Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Maravi Confederacy ... Marche

Maravi Confederacy: centralized system of government established in southern Africa about 1480. The members of the confederacy were related ethnolinguistic groups who had migrated from the north into what is now central and southern Malawi. The confederacy was ruled by a karonga ...
Marawi: chartered city, capital of Lanao del Sur province, north-central Mindanao, Philippines. It is located on the northern shore of Lake Lanao, 3,500 feet (1,100 metres) above sea level, and it is one of the country's largest cities inhabited by Muslims ...
Marbeck, John: English composer, organist, and author, known for his setting of the Anglican liturgy.
marble: granular limestone or dolomite (i.e., rock composed of calcium-magnesium carbonate) that has been recrystallized under the influence of heat, pressure, and aqueous solutions. Commercially, it includes all decorative calcium-rich rocks that can be polished, as well as certain serpentines (verd ...
marble: small, hard ball that is used in a variety of children's games and is named after the 18th-century practice of making the toy from marble chips. The object of marble games is to roll, throw, drop, or knuckle marbles against ...
marble bone disease: rare recessive hereditary abnormality in which the bones become extremely dense, hard, and brittle. The disease progresses as long as bone growth continues: the marrow cavities become filled with compact bone, and severe anemia results. Fractures are frequent; deafness and ...
Marble, Alice: American tennis player, known for her powerful serves and volleys, who dominated the women's game during the late 1930s.
marbled cat: (species Felis marmorata), rare Southeast Asian cat, family Felidae, often referred to as a miniature version of the unrelated clouded leopard. The marbled cat is about the size of a domestic cat; it measures roughly 45-60 cm (18-24 inches) long, ...
marbled pottery: a type of ware obtained by mixing clays of various colours to imitate natural marbles or agate. The working of marbled pottery can be traced back at least as far as the 1st century AD in Rome, and samples of ...
Marblehead: town (township), Essex county, northeastern Massachusetts, U.S. It lies on a rocky peninsula jutting into Massachusetts Bay, 18 miles (29 km) northeast of Boston. Its deep, narrow harbour is sheltered by Marblehead Neck, a promontory of marblelike rocks about 1.5 ...
Marbot, Jean-Baptiste-Antoine-Marcelin, baron de: general and author of memoirs of the Napoleonic period, whose book on war, Remarques critiques, prompted Napoleon to leave him a legacy.
Marburg: city, Hessen Land (state), central Germany. It lies on the Lahn River north of Frankfurt am Main.
Marburg, Colloquy of: important debate on the Lord's Supper held in Marburg, Germany, on October 1-4, 1529, between the Reformers of Germany and Switzerland. It was called because of a political situation. In response to a majority resolution against the Reformation by the ...
Marburg, Philipps University of: coeducational institution of higher learning at Marburg, Ger. Marburg was the first Protestant university in Germany. It was founded in 1527 by Philip the Magnanimous of Hesse as a state institution for the support and dissemination of Lutheranism. It rapidly ...
Marbury v. Madison: (Feb. 24, 1803), landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision, the first instance in which the high court declared an act of Congress unconstitutional, thus establishing the doctrine of judicial review.
Marbury, Elisabeth: American theatrical and literary agent who represented a stellar array of theatrical performers and writers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Marbut, Curtis Fletcher: American geologist and authority on soils who worked closely with experts from many countries to develop international classification systems for soil materials.
Marc, Franz: German painter and printmaker who is known for the intense mysticism of his paintings of animals. He was a founding member of Der Blaue Reiter ("The Blue Rider"), an association of German Expressionist artists.
Marca: port city, southern Somalia, on the Indian Ocean, about 45 miles (70 km) southwest of Mogadishu, the national capital and main port. The town, which was founded by Arab or Persian traders, was in existence by the 10th century. The ...
Marca-Relli, Conrad: American artist associated with Abstract Expressionism. He was the first to raise the art of collage to a scale and complexity comparable to monumental painting, paving the way for the large "combine paintings" of the Neo-Dada artists of the 1960s.
Marcabru: Gascon poet-musician and the earliest exponent of the trobar clus, an allusive and deliberately obscure poetic style in Provencal.
marcasite: an iron sulfide mineral that forms pale bronze-yellow orthorhombic crystals, usually twinned to characteristic cockscomb or sheaflike shapes; the names spear pyrites and cockscomb pyrites refer to the shape and colour of these crystals. Radially arranged fibres are also common.
Marceau, Francois-Severin: French general, a notable young military hero of the early years of the French Revolutionary wars.
Marceau, Marcel: French mime of the 20th century whose silent portrayals are executed with eloquence, deceptive simplicity, and balletlike grace. His most celebrated characterization is Bip, a character half-Pierrot, half-Charlie Chaplin's tramp, first presented in 1947.
Marcel, Etienne: bourgeois leader, a clothier and provost of the merchants of Paris, who played a major part in the Paris revolution of 1355-58 and was for a time able to coerce the government into considering reforms.
