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Encyclopedias since 1768

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Jehu ... Jeremias II

Jehu: king (c. 842-815 BC) of Israel. He was a commander of chariots for the king of Israel, Ahab, and his son Jehoram, on Israel's frontier facing Damascus and Assyria. Ahab, son of King Omri, was eventually killed in a war ...
Jekyll, Gertrude: English landscape architect who was the most successful advocate of the natural garden and who brought to the theories of her colleague William Robinson a cultivated sensibility he lacked.
Jelacic, Josip, Graf: (Count) Croatian politician and soldier who, as ban, or provincial governor, of Croatia under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, helped crush the Hungarian nationalist revolt against the empire in 1848.
Jelali Revolts: rebellions in Anatolia against the Ottoman Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries. The first revolt occurred in 1519 near Tokat under the leadership of Celal, a preacher of Shi'ah Islam. Major revolts later occurred in 1526-28, 1595-1610, 1654-55, and ...
Jelenia Gora: city, Dolnoslaskie wojewodztwo (province), southwestern Poland. It lies in the Sudeten (Sudety) mountains near the Czech border, at the confluence of the Bobr and Kamienna rivers.
Jelgava: city, Latvia, on the Lielupe River southwest of Riga. In 1226 the Brothers of the Sword, a religious and military order, built the castle of Mitau there; town status was conferred on the settlement in 1376. In 1561, when the ...
Jelinek, Elfriede: Austrian novelist and playwright noted for her controversial works on gender relations, female sexuality, and popular culture. She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2004.
Jellicoe, John Rushworth Jellicoe, 1st Earl, Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa, Viscount Brocas of Southampton: British admiral of the fleet who commanded at the crucial Battle of Jutland (May 31, 1916) during World War I.
Jellinek, Adolf: rabbi and scholar who was considered to be the most forceful Jewish preacher of his time in central Europe.
Jellinek, Elvin M: American physiologist who was a pioneer in the scientific study of alcoholism.
Jellinek, Georg: German legal and political philosopher who, in his book Die sozialethische Bedeutung von Recht, Unrecht und Strafe (1878; 2nd ed., 1908; "The Social-Ethical Significance of Right, Wrong, and Punishment"), defined the law as an ethical minimum-i.e., as ...
Jelling stones: two 10th-century royal gravestones found in Jutland, best known of all Danish runic inscriptions. The earlier stone, a memorial honouring Queen Thyre, was commissioned by her husband, King Gorm the Old, last pagan king of Denmark. The other, erected in ...
jelly: a semitransparent confection consisting of the strained juice of various fruits or vegetables, singly or in combination, sweetened, boiled, slowly simmered, and congealed, often with the aid of pectin, gelatin, or a similar substance.
jellyfish: any planktonic marine member of the class Scyphozoa (phylum Cnidaria), a group of invertebrate animals composed of about 200 described species, or of the class Cubozoa, which was formerly considered an order of Scyphozoa. The term is also frequently applied ...
Jemaa: town, Kaduna state, central Nigeria, near the Darroro Hills and on a road from Jos to Jagindi. A 2,000-year-old terra-cotta head discovered at Jemaa in 1944 proved to be vital to an understanding of the Nok culture, a civilization that ...
Jember: city, Jawa Timur provinsi (province), Java, Indonesia, located at the foot of Mount Argopuro, 95 miles (153 km) southeast of Surabaya, the provincial capital. Roads and railway link it with Banyuwangi to the east, Probolinggo to the ...
Jemison, Mae: American physician and the first African American woman to become an astronaut. In 1992 she spent more than a week orbiting Earth in the space shuttle Endeavour.
Jemison, Mary: captive of Native American Indians, whose published life story became one of the most popular in the 19th-century genre of captivity stories.
jen: in Confucian philosophy, one of the most fundamental of all virtues, variously translated as humaneness, warmheartedness, or benevolence. Before Confucius' time jen was understood as the kindness of rulers to their subjects. It was gradually broadened to mean benevolence, still ...
Jen Tsung: fourth emperor (reigned 1022-63) of the Sung dynasty of China, one of the most able and humane rulers in Chinese history. Under him the Sung government is generally believed to have come closer than ever before to reaching the Confucian ...
Jena: city, Thuringia Land (state), east-central Germany. It lies on the Saale River, east of Weimar. First mentioned in the 9th century as Jani, it was chartered in 1230 and belonged to the margraves of Meissen from the ...
Jena glass: fine-quality glass with improved resistance to heat and shock, suited for chemical ware. It was developed for thermometers and measuring vessels, optical ware, and scientific and industrial uses.
Jena Romanticism: a first phase of Romanticism in German literature, centred in Jena from about 1798 to 1804. The group was led by the versatile writer Ludwig Tieck. Two members of the group, the brothers August Wilhelm and Friedrich von Schlegel, who ...
Jena, Battle of: (Oct. 14, 1806), military engagement of the Napoleonic Wars, fought between 122,000 French troops and 114,000 Prussians and Saxons, at Jena and Auerstadt, in Saxony (modern Germany). In the battle, Napoleon smashed the outdated Prussian army inherited from Frederick II ...
