Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Illinois, University of ... Immermann, Karl Leberecht

Illinois, University of: state system of higher education in Illinois, U.S. It consists of three campuses, the main campus in the twin cities Champaign and Urbana and additional campuses in Chicago and Springfield. The universities are teaching and research institutions with land-grant standing ...
illite: any of a group of mica-type clay minerals widely distributed in marine shales and related sediments. Illite contains more water and less potassium than true micas, but it has a micalike sheet structure and is poorly crystallized. It may form ...
illuminated manuscript: handwritten book that has been decorated with gold or silver, brilliant colours, or elaborate designs or miniature pictures. Though various Islamic societies also practiced this art, Europe had the longest and probably the most highly developed tradition of illuminating manuscripts.
illusion: a misrepresentation of a "real" sensory stimulus-that is, an interpretation that contradicts objective "reality" as defined by general agreement. For example, a child who perceives tree branches at night as if they are hobglobins may be said to be having ...
Illustrated London News: historic magazine of news and the arts, published in London, a forerunner in the use of various graphic arts. It was founded as a weekly in 1842 by Herbert Ingram, and it became a monthly in 1971. It was London's ...
Illyria: northwestern part of the Balkan Peninsula, inhabited from about the 10th century BC onward by the Illyrians, an Indo-European people. At the height of their power the Illyrian frontiers extended from the Danube River southward to the Adriatic Sea and ...
Illyrian language: Indo-European language spoken in pre-Roman times along the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea and in southeastern Italy. The language of the Illyrian fragments found in Italy is usually called Messapic, or Messapian. Some scholars believe the modern Albanian language ...
Illyrian Provinces: stretch of territory along the Dalmatian coast that constituted a part of Napoleon's French Empire from 1809 to 1814. When the French victory of 1809 compelled Austria to cede a portion of its South Slav lands to France, Napoleon combined ...
ilm al-hadith: form of investigation established by Muslim traditionists in the 3rd century AH (9th century AD) to determine the validity of accounts (hadiths) of Muhammad's statements, actions, and approbations as reported by various authorities.
Ilmen, Lake: lake in Novgorod oblast (province), northwestern Russia. Lake Ilmen occupies the centre of the Ilmen Plain, an undulating glacial lowland much of which is drained by rivers flowing into the lake; the lake in turn provides the headwaters of the ...
ilmenite: iron-black, heavy, metallic oxide mineral, composed of iron and titanium oxide (FeTiO₃), that is used as the major source of titanium. It forms solid-solution series with geikielite and pyrophanite in which magnesium and manganese, respectively, replace iron in the crystal ...
Ilobasco: town, north-central El Salvador. It is in a rich agricultural area (cattle, coffee, sugarcane, and indigo) but is known primarily for its clay dolls, a major item for sale to tourists, as well as for other types of pottery made ...
Ilobu: town, Osun state, southwestern Nigeria. It lies along a tributary of the Oshun River and on the road from Ogbomosho to Oshogbo. Ilobu is a trade centre for the yams, corn (maize), cassava, oil palms, pumpkins, beans, and okra grown ...
Ilocano: third largest cultural-linguistic group in the Philippines. When discovered by the Spanish in the 16th century, they occupied the narrow coastal plain of northwestern Luzon, known as the Ilocos region. The growth of their population later led to much migration ...
Ilocos Norte: province occupying the northwestern corner of Luzon, Philippines. It is 1,312 sq mi (3,399 sq km) in area. The province comprises a narrow coastal agricultural plain and the Ilocos (Malaya) Range paralleling the shore, which is bordered by the South ...
Ilocos Sur: province lying along the northwestern coast of Luzon, Philippines. With an area of 996 sq mi (2,580 sq km), it is bordered by the South China Sea (west) and the province of Ilocos Norte (northeast). The province does not have ...
Iloilo: province, eastern portion of the island of Panay, Philippines. It includes offshore islands in the Visayan Sea (east) and Guimaras Island in Guimaras Strait. The province has an area of 2,056 sq mi (5,324 sq km) and is mountainous in ...
