Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Lexington ... Li-fan yuan

Lexington: town (township), Middlesex county, eastern Massachusetts, U.S., 11 miles (18 km) northwest of Boston. Settled in 1640 and later organized as the parish of Cambridge Farms, it became an independent township in 1713 and was named for Lexington (now Laxton), ...
Lexington and Concord, Battles of: (April 19, 1775), initial skirmishes between British regulars and American provincials, marking the beginning of the American Revolution. Acting on orders from London to suppress the rebellious colonists, General Thomas Gage, recently appointed royal governor of Massachusetts, ordered his troops ...
Ley, Robert: Nazi politician and head of German labour, who helped supervise the recruitment of slave labour during World War II.
Leyden jar: device for storing static electricity, discovered accidentally and investigated by the Dutch physicist Pieter van Musschenbroek of the University of Leiden in 1746, and independently by the German inventor Ewald Georg von Kleist in 1745. In its earliest form it ...
Leyster, Judith: Dutch painter, one of the few female artists of the era to have emerged from obscurity. Among her known works are portraits and genre and still-life paintings.
Leyte: island, one of the Visayan group in the Philippines, lying east of Cebu and Bohol across the Camotes Sea. It lies southwest of the island of Samar, with which it is linked by a 7,093-foot (2,162-metre) bridge (completed in 1973) ...
Leyte Gulf, Battle of: (Oct. 23-26, 1944), decisive air and sea battle of World War II, which crippled the Japanese Combined Fleet, permitted U.S. invasion of the Philippines, and gave the Allies control of the Pacific.
Lezama Lima, Jose: poet, novelist, and essayist whose writing profoundly influenced other Cuban writers.
lezginka: folk dance originating among the Lezgian people of the Caucasus. It is a male solo dance (often with a sword) and also a couple dance. The man, imitating the eagle, falls to his knees, leaps up, and dances with concise ...
Lha-mo: in Tibetan Buddhism, the only goddess among the "Eight Terrible Ones," who are defenders of the faith. See dharmapala.
Lhasa: capital of the Tibetan autonomous ch'u (region) of the People's Republic of China. It is located at an elevation of 11,975 feet (3,650 m) in the Tibetan Himalayas near the Lhasa River, a tributary of the Brahmaputra.
Lhasa apso: breed of dog from Tibet, where it is called abso seng kye ("bark lion sentinel dog") and is used as an indoor guard dog. The Lhasa apso is characteristically hardy, intelligent, and watchful. Longer than it is tall, it stands ...
Lhevinne, Josef: piano virtuoso in the Romantic tradition, noted for his masterly technique, sonorous tone, and careful musicianship.
Lhote, Andre: French painter, sculptor, writer, and educator who was a prominent critic and teacher of modern art.
Lhotse: one of the world's highest mountains (27,890 feet [8,501] m]), consisting of three Himalayan summits on the Nepalese-Tibetan (Chinese) border just south of Mount Everest, to which it is joined by a 25,000-foot (7,600-metre) ridge. On May 18, 1956, Fritz ...
li: Confucian concept often rendered as "proper conduct," or "propriety." Originally li denoted magic rites performed to sustain social and cosmic order. Confucians, however, reinterpreted it to mean formal social patterns that, in their view, the ancients had abstracted from cosmic ...
Li: aboriginal people of Hainan Island, off the southern coast of China. They live in the mountainous southern portion of the island and share with the Miao people the Hai-nan Li-Miao Autonomous Prefecture. Their many dialects are related to Tai and ...
li: Chinese bronze, wide-mouthed cooking vessel that was supported by three legs shaped like pointed lobes. These legs were well articulated on the body of the vessel and formed an extension of the interior volume.
Li Ao: Chinese scholar and official who helped reestablish Confucianism at a time when it was being severely challenged by Buddhism and Taoism. Li helped lay the groundwork for the later Neo-Confucianists of the Sung dynasty (960-1279), who systematically reformulated Confucian doctrine.
Li Bai: Chinese poet who rivaled Du Fu for the title of China's greatest poet.
Li Chi: archaeologist chiefly responsible for establishing the historical authenticity of the semilegendary Shang dynasty of China. The exact dates are in dispute, but, traditionally, the period of the Shang dynasty is considered to be from c. 1766 to c. 1122 BC.
Li Chunfeng: Chinese mathematician and astronomer.
Li Dazhao: cofounder of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and mentor of Mao Zedong.
Li Gonglin: one of the most lavishly praised Chinese connoisseurs and painters in a circle of scholar-officials during the Northern Song period.
Li He: brilliant Chinese poet who showed great promise until his untimely death at age 26.
Li Hsiu-ch'eng: Chinese general and leader of the Taiping Rebellion, the giant religious-political uprising that occupied most of South China between 1850 and 1864. After 1859, when the Taipings were beset by internal dissension, poor leadership, and corruption, Li's military and administrative ...
Li Hung-chang: leading Chinese statesman of the 19th century who made strenuous efforts to modernize his country. In 1870 he began a 25-year term as governor-general of the capital province, Chihli, during which time he initiated projects in commerce and industry and, ...
Li K'o-yung: T'ang general of Turkish origin who suppressed the great peasant rebellion of Huang Ch'ao (d. 884), which threatened the T'ang dynasty (618-907) in its last years. Afterward the empire was divided between powerful warlords, and Li became a leading contender ...
Li Keran: painter and art educator who was a prominent figure in 20th-century Chinese art. He developed a personal style of landscape painting that was based upon the emulation of both ancient and contemporary masters.
Li Lisan: Wade-Giles romanization Li Li-san Chinese revolutionary who was Mao Zedong's chief rival for power within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1928 to 1930.
Li Ning: Chinese gymnast and entrepreneur, who amassed six medals at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Later he founded Li-Ning Sports Goods, an athletic apparel and shoe company.
Li Peng: premier of China from 1988 to 1998.
Li Qingzhao: China's greatest woman poet, whose work, though it survives only in fragments, continues to be as highly regarded as it was in her own day.
Li Rui: Chinese mathematician and astronomer who made notable contributions to the revival of traditional Chinese mathematics and astronomy and to the development of the theory of equations.
Li Shangyin: Chinese poet remembered for his elegance and obscurity.
Li Shanlan: Chinese mathematician who was instrumental in combining Western mathematical and scientific knowledge and methods with traditional Chinese methods.
Li Shao-chun: noted Chinese Taoist who was responsible for much of the mystical content of popular Taoist thought. Li was not only the first known Taoist alchemist but also the first to make the practice of certain hygienic exercises a part of ...
Li Shih-chen: Chinese scholar of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) who compiled a giant materia medica, the Pen-ts'ao kang-mu ("Great Pharmacopoeia"), which described more than 2,000 drugs and presented directions for preparing more than 8,000 prescriptions. Completed in 1578, the book was in ...
Li Sixun: Chinese painter who was later seen as the chief exponent of a decoratively coloured landscape style of the Tang dynasty and as the founder of the so-called Northern school of professional painters.
Li Ssu: Chinese statesman who utilized the ruthless but efficient ideas of the political philosophy of Legalism to weld the warring Chinese states of his time into the first centralized Chinese empire, the Ch'in dynasty (221-206).
Li T'ieh-kuai: in Chinese mythology, one of the Pa Hsien, the Eight Immortals. He was an ascetic for 40 years, often foregoing food and sleep, until Lao-tzu (also surnamed Li) agreed to return to earth and instruct his fellow clansman on worldly ...
Li Tang: major Chinese painter who lived during both the Northern and the Southern Song dynasties and established a style of painting that became the base for the academy-style landscape of the Southern Song.
Li Tzu-ch'eng: Chinese rebel leader who dethroned Ch'ung-chen, the last emperor of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644).
Li Xiannian: Chinese politician, one of the eight "revolutionary elders" and a leftist hard-liner who opposed economic reform.
Li Ye: Chinese mathematician and scholar-official who contributed to the solution of polynomial equations in one variable.
Li Yu: Chinese poet and the last ruler of the Southern Tang dynasty (937-975).
Li Yuan-hao: leader of the Tangut tribes, a Tibetan people who inhabited the northwestern region of China in the area of modern Kansu Province. Li founded the Hsia dynasty (1038-1227), usually referred to as the Hsi Hsia, or Western Hsia.
Li Yuan-hung: the only president of the Republic of China at Peking who served for two terms.
Li Zhizao: Chinese mathematician, astronomer, and geographer whose translations of European scientific books greatly contributed to the spread of Western science in China.
li-chia: system of social organization in Ming China. See pao-chia.
Li-fan yuan: governmental bureau established in the 17th century by China's Ch'ing (Manchu) dynasty to handle relations with the peoples of Inner Asia. The first bureau of its kind in the history of Chinese administration, it signified the growing interest of China ...