Marcel, Gabriel: philosopher, dramatist, and critic, usually regarded as the first French Existential philosopher.
Marcellinus, Saint: pope probably from 291/296 to 304, although the dates of his reign, as well as those of his predecessors Eutychianus and Gaius, are uncertain. His pontificate saw a long, tranquil period terminated by a renewed and bloody persecution of Christians, ...
Marcello, Benedetto: Italian composer and writer, especially remembered for two works: the satirical pamphlet Il teatro alla moda (1720); and Estro poeticoarmonico (1724-26), a setting for voices and instruments of the first 50 psalms in an Italian paraphrase by G. Giustiniani. Il ...
Marcellus I, Saint: pope from May or June 308 to Jan. 16, 309. He succeeded St. Marcellinus after an interval of three or four years. The penances that he imposed on apostates resulting from the persecutions of Christians by the Roman emperor Diocletian ...
Marcellus II: pope from April 9/10 to May 1, 1555. He was made cardinal in December 1539 by Pope Paul III, for whom he served in numerous politico-ecclesiastical missions. With Cardinal Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte (later Pope Julius III) and Cardinal ...
Marcellus, Marcus Claudius: nephew of the emperor Augustus (reigned 27 BC-AD 14) and presumably chosen by him as heir, though Augustus himself denied it.
Marcellus, Marcus Claudius: Roman general who captured Syracuse during the Second Punic War (218-201). Although his successes have been exaggerated by the historian Livy, Marcellus deserved his sobriquet, "the sword of Rome."
Marcellus, Marcus Claudius: leading member of the Optimate (conservative senatorial aristocracy) and an uncompromising opponent of Julius Caesar. As consul in 51, Marcellus attempted to remove Caesar from his army command but was outmanoeuvred by the pro-Caesarian tribune Gaius Scribonius Curio. During the ...
Marcellus, Theatre of: in Rome, building begun by Julius Caesar and completed by Augustus in 13 BC. It was dedicated in the name of Augustus' nephew, Marcus Claudius Marcellus (42-23 BC). According to Livy it was built on the site of an earlier ...
march: originally, musical form having an even metre with strongly accented first beats to facilitate military marching; many later examples, while retaining the military connotation, were not intended for actual marching. The march was a lasting bequest of the Turkish invasion ...
March: third month of the Gregorian calendar. It was named after Mars, the Roman god of war. Originally, March was the first month of the Roman calendar. See month and the accompanying Table.
March First Movement: series of demonstrations for Korean national independence from Japan that began on March 1, 1919, in the Korean capital city of Seoul and soon spread throughout the country. Before the Japanese finally suppressed the movement 12 months later, approximately 2,000,000 ...
March fly: any stout, armoured insect of the family Bibionidae (order Diptera), with strong spurs on its legs. March flies are commonly seen around flowers during spring and early summer. The dark, short adults frequently have red and yellow markings. The larvae ...
March Laws: measures enacted by the Hungarian Diet at Pozsony (modern Bratislava) during the Revolution of 1848 that created a modern national Magyar state. After revolutions had broken out in Paris (Feb. 24, 1848) and in Vienna (March 13), liberal Hungarians, who ...
March, Ausias: first major poet to write in Catalan, whose verse greatly influenced other poets both of his own time and of the modern period.
March, Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of, 3rd Earl Of Ulster: friend of the Lancastrian king Henry V and an unwilling royal claimant advanced by rebel barons.
March, Francis Andrew: American language scholar and lexicographer who was a principal founder of modern comparative Anglo-Saxon (Old English) linguistics.
March, Fredric: versatile American stage and film actor, adept at both romantic leads and complex character roles.
March, Patrick Dunbar, 2nd Earl of, 9th Earl Of Dunbar: Scottish noble prominent during the reigns of the Bruces Robert I and David II.
March, Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of, 8th Baron Of Wigmore: lover of the English king Edward II's queen, Isabella of France, with whom he contrived Edward's deposition and murder (1327). For three years thereafter he was virtual king of England during the minority of Edward III.
March, Roger Mortimer, 2nd Earl of: a leading supporter of Edward III of England.
Marchais, Georges: French politician, leader of the French Communist Party from 1972 to 1994.
Marchand, Jean: Canadian politician, president of the Confederation of National Trade Unions (1961-65), and one of the "three wise men" of Quebec, together with Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Gerard Pelletier.
Marchand, Jean-Baptiste: French soldier and explorer known for his occupation of Fashoda (now Kodok) in the Sudan in 1898.
Marchantia: genus of liverworts (creeping ribbonlike plants) in the order Marchantiales, commonly found on moist clay or silty soils, especially on recently burned land throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Marchantia polymorpha, a well-known species, often is discussed as a representative liverwort in ...
Marche: French province before the Revolution of 1789 corresponding roughly to the modern departement of Creuse, with a small fragment of Indre and much of northern Haute-Vienne.