Iloilo City: chartered city, on the southeastern coast of Panay, Philippines. At the mouth of the Jaro River on the Iloilo Strait and sheltered by the offshore Guimaras Island, it is the commercial centre of Panay and a regional centre for sugar ...
Ilopango, Lake: lake, south central El Salvador, on the borders of San Salvador, La Paz, and Cuscatlan departments. Occupying the crater of an extinct volcano, at an altitude of 1,450 ft (442 m), it has an area of 40 sq mi (100 ...
Ilorin: city, traditional emirate, and capital of Kwara State, western Nigeria, on the Awun River, a minor tributary of the Niger. Founded in the late 18th century by Yoruba people, it became the capital of a kingdom that was a vassal ...
Ilos: in Greek mythology, the founder of Ilion (Troy). Ilos (or Zacynthus, a Cretan name) has been identified either as the brother of Erichthonius or as the son of Tros and grandson of Erichthonius. According to legend, the King of Phrygia ...
iltizam: in the Ottoman Empire, taxation system carried out by farming of public revenue. The state auctioned taxation rights to the highest bidder (multazim, plural multezim or multazims), who then collected the state taxes and made payments in fixed installments, keeping ...
Iltutmish: also called Shams-ud-din Iltutmish, Iltutmish also spelled Altamsh third and greatest Delhi sultan of the so-called Slave dynasty.
Ilumquh: Arabian god of pre-Islamic times who was associated with the Moon and was greater than the two other principal astral deities of South Arabia, the goddess Shams and the god 'Athtar, who were associated with the Sun and the planet ...
Ilya Of Murom: a hero of the oldest known Old Russian byliny, traditional heroic folk chants. He is presented as the principal bogatyr (knight-errant) at the 10th-century court of Saint Vladimir I of Kiev, although with characteristic epic vagueness he often participates in ...
Ilyushin Il-2: single-seat assault bomber that was a mainstay of the Soviet air force during World War II. The Il-2 is generally considered the finest ground-attack aircraft produced by any nation during World War II. It was designed by Sergey Ilyushin beginning ...
Ilyushin Il-76: -76, Soviet military transport aircraft, first flown in 1971 and first produced in 1975. It was designed by the Ilyushin design bureau under G.V. Novozhilov. The Il-76 was a heavy transport plane, capable of handling a payload of more than ...
Ilyushin, Sergey Vladimirovich: Soviet aircraft designer who created the famous Il-2 Stormovik armoured attack aircraft used by the Soviet air force during World War II. After the war he designed civil aircraft: the Il-12 twin-engined passenger aircraft (1946), the Il-18 Moskva four-engined turboprop ...
Imabari: city, Ehime ken (prefecture), Shikoku, Japan, facing the Kurushima Strait on the Inland Sea. Imabari, founded as a castle town, was the first port in Shikoku to be opened to foreign trade. In 1922 the Takamatsu-Matsuyama Line (railway) was opened ...
Imad ad-Dawlah: also called 'ali Ibn Buyeh one of the founders of the Buyid dynasty of Iran. 'Ali and his brothers Ahmad and Hasan were followers of Mardaviz ebn Zeyar of northern Iran. In 934 'Ali revolted against local Zeyarid rulers and ...
imaginary number: any product of the form ai, in which a is a real number and i is the imaginary unit defined as -1. See number system.
Imaginism: Russian poetic movement of the post-Revolutionary period that advocated poetry based on a series of arresting and unusual images. It is sometimes called Imagism but is unrelated to the 20th-century Anglo-American movement of that name. The Imaginist movement was founded ...
Imagist: any of a group of American and English poets whose poetic program was formulated about 1912 by Ezra Pound-in conjunction with fellow poets Hilda Doolittle (H.D.), Richard Aldington, and F.S. Flint-and was inspired by the critical views of T.E. Hulme, ...
imam: ("leader," "pattern"), the head of the Muslim community; the title is used in the Qur'an several times to refer to leaders and to Abraham. The origin and basis of the office of imam was conceived differently by various sections of ...
