, and other environments, located on the southern shore of Lake Michigan, northwestern Indiana, U.S. Much of the region is within Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, which includes Indiana Dunes State Park. The national lakeshore extends ...
Indiana State University: public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Terre Haute, Ind., U.S. It comprises colleges of arts and sciences, business, education, nursing, technology, and health and human performance and a graduate school. The university offers a range of undergraduate and graduate ...
Indiana University: state system of higher education consisting of the campuses in Bloomington (main), Gary (known as Northwest), South Bend, Kokomo, New Albany (known as Southeast), and Richmond (known as East), as well as schools operated in cooperation with Purdue University at ...
Indiana University of Pennsylvania: public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Indiana, Pennsylvania, U.S. It is part of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. The university comprises the Eberly College of Business and colleges of Education, Fine Arts, Health and Human Services, Humanities ...
Indianapolis: city, capital of Indiana, U.S., and seat (1822) of Marion county. It lies on the White River at its confluence with Fall Creek, near the centre of the state. The city is built on a level plain surrounded by low, ...
Indianapolis 500: U.S. automobile race held annually from 1911, except for the war years 1917-18 and 1942-45. The race is always run at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, a suburban enclave of Indianapolis, Indiana. Drawing crowds of several hundred thousand people, the ...
Indianista novel: Brazilian literary genre of the 19th century that idealizes the simple life of the South American Indian. The tone of the Indianista novel is one of languid nostalgia and saudade, a brooding melancholy and reverence for nature characteristic of Portuguese ...
Indianola: city, Warren county, south-central Iowa, U.S., 17 miles (27 km) south of Des Moines. Founded in 1849 as the county seat, its name was taken from a newspaper account of a Texas town of the same name. The economy is ...
Indic writing systems: those that include the syllabic Kharosthi and semialphabetic Brahmi scripts of ancient India. No systems of writing subsequently developed from the Kharosthi script. Brahmi, however, is thought to be the forerunner of all of the scripts used for writing the ...
indicator species: organism-often a microorganism or a plant-that serves as a measure of the environmental conditions that exist in a given locale. For example, greasewood indicates saline soil; mosses often indicate acid soil. Tubifex worms indicate oxygen-poor and stagnant water unfit to ...
indiction: in ancient Rome, the fiscal year. During the inflation of the 3rd century AD the Roman government supplied court and army employees by ordering the requisition, or by compulsory purchase (indictio), of food and clothing. Such indictiones were irregular, often ...
indictment: in the United States (and, until recently, in England), a formal written accusation of crime affirmed by a grand jury and presented by it to the court for trial of the accused. The grand jury system was eliminated in England ...
Indies, Council of the: supreme governing body of Spain's colonies in America (1524-1834). Composed of between 6 and 10 councillors appointed by the king, the council prepared and issued all legislation governing the colonies in the king's name, approved all important acts and expenditures ...
Indies, Laws of the: the entire body of law promulgated by the Spanish crown during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries for the government of its kingdoms (colonies) outside Europe, chiefly in the Americas; more specifically, a series of collections of decrees (cedulas) compiled ...
indifference: in the mathematical theory of probability, a classical principle stated by the Swiss mathematician Jakob Bernoulli and formulated (and named) by the English economist John Maynard Keynes in A Treatise on Probability (1921): two cases are equally likely if no ...
indifference curve: in economics, graph showing various combinations of two things (usually consumer goods) that yield equal satisfaction or utility to an individual. Developed by the British economist Francis Y. Edgeworth, it is widely used as an analytical tool in the study ...
Indigenismo: movement in Latin America advocating a dominant social and political role for Indians in countries where they constitute a majority of the population. A sharp distinction is drawn by its members between Indians and Europeans, or those of European ancestry, ...
indigestion: any or all of the symptoms-abdominal discomfort, belching, flatulence, aversion to eating, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, heartburn-associated with the malfunctioning of the digestive system. Indigestion may be caused by disease, but it primarily occurs because of stress, improper eating habits, ...
Indigirka River: river, Sakha republic (Yakutia), far eastern Russia. It is one of the major rivers of northeastern Siberia. The Indigirka rises in the Verkhoyansk Mountains and flows 1,072 miles (1,726 km) north through the Chersky Range into the broad Indigirka lowland, ...
indigo: an important and valuable vat dyestuff, obtained until about 1900 entirely from plants of the genera Indigofera and Isatis. Indigo was known to the ancients of Asia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Britain, and Peru. It is used in the United States ...
indigo: in botany, any shrub or herb of the genus Indigofera within the pea family (Fabaceae). Most species occur in warm climates and are generally silky or hairy. The leaves are usually divided into smaller leaflets. The small rose, purple, or ...
indigo snake: (Drymarchon corais), docile, nonvenomous member of the family Colubridae found from the southeastern United States to Brazil. It is the largest snake in the United States-record length is 2.8 metres (9.2 feet)-and one of the largest of all colubrids. In ...
Indio: city, Riverside county, southern California, U.S. Located in the Coachella Valley, Indio lies between Palm Springs (northwest) and the Salton Sea (southeast). The area was originally inhabited by Cahuilla Indians and was the site of Spanish and Mexican exploration in ...
indium: (In), chemical element, rare metal of main Group IIIa, or boron group, of the periodic table. Of a brilliant, silvery-white lustre, indium was discovered (1863) by Ferdinand Reich and Theodor Richter while they were examining zinc ore samples. The presence ...
individual psychology: body of theories of the Austrian psychiatrist Alfred Adler, who held that the main motives of human thought and behaviour are individual man's striving for superiority and power, partly in compensation for his feeling of inferiority. Every individual, in this ...
individualism: political and social philosophy that emphasizes the moral worth of the individual. Although the concept of an individual may seem straightforward, there are many ways of understanding it, both in theory and in practice. The term individualism itself, and its ...
Indo-Aryan languages: subgroup of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family, spoken in India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
Indo-Esfahan carpet: type of floor covering ranging from small to extremely large, handmade in India, primarily in the 17th century, as free imitations of Herat designs. They appear to have been exported in quantity to Europe, especially to Portugal and the Low ...
Indo-European languages: family of languages spoken in most of Europe and areas of European settlement and in much of Southwest and South Asia. The term Indo-Hittite is used by scholars who believe that Hittite and the other Anatolian languages are not just ...
Indo-Gangetic Plain: extensive north-central section of the Indian subcontinent, stretching westward from (and including) the Brahmaputra River valley and the Ganges Delta to the Indus River valley. The region contains the subcontinent's richest and most densely populated areas. The greater part of ...
Indo-Hittite languages: hypothetical family of languages composed of the Indo-European and Anatolian languages. The term Indo-Hittite was proposed by scholars who believed that Hittite and the other closely related Anatolian languages represented a language branch coordinate with all the other Indo-European languages ...
Indo-Iranian languages: group of languages constituting the easternmost major branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Indo-Aryan (Indic) languages are spoken by some 800 million persons in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, and other areas of the Himalayan region. In addition, ...
Indochina: the three states of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia formerly associated with France, first within its empire and later within the French Union. The term Indochina refers to the intermingling of Indian and Chinese influences in the culture of the region.