Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Mariazell ... Mariner

Mariazell: town, Steiermark Bundesland (federal state), east-central Austria, in the Salza River valley amid the north Styrian Alps north of Kapfenberg. Founded in 1157 by the monks of St. Lambrecht's Abbey, it is the most famous pilgrimage place in Austria. In ...
Maribo: city, Storstroms amtskommune (county commune), central Lolland Island, Denmark, on Maribo Lake. The city (chartered 1416) grew up around an early 15th-century Bridgettine convent, the chapel of which survives as the cathedral of the Lolland-Falster diocese. The Diocesan Museum displays ...
Maribor: industrial town and the political and economic centre of northern Slovenia, on the Drava River near the Austrian border. A popular resort and winter-sports centre, it lies between the Pohorje and Slovenske mountains. Though it is the centre of a ...
Marichal, Juan Antonio: professional baseball player, the first Latin American to pitch a no-hitter (on June 15, 1963) in the major leagues. (See also Sidebar: Latin Americans in Major League Baseball.)
Marici: in Mahayana Buddhist mythology, the goddess of the dawn. Marici (Sanskrit: "Ray of Light") is usually shown riding on seven pigs and with three heads, one of which is that of a sow. In Tibet she is invoked at sunrise ...
Marie Byrd Land: unclaimed region of Antarctica, bordering on the South Pacific Ocean and extending from the Ross Sea and Ice Shelf (west) to Ellsworth Land (east). The barren, ice-capped region averages 2,600-6,500 ft (800-2,000 m) above sea level in altitude, except along ...
Marie De France: earliest known French woman poet, creator of verse narratives on romantic and magical themes that perhaps inspired the musical lais of the later trouveres, and author of Aesopic and other fables, called Ysopets. Her works, of considerable charm and talent, ...
Marie De Medicis: queen consort of King Henry IV of France (reigned 1589-1610) and, from 1610 to 1614, regent for her son, King Louis XIII (reigned 1610-43).
Marie Leszczynska: queen consort of King Louis XV of France (ruled 1715-74). Although she had no direct influence on French politics, her Polish dynastic connections involved France in a European conflict that resulted in the eventual annexation of Lorraine by France.
Marie, Pierre: French neurologist whose discovery that growth disorders are caused by pituitary disease contributed to the modern science of endocrinology.
Marie-Antoinette: queen consort of King Louis XVI of France (1774-93). Imprudent and an enemy of reform, she helped provoke the popular unrest that led to the French Revolution and to the overthrow of the monarchy in August 1792.
Marie-Galante: island in the middle of the windward group of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean Sea and a dependency of Guadeloupe, an overseas departement of France. It lies 16 mi (30 km) southeast of the island of Guadeloupe. Marie-Galante is ...
Marie-Louise: Austrian archduchess who became empress of the French (imperatrice des Francais), as the second wife of the emperor Napoleon I; she was later duchess of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla.
Marie-Therese Of Austria: queen consort of King Louis XIV of France (reigned 1643-1715).
Marieberg pottery: Swedish pottery produced at the factory of Marieberg on the island of Kungsholmen, not far from Stockholm, from about 1759 until 1788. When the Marieberg factory, founded by Johann Eberhard Ludwig Ehrenreich, encountered financial difficulties in 1766, Ehrenreich was succeeded ...
Mariental: town, south-central Namibia. It lies at an elevation of 3,576 feet (1,090 m) and is situated 145 miles (232 km) north of Keetmanshoop and 170 miles (274 km) southeast of Windhoek, the national capital. The town and the surrounding area ...
Marietta: city, seat (1834) of Cobb county, northwestern Georgia, U.S. It lies about 20 miles (30 km) northwest of Atlanta, in the Blue Ridge foothills. A settlement is thought to have existed on the site in the 1820s. The town was ...
Marietta: city, seat (1788) of Washington county, southeastern Ohio, U.S. It lies at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum rivers, opposite Williamstown, W.Va. Shortly after the construction (1785) there of Fort Harmar, the American Revolutionary war general Rufus Putnam and ...
Mariette, Auguste: French archaeologist who conducted major excavations throughout Egypt, revealing much about the earlier periods of Egyptian history.
Marignac, Jean-Charles-Galinard de: Swiss chemist whose work with atomic weights suggested the possibility of isotