Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Ladinian Stage ... lagomorph

Ladinian Stage: uppermost of two divisions of the Middle Triassic Series, representing those rocks deposited worldwide during Ladinian time (234 million to 227 million years ago) in the Triassic Period. The stage name is derived from the Ladini people of the Dolomites ...
Ladino: Europeanized Central American person of predominantly Spanish origin. Despite regional variations, there is a cultural similarity among Ladinos stemming from their common Spanish origins and speech. Ladinos include urban classes, rural labourers, and peasantry. Although not always physically distinguishable from ...
Ladino language: Romance language spoken by Sefardic Jews in the Balkans, the Middle East, North Africa, Greece, and Turkey; it is very nearly extinct in many of these areas. A very archaic form of Castilian Spanish, mixed somewhat with Hebrew elements, Ladino ...
Ladipo, Duro: Nigerian dramatist whose innovative folk operas incorporating ritual poetry and traditional rhythms performed on indigenous instruments were based on Yoruba history.
Ladislas: king of Naples (from 1386), claimant to the throne of Hungary (from 1390), and prince of Taranto (from 1406). He became a skilled political and military leader, taking advantage of power struggles on the Italian peninsula to greatly expand his ...
Ladislas I: king of Hungary who greatly expanded the boundaries of the kingdom and consolidated it internally; no other Hungarian king was so generally beloved by the people.
Ladislas IV: king of Hungary who, by his support of the German king Rudolf I at the Battle of Durnkrut, helped to establish the future power of the Habsburg dynasty in Austria.
Ladislas V: boy king of Hungary and of Bohemia (from 1453), who was caught up in the feud between his guardian Ulrich, count of Cilli, and the Hunyadi family of Hungary.
Lado Enclave: region in central Africa bordering on Lake Albert Nyanza (now Lake Albert), on the west bank of the Upper Nile, that was administered by the Congo Free State in 1894-1909 and was incorporated thereafter into the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.
Ladoga, Lake: largest lake in Europe, located in northwestern Russia about 25 miles (40 km) east of St. Petersburg. It is 6,700 square miles (17,600 square km) in area-exclusive of islands-and 136 miles (219 km) long, with an average width of 51 ...
lady: in the British Isles, a general title for any peeress below the rank of duchess and also for the wife of a baronet or of a knight. Before the Hanoverian succession, when the use of "princess" became settled practice, royal ...
Lady chapel: chapel attached to a church and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. As the development of the chevet, or radiating system of apse chapels, progressed during the 12th and 13th centuries, custom began to dictate that the chapel dedicated to the ...
lady fern: (species Athyrium filix-femina), a large, feathery fern classified in the family Aspleniaceae (Aspidiaceae in some classification systems), widely cultivated for ornamentation. Leaves are about 75 cm (30 inches) long and 25 cm (10 inches) wide and grow in circular clusters. ...
lady's mantle: any of several herbaceous perennials of the genus Alchemilla, particularly A. vulgaris, within the rose family (Rosaceae). A. vulgaris is widely distributed in Eurasia and has been introduced into North America. It grows up to 60 cm (2 feet) tall ...
lady's slipper: any member of several genera of orchids, family Orchidaceae, in which the lip of the flower is slipper-shaped. The genus Cypripedium has about 50 temperate and subtropical species. One well-known species is the yellow lady's slipper (Cypripedium calceolus); another is ...
ladybird beetle: any of the approximately 5,000 widely distributed beetles of the family Coccinellidae (order Coleoptera). The name originated in the Middle Ages, when the beetle was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and called "beetle of Our Lady."
ladyfish: (Elops saurus), primarily tropical coastal marine fish of the family Elopidae (order Elopiformes), related to the tarpon and bonefish. The ladyfish is slender and pikelike in form and covered with fine silver scales; there are grooves into which the dorsal ...
Ladysmith: town, northwestern KwaZulu/Natal province, South Africa, on the Klip River. Founded in 1850 after the British annexed the area, it was named for the wife of Sir Harry Smith (then governor of Cape Colony). It was besieged by the Boers ...
Lae: port city, northeastern Papua New Guinea. It is located near the mouth of the Markham River on Huon Gulf. Commercial activities centre on the export of timber, plywood, and coffee (transported by road from Bulolo and Wau) and the produce ...
Laelia: genus of orchids, family Orchidaceae, containing as many as 75 species of plants with attractively coloured flowers. Many species have been crossed with Cattleya and other genera to produce hybrid orchids for the commercial flower trade.
Laelius Sapiens, Gaius, The Younger: Roman soldier and politician known chiefly as an orator and a friend of Scipio Aemilianus. Laelius appears as one of the speakers in Cicero's De senectute ("On Old Age"), De amicitia ("On Friendship"; also called Laelius), and De republica ("On ...
Laelius, Gaius: Roman general and politician who contributed to Roman victory during the Second Punic War (218-201) between Rome and Carthage.
Laennec, Rene-Theophile-Hyacinthe: French physician who invented the stethoscope and is generally considered the father of chest medicine. Using a foot-long wooden cylinder that he placed on the chests of his patients, he was able to hear the various sounds made by the ...
Laetare Sunday: fourth Sunday in Lent in the Western Christian Church, so called from the first word ("Rejoice") of the introit of the liturgy. It is also known as mid-Lent Sunday, for it occurs just over halfway through Lent, and as Refreshment ...