Imam Bondjol: Minangkabau religious leader, key member of the Padri faction in the religious Padri War, which divided the Minangkabau people of Sumatra in the 19th century.
Imari: city, Saga ken (prefecture), Kyushu, Japan, facing Imari Bay. The two islands of Taka and Fuku form a natural mole, protecting the city's harbour. Imari was once a base for Japanese pirates. By the Tokugawa era (1603-1867) it had become ...
Imari ware: Japanese porcelain made at the Arita kilns in Hizen province. Among the Arita porcelains are white glazed wares, pale gray-blue or gray-green glazed wares known as celadons, black wares, and blue-and-white wares with underglaze painting, as well as overglaze enamels. ...
Imbangala: warrior group of central Angola in the early 17th century. The Imbangala, sometimes mistakenly identified with the Jaga, probably left the Lunda state of Shaba in the 15th century under a leader entitled kinguri. From their base in eastern Angola, ...
Imber, Naphtali Herz: itinerant Hebrew poet whose poem "Ha-Tiqva" ("The Hope"), set to music, was the official anthem of the Zionist movement from 1933 and eventually became Israel's national anthem.
imbrex: in ancient Greek and Roman architecture, a raised roofing tile used to cover the joint between the flat tiles. Used in a series, they formed continuous ridges over the aligned flat tiles.
Imhoff, Gustaaf Willem, baron van: governor-general of the Dutch East Indies (1743-50), a reformer who tried in vain to restore the decaying Dutch East India Company to prosperity.
Imhotep: vizier, sage, architect, astrologer, and chief minister to Djoser (reigned 2630-2611 BC), the second king of Egypt's third dynasty, who was later worshiped as the god of medicine in Egypt and in Greece, where he was identified with the Greek ...
imidazole: any of a class of organic compounds of the heterocyclic series characterized by a ring structure composed of three carbon atoms and two nitrogen atoms at nonadjacent positions. The simplest member of the imidazole family is imidazole itself, a compound ...
iminoglycinuria: inborn impairment of the transport system of the kidney tubules, which normally reabsorb the amino acids glycine, proline, and hydroxyproline. In young children in whom this transport system fails to develop, high urinary levels of glycine, proline, and hydroxyproline have ...
imipramine: synthetic drug used in the treatment of depression and enuresis (bed-wetting). Introduced into medicine in the 1960s, imipramine was the first tricyclic antidepressant, a class named for its three-ring molecular structure. Imipramine inhibits reuptake of the neurotransmitters norepinephrine and serotonin ...
imitation: in psychology, the reproduction or performance of an act that is stimulated by the perception of a similar act by another animal or person. Essentially, it involves a model to which the attention and response of the imitator are directed.
Imitation of Christ: a Christian devotional book written between 1390 and 1440. Although its authorship is a matter of controversy, the book is linked to the name of Thomas a Kempis. Whatever the identity of the author, he was a representative of the ...
Immaculate Conception: Roman Catholic dogma asserting that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was preserved free from the effects of the sin of Adam (usually referred to as "original sin") from the first instant of her conception. Although various texts in both the ...
Immanuel Ben Solomon: Hebrew poet who lived mainly in Rome, considered the founder of secular poetic writing in Hebrew. Probably a wandering teacher by profession, he was a prolific writer of Hebrew verse, sacred and secular (some of the latter being highly erotic), ...
immediate constituent analysis: in linguistics, a system of grammatical analysis that divides sentences into successive layers, or constituents, until, in the final layer, each constituent consists of only a word or meaningful part of a word. (A constituent is any word or construction ...
Immermann, Karl Leberecht: dramatist and novelist whose works included two forerunners in German literary history: Die Epigonen as a novel of the contemporary social scene and Der Oberhof as a realistic story of village life.