Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm ... Lely, Sir Peter

Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm: German philosopher, mathematician, and political adviser, important both as a metaphysician and as a logician and distinguished also for his independent invention of the differential and integral calculus.
Leibovitz, Annie: American photographer who is renowned for her revealing, eye-catching portraits of celebrities.
Leicester: city and unitary authority, geographic and historic county of Leicestershire, England, lying on the River Soar and the Grand Union Canal.
Leicester, Robert Dudley, earl of, Baron Denbigh: favourite and possible lover of Queen Elizabeth I of England. Handsome and immensely ambitious, he failed to win the Queen's hand in marriage but remained her close friend to the end of his life. His arrogance, however, undermined his effectiveness ...
Leicester, Robert Sidney, 1st earl of: soldier, diplomatist, and patron of literature, younger brother of Sir Philip Sidney and second son of Sir Henry Sidney, English lord deputy in Ireland.
Leicestershire: administrative, geographic, and historic county in the East Midlands region of England, bordered by Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Rutland, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Staffordshire, and Derbyshire. The administrative, geographic, and historic counties occupy slightly different areas. The administrative county comprises seven districts: Blaby, Harborough, ...
Leichhardt, Ludwig: explorer and naturalist who became one of Australia's earliest national heroes and whose mysterious disappearance aroused efforts to find him for nearly a century.
Leiden: gemeente (commune), Zuid-Holland provincie, western Netherlands. It lies at the confluence of the Oude Rijn and Nieuwe Rijn (Old Rhine and New Rhine) rivers, 10 miles (16 km) northeast of The Hague and 5 miles (8 km) inland from the ...
Leiden, State University of: university in Leiden, Neth., founded in 1575 by William of Orange. It was originally modelled on the Academy of Geneva, an important centre of Calvinistic teaching. By the early 17th century Leiden had an international reputation as a centre of ...
Leidy, Joseph: zoologist, one of the most distinguished and versatile scientists in the United States, who made important contributions to the fields of comparative anatomy, parasitology, and paleontology.
Leif Eriksson the Lucky: Norse explorer widely held to have been the first European to reach the shores of North America. The 13th- and 14th-century Icelandic accounts of his life and additional later evidence show that he was certainly a member of an early ...
Leigh Creek: town and coalfield, east central South Australia, 350 mi (563 km) by rail north of Adelaide. Lignite coal, discovered there in 1888, was mined underground from 1892 to 1908 and then abandoned until 1941, when wartime shortages forced the government ...
Leigh, Vivien: British actress who achieved motion picture immortality by playing two of American literature's most celebrated Southern belles, Scarlett O'Hara and Blanche DuBois.
Leigh-Mallory, Trafford: British air marshal who commanded the Allied air forces in the Normandy Invasion (1944) during World War II.
Leighton, Frederic Leighton, Baron: academic painter of immense prestige in his own time. After an education in many European cities, he went to Rome in 1852, where his social talents won him the friendship of (among others) the English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, the ...
Leighton, Margaret: English actress of stage and screen noted for her versatility in classic and contemporary roles.
Leighton, Robert: Scottish Presbyterian minister and devotional writer who accepted two Anglican bishoprics in Scotland in an attempt to reconcile proponents of the presbyterian form of church government with their episcopal opponents.
Leino, Eino: prolific and versatile poet, a master of Finnish poetic forms, the scope of whose talent ranges from the visionary and mystical to topical novels, pamphlets, and critical journalism.
Leinsdorf, Erich: Austrian-born American pianist and conductor.
Leinster: the southeastern province of Ireland, comprising the counties of Carlow, Dublin, Kildare, Kilkenny, Offaly, Longford, Louth, Meath, Laoighis, Westmeath, Wexford, and Wicklow. In its present form it incorporates the ancient kingdom of Meath (Midhe) as well as that of Leinster, ...
Leinster, The Book of: compilation of Irish verse and prose from older manuscripts and oral tradition and from 12th- and 13th-century religious and secular sources. It was tentatively identified in 1907 and finally in 1954 as the Lebar na Nuachongbala ("The Book of Noughval"), ...
Leiopelma: the single genus of the Leiopelmatidae family of small New Zealand frogs (order Anura). There are three known species, and all are 30 to 40 mm (1.2 to 1.6 inches) long.
Leiothrix: genus of birds of the babbler family Timaliidae (order Passeriformes), with two species: the silver-eared mesia, or silver-ear (L. argentauris), and the red-billed leiothrix (L. lutea), which is known to cage-bird fanciers as the Pekin, or Chinese, robin (or nightingale). ...
Leipoldt, C. Louis: South African doctor, journalist, and a leading poet of the Second Afrikaans Language Movement.
Leipzig: city, western Saxony Land (state), east-central Germany. It lies just above the junction of the Pleisse, Parthe, and Weisse Elster rivers, about 115 miles (185 km) southwest of Berlin. Leipzig is situated in the fertile, low-lying Leipzig ...
Leipzig Zoological Garden: zoological garden in Leipzig, Ger., noted for its carnivore collection. The zoo was opened in 1878 and taken over by the city in 1920. Occupying a 22-hectare (54-acre) site, the zoo maintains about 5,000 specimens of approximately 600 species. With ...
Leipzig, Battle of: (Oct. 16-19, 1813), decisive defeat for Napoleon, resulting in the destruction of what was left of French power in Germany and Poland. The battle was fought at Leipzig, in Saxony, between approximately 185,000 French and other troops under Napoleon, and ...
Leipzig, University of: coeducational state-controlled institution of higher education in Leipzig, Ger. It was renamed Karl Marx University of Leipzig in 1953 by the communist leadership of East Germany; the original name was restored in 1990. The University of Leipzig was founded in ...
Leiria: town and capital of Leiria distrito ("district"), Portugal. The town is located 70 miles (115 km) north of Lisbon, a few miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean. It originated as the Roman town of Collippo and was captured by the ...
Leiris, Michel: French writer who was a pioneer in modern confessional literature and was also a noted anthropologist, poet, and art critic.
Leisewitz, Johann Anton: German dramatist whose most important work, Julius von Tarent (1776), was the forerunner of Friedrich Schiller's famous Sturm und Drang masterpiece Die Rauber (1781; The Robbers).
leishmaniasis: human protozoal infection spread by the bite of a sandfly. Leishmaniasis occurs worldwide but is especially prevalent in tropical areas. Three major forms of the disease are recognized: visceral, cutaneous, and mucocutaneous.
Leisler, Jacob: provincial militia captain who seized the reins of British colonial government in New York (Leisler's Rebellion) and exercised effective control over the area for more than 18 months in 1689-91.
Leith: port of Edinburgh, lying north of the city centre on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth. It is part of the council area of the City of Edinburgh, in the historic county of Midlothian, southeastern Scotland. Leith was ...
leitmotiv: (German: "leading motive"), recurring musical theme appearing usually in operas but also in symphonic poems. It is used to reinforce the dramatic action, to provide psychological insight into the characters, and to recall or suggest to the listener extramusical ideas ...
Leitneriales: order of dicotyledonous flowering plants comprising the single rare species Leitneria floridana, the North American corkwood. It is a shrub or small tree found in swampy and riverside localities from southern Missouri to Texas and Florida. Leitneria is characterized by ...
Leitrim: county in the province of Connaught (Connacht), Ireland. It is bounded by Northern Ireland (east) and Counties Donegal (north), Cavan (east), Longford (south), and Roscommon and Sligo (west). The southern part of the county is a lowland covered by glacial ...
Leixoes, Port of: principal port serving the city of Porto and northern Portugal. It is an artificial harbour on the Atlantic Ocean, within the town of Matosinhos, 5.5 miles (9 km) northwest of central Porto. Porto is prevented by a sandbar from having ...
Lejeune, Louis-Francois, Baron: military general, painter, and lithographer who was chiefly responsible for introducing lithography to France as an artistic medium.
lek: in animal behaviour, communal area in which two or more males of a species perform courtship displays. Lek behaviour, also called arena behaviour, is found in a number of insects, birds, and mammals. Varying degrees of interaction occur between the ...
Lekain: original name Henri-louis Cain French actor whom Voltaire regarded as the greatest tragedian of his time.
Lekhitic languages: group of West Slavic languages composed of Polish, Kashubian and its archaic variant Slovincian, and the extinct Polabian language. All these languages except Polish are sometimes classified as a Pomeranian subgroup.
lekythos: in ancient Greek pottery, oil flask used at baths and gymnasiums and for funerary offerings. The flask has a long, cylindrical body gracefully tapered to the base, and a narrow neck with a loop-shaped handle. Its decoration was often superior ...
Leland, Charles Godfrey: American poet and writer of miscellany, best-known for the "Hans Breitmann Ballads," which reproduce the dialect and humour of the Philadelphia Germans (also called Pennsylvania Dutch).
Leland, Henry Martyn: American engineer and manufacturer whose rigorous standards contributed to the development of the automobile.
Leland, John: chaplain and librarian to King Henry VIII. He was the earliest of a notable group of English antiquarians.
Lelantine War: conflict arising during the late 8th century BC from colonial disputes and trade rivalry between the Greek cities of Chalcis and Eretria.
Lelewel, Joachim: prominent Polish historian, regarded as one of the founders of modern Polish historical thought.
Leloir, Luis Federico: Argentine biochemist who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1970 for his investigations of the processes by which carbohydrates are converted into energy in the body.
Lelouch, Claude: motion-picture director, noted chiefly for his lush visual style, who achieved prominence in 1966 with his film Un Homme et une femme (A Man and a Woman), which shared the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and won two ...
Lely, Sir Peter: Baroque portrait painter known for his Van Dyck-influenced likenesses of the mid-17th-century English aristocracy. The origin of the name Lely is uncertain.