Laetoli: site of paleoanthropological excavations in northern Tanzania about 40 km (25 miles) from Olduvai Gorge, another major site.
Laetus, Julius Pomponius: Italian Humanist and founder of the Academia Romana, a semisecret society devoted to archaeological and antiquarian interests and the celebration of ancient Roman rites.
Lafayette: city, seat (1826) of Tippecanoe county, west-central Indiana, U.S., on the Wabash River, 63 miles (101 km) northwest of Indianapolis. Laid out by William Digby on May 24, 1825, it was named for the American Revolutionary War hero the marquis ...
Lafayette: city, seat (1824) of Lafayette parish, south-central Louisiana, U.S., on the Vermilion River, 55 miles (88 km) southwest of Baton Rouge. The area was first settled by exiled Acadians from Nova Scotia in 1763. The earliest village, Vermilionville, was established ...
Lafayette College: private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Easton, Pennsylvania, U.S. It is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The college is dedicated solely to undergraduate education and awards bachelor's degrees in arts, sciences, and engineering. Students can choose to study ...
Lafayette, Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier, marquis de: French aristocrat who fought with the American colonists against the British in the American Revolution. Later, by allying himself with the revolutionary bourgeoisie, he became one of the most powerful men in France during the first few years of the ...
Laffer, Arthur B.: American economist who propounded the idea that lowering tax rates could result in higher revenues. His theory on taxes influenced U.S. economic policy in the 1980s.
Laffite, Jean: privateer and smuggler who interrupted his illicit adventures to fight heroically for the United States in defense of New Orleans in the War of 1812.
Laffitte, Jacques: French banker and politician prominent in public affairs from the end of the Napoleonic period to the first years of the July Monarchy (1830-31).
Laffitte, Pierre: French philosopher, the closest disciple of the philosopher Auguste Comte, who taught in his doctrine of Positivism that only knowledge verifiable by the methods of the empirical sciences is valid.
Lafforgue, Laurent: French mathematician who won the Fields Medal in 2002 for his work connecting number theory and analysis. (See the table of Fields Medalists.)
Lafia: town, Plateau State, central Nigeria. Originally the site of Anane, a small town of the Arago people, Lafia became the capital of a prominent local chiefdom in the early 19th century. During the rule of Mohamman Agwe (1881-1903), the Lafia ...
Lafiagi: town, Kwara State, west central Nigeria, on the south bank of the Niger River. It was founded in 1810 by Malam Maliki and his brother Manzuma, two Fulani leaders from Gwandu, 250 mi (400 km) north-northwest, as a fortified town ...
Lafontaine, Henri-Marie: Belgian international lawyer and president of the International Peace Bureau (1907-43) who received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1913.
LaFontaine, Sir Louis Hippolyte, Baronet: Canadian statesman, joint prime minister with Robert Baldwin of the united province of Canada in 1842-43 and again during the "great ministry" of 1848-51, when responsible, or cabinet, government was finally achieved.
Laforet, Carmen: Spanish novelist and short-story writer who received international recognition when her novel Nada (1944; "Nothingness"; Eng. trans., Nada) won the first Nadal Prize.
Laforgue, Jules: French Symbolist poet, a master of lyrical irony and one of the inventors of vers libre ("free verse"). The impact of his work was felt by several 20th-century American poets, including T.S. Eliot, and he also influenced the work of ...
Lag ba-'Omer: a minor Jewish observance falling on the 33rd day in the period of the counting of the 'omer ("barley sheaves"); on this day semimourning ceases and weddings are allowed. The origin of the festival is obscure. Among many traditions, one ...
Lagar Velho: site near Leiria, central Portugal, where the buried skeleton of a four-year-old child, dating to 25,000 years ago, was found. The unusual remains, which combine features of Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) and modern humans (H. sapiens), have led paleoanthropologists to speculate ...
Lagash: one of the most important capital cities in ancient Sumer, located midway between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in southeastern Iraq. The ancient name of the mound of Telloh was actually Girsu, while Lagash originally denoted a site southeast of ...
Lagen: river, southeastern Norway. Rising in the Hardanger Plateau, the Lagen flows generally east and north, then southeast through Numedalen, a valley in Buskerud fylke (county), past Rodberg and Kongsberg, through Vestfold fylke and into the Skagerrak (an arm of the ...
Lagen: river, south-central Norway. The name Lagen is applied to the portion of the river in Oppland fylke (county); it rises in small lakes and streams in the Dovre Plateau at the northern end of Gudbrands Valley and flows southeast for ...
lager beer: light-coloured, highly carbonated type of beer.
Lagerkvist, Par: novelist, poet, dramatist, and one of the major Swedish literary figures of the first half of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1951.
Lagerlof, Selma: novelist who in 1909 became the first woman and also the first Swedish writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Laghouat: town and oasis, north-central Algeria. It is located at the southern edge of the Saharan Atlas Mountains, on the route linking Algiers with central Africa. The oasis (625 acres [253 hectares]) was probably settled in the 11th century after the ...
lagomorph: any member of the mammalian order made up of the relatively well-known rabbits and hares (family Leporidae) and also the less frequently encountered pikas (family Ochotonidae). Rabbits and hares characteristically have long ears, a short tail, and strong hind limbs ...