Jenatsch, Georg: Swiss political and military leader of the Grisons (now Graubunden, the most easterly of Swiss cantons) during the complex struggles of the Thirty Years' War.
Jenkin, Fleeming: British engineer noted for his work in establishing units of electrical measurement.
Jenkins' Ear, War of: war between Great Britain and Spain that began in October 1739 and eventually merged into the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48). It was precipitated by an incident that took place in 1738 when Captain Robert Jenkins appeared before a ...
Jenkins, Fergie: Canadian-born professional baseball player, one of the premier pitchers in the game in the late 1960s and early '70s. A hard-throwing right-hander, he won at least 20 games in each of six consecutive seasons (1967-72) while playing for the Chicago ...
Jenkins, Hayes Alan; and Jenkins, David: American figure-skating brothers who won successive Olympic gold medals, Hayes at the 1956 Winter Games in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, and David at the 1960 Winter Games in Squaw Valley, California.
Jenkins, Roy, Baron Jenkins of Hillhead: British politician, a strong supporter of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Community. Formerly a Labourite, he was the first leader of the Social Democratic Party (1982-83) and later was leader of the Social and Liberal Democratic Peers ...
Jenner, Bruce: American decathlete who won a gold medal at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal with a record score of 8,618 points.
Jenner, Edward: English surgeon and discoverer of vaccination for smallpox.
Jenney, William Le Baron: American civil engineer and architect whose technical innovations were of primary importance in the development of the skyscraper.
Jennings, Elizabeth: English poet whose works relate intensely personal matters in a plainspoken, traditional, and objective style and whose verse frequently reflects her devout Roman Catholicism and her love of Italy.
Jennings, Herbert Spencer: U.S. zoologist, one of the first scientists to study the behaviour of individual microorganisms and to experiment with genetic variations in single-celled organisms.
Jenolan Caves: series of caves constituting one of Australia's best known tourist attractions, in east central New South Wales, 70 mi (113 km) west of Sydney. They comprise a series of tunnels and caverns formed by two converging streams in a thick ...
Jensen, Georg: Danish silversmith and designer who achieved international prominence for his commercial application of modern metal design. The simple elegance of his works and their emphasis on fine craftsmanship, hallmarks of Jensen's products, are recognized around the world.
Jensen, Gerrit: English Gerrard Johnson royal cabinetmaker of Louis XIV-style furniture, who became one of the most fashionable and foremost designers and craftsmen of his time. Apparently the first cabinetmaker to earn individual distinction in England, he became famous for his technique ...
Jensen, J. Hans D.: German physicist who shared half of the 1963 Nobel Prize for Physics with Maria Goeppert Mayer for their proposal of the shell nuclear model. (The other half of the prize was awarded to Eugene P. Wigner for unrelated work.)
Jensen, Jens: highly original landscape architect whose public and private works, mostly in the U.S. Midwest, are marked by harmonious use of natural terrain and native flora.
Jensen, Johannes V.: Danish novelist, poet, essayist, and writer of many myths, whose attempt, in his later years, to depict man's development in the light of an idealized Darwinian theory caused his work to be much debated. He received the Nobel Prize for ...
Jenson, Nicolas: publisher and printer who developed the roman-style typeface.
Jephthah: a judge or regent (often a hero figure) of Israel who dominates a narrative in the Book of Judges, where he is presented as an exemplar of faith for Israel in its monotheistic commitment to Yahweh. Of the Israelite tribe ...
Jequi: city, southeastern Bahia state, northeastern Brazil, on the Contas River, at 653 feet (199 metres) above sea level. It was elevated to city status in 1910. Jequie is the trade centre for a zone yielding mainly cacao and livestock. Goods ...
jequirity bean: (Abrus precatorius), plant of the pea family (Fabaceae), found in tropical regions. The hard, red and black seeds are attractive and are strung into necklaces and rosaries in India and other tropical areas, though they are highly poisonous. The seeds ...
Jequitinhonha River: river, eastern Brazil, rising in the Serra do Espinhaco, south of Diamantina, Minas Gerais state, and flowing northward and then east-northeastward across the uplands. At Salto da Divisa, it is interrupted by the Cachoeira (falls) do Salto Grande (140 ft ...
jerboa: any of 33 species of long-tailed leaping rodents well adapted to the deserts and steppes of eastern Europe, Asia, and northern Africa. Jerboas are mouselike, with bodies ranging from 5 to 15 cm (2 to 5.9 inches) in length and ...
Jeremiah: Hebrew prophet, reformer, and author of an Old Testament book that bears his name. He was closely involved in the political and religious events of a crucial era in the history of the ancient Near East; his spiritual leadership helped ...
Jeremiah, The Book of: one of the major prophetical writings of the Old Testament. Jeremiah, a Judaean prophet whose activity spanned four of the most tumultuous decades in his country's history, appears to have received his call to be a prophet in the 13th ...
Jeremiah, The Letter of: apocryphal book of the Old Testament, in the Roman canon appended as a sixth chapter to the book of Baruch (itself apocryphal in the Jewish and Protestant canons).
Jeremias II: patriarch of Constantinople and one of the most capable leaders of the Greek Orthodox church.