Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Lelystad ... Lenormand, Henri-Rene

Lelystad: gemeente (municipality) and capital, Flevoland provincie (province), north-central Netherlands, on the IJsselmeer (Lake IJssel). After the East Flevoland Polder was drained in 1957, the town was built on a foundation of piles driven into the subsoil. It was named after ...
Lem, Stanislaw: Polish author of science fiction that veers between humanism and despair about human limitations. His books have been translated into more than 35 languages.
Lemaire de Belges, Jean: Walloon poet, historian, and pamphleteer who, writing in French, was the last and one of the best of the school of poetic rhetoriqueurs ("rhetoricians") and the chief forerunner, both in style and in thought, of the Renaissance humanists in ...
Lemaitre, Georges: Belgian astronomer and cosmologist who formulated the modern big-bang theory, which holds that the universe began in a cataclysmic explosion of a small, primeval "super-atom."
Lemaitre, Jules: French critic, storyteller, and dramatist, now remembered for his uniquely personal and impressionistic style of literary criticism.
Lemass, Sean F: Irish patriot, politician, and prime minister from 1959 to 1966.
LeMay, Curtis E: U.S. Air Force officer whose expertise in strategic bombardment techniques was important during World War II and afterward.
Lemercier, Jacques: French architect who, along with Francois Mansart and Louis Le Vau, defined French classical architecture.
Lemercier, Nepomucene: poet and dramatist, a late proponent of classical tragedy over Romanticism, and the originator of French historical comedy.
lemming: any of 20 species of small rodents, some of which undertake large, swarming migrations. Lemmings are found only in the Northern Hemisphere. They have short, stocky bodies with short legs and stumpy tails, a bluntly rounded muzzle, small eyes, and ...
Lemming, Eric: Swedish track-and-field athlete who was the first great javelin thrower of the modern era. He won gold medals in the first two Olympic javelin contests.
Lemmon, Jack: American screen and stage actor adept at both comedy and drama and noted for his portrayals of high-strung or neurotic characters in American films from the 1950s onward.
Lemnitzer, Lyman: U.S. Army general, commander of the United Nations forces in the Korean War (1955-57), chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1960-62), and supreme allied commander in Europe (1963-69).
Lemnos: isolated Greek island in the Aegean Sea, midway between Mount Athos (in northeastern mainland Greece) and the Turkish coast, in the nomos (department) of Lesbos. Composed mainly of volcanic rock, its western region rises to 1,410 feet (430 m) at ...
lemon: (Citrus limon), small tree or spreading bush of the rue family (Rutaceae) and its edible fruit. The lemon forms a spreading bush or a small tree, 3-6 m (10-20 feet) high if not pruned. Its young leaves have a decidedly ...
lemon shark: species of shark in the family Carcharhinidae. See carcharhinid.
lemon verbena: (Aloysia triphylla, or Lippia citriodora), tropical perennial shrub belonging to the family Verbenaceae, originating in Argentina and Chile. Growing more than 3 m (10 feet) high in warm climates, it is also grown as a potted plant reaching a height ...
LeMond, Greg: American bicycle racer who was the first non-European rider to win the Tour de France, the most celebrated and challenging event in cycling. In his career he won the Tour de France three times (1986, 1989, 1990) and twice won ...
Lemonnier, Camille: novelist, short-story writer, and art critic, one of the outstanding personalities of the 19th-century French literary renaissance in Belgium.
Lemoyne, Jean-Baptiste: French sculptor chiefly important for his portrait busts.
Lempa River: river in Central America. It rises in Guatemala near Esquipulas, crosses a corner of Honduras, and enters El Salvador at Citala. After cutting across El Salvador's northern mountain range, it flows eastward for over 80 miles (130 km) and then ...
lemur: generally, any primitive primate except the tarsier; more specifically, any of the indigenous primates of Madagascar. In the broad sense, the term lemur applies not only to the typical lemurs (family Lemuridae) but also to the avahis, sifakas, indri, and ...
Lemures: in Roman religion, wicked and fearsome spectres of the dead. Appearing in grotesque and terrifying forms, they were said to haunt their living relatives and cause them injury. To propitiate these ghosts and keep them from the household, ritual observances ...
Lena River: major river of Russia and the 10th longest river in the world. It flows 2,734 miles (4,400 km) from its sources in the mountains along the western shores of Lake Baikal, in southeastern Siberia, to the mouth of its delta ...
Lenard, Philipp: German physicist and recipient of the 1905 Nobel Prize for Physics for his research on cathode rays and the discovery of many of their properties. His results had important implications for the development of electronics and nuclear physics.
Lenau, Nikolaus: Austrian poet known for melancholy lyrical verse that mirrors the pessimism of his time as well as his personal despair.
Lenbach, Franz von: painter whose powerful characterizations made him the favoured portraitist of late 19th-century Germany.
Lenca: Indians of the northern highlands of Honduras and El Salvador who are somewhat intermediate culturally between the Maya to the north and circum-Caribbean peoples such as the Kuna to the south. The aboriginal culture of the Lenca has virtually disappeared ...
Lenclos, Ninon de: celebrated French courtesan.
lend-lease: system by which the United States aided its World War II allies with war materials, such as ammunition, tanks, airplanes, and trucks, and with food and other raw materials. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had committed the United States in June ...
Leng-hu: town, northwestern Tsinghai sheng (province), western China. Leng-hu is situated in the northwestern part of the Tsaidam Basin, to the southwest of Tang-chin Pass, which leads from the Tsaidam into western Kansu province and to the Uighur Autonomous Region of ...
Lenglen, Suzanne: French tennis player and six-time Wimbledon champion in both singles and doubles competition, whose athletic play, combining strength and speed, changed the nature of women's tennis and positioned her as the dominant women's amateur player from 1919 until 1926, when ...
Lenin: world's first nuclear-powered surface ship, a large icebreaker built by the Soviet Union in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) in 1957. The Lenin is 440 feet (134 m) long, displaces 16,000 tons, and cruises in normal waters at 18 knots (nautical miles ...
Lenin Peak: highest summit (23,406 feet [7,134 m]) of the Trans-Alay Range on the frontier of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Once thought to be the highest mountain in what was then the Soviet Union, Lenin Peak was relegated to third place by the ...
Lenin's Testament: two-part document dictated by Vladimir I. Lenin on Dec. 23-26, 1922, and Jan. 4, 1923, and addressed to a future Communist Party Congress. It contained guideline proposals for changes in the Soviet political system and concise portrait assessments of six ...
Lenin, Order of: highest civilian award of the U.S.S.R. It was established in 1930 by the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union and awarded to individuals, collectives, institutions, or organizations for outstanding achievements in research, art, technology, or economics or for the ...
Lenin, Vladimir Ilich: founder of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), inspirer and leader of the Bolshevik Revolution (1917), and the architect, builder, and first head (1917-24) of the Soviet state. He was the founder of the organization known as Comintern (Communist International) and ...
Leningrad: oblast (province), northwestern Russia. It comprises all the Karelian Isthmus and the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland as far west as Narva. It extends eastward along the southern shore of Lake Ladoga and the Svir River as far ...
Leningrad Affair: (1948-50), in the history of the Soviet Union, a sudden and sweeping purge of Communist Party and government officials in Leningrad and the surrounding region. The purge occurred several months after the sudden death of Andrey A. Zhdanov (Aug. 31, ...
Leningrad, Siege of: (Sept. 8, 1941-Jan. 27, 1944), prolonged siege of the city of Leningrad (St. Petersburg) in the Soviet Union by German and Finnish armed forces during World War II. The siege actually lasted 872 days.
Leninism: principles expounded by Vladimir I. Lenin, who was the preeminent figure in the Russian Revolution of 1917. Whether Leninist concepts represented a contribution to or a corruption of Marxist thought has been debated, but their influence on the subsequent development ...
Leninogorsk: city, northeastern Kazakstan. The city is situated in the southwestern Altai Mountains along the Ulba River, at an elevation of more than 3,300 feet (1,000 m). An Englishman, Philip Ridder, discovered a small mine containing gold, silver, copper, and lead ...
Leninsk-Kuznetsky: city, in Kemerovo oblast (province), central Russia. It lies along the Inya River, a tributary of the Ob. In 1912 a French company started coal-mining operations there; from the 1930s the city developed rapidly to become a major coal-mining centre, ...
Lennep, Jacob van: Dutch novelist, poet, and leading man of letters in the mid-19th century.
Lenngren, Anna Maria: Swedish poet whose Neoclassical satires and pastoral idylls show a balance and moderation characteristic of the Enlightenment period and are still read for their gaiety and elegance.
Lennoaceae: the sand food family, composed of three genera and four to six species of curious, parasitic plants, which send out rootlike structures (haustoria) that penetrate the roots of other plants for food. Once the parasite's haustoria have entered the host ...
Lennox, Charlotte: English novelist whose work, especially The Female Quixote, was much admired by leading literary figures of her time, including Samuel Johnson and the novelists Henry Fielding and Samuel Richardson.
Lennox, Margaret Douglas, Countess of: prominent intriguer in England during the early reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
Leno, Dan: popular English entertainer who is considered the foremost representative of the British music hall at its height in the 19th century. In 1901 Leno gave a command performance for King Edward VII, becoming the first music-hall performer to be so ...
Lenoir, Etienne: Belgian inventor who devised the first commercially successful internal-combustion engine.
Lenormand, Henri-Rene: French dramatist, the most important of those playwrights concerned with subconscious motivation who flourished between World Wars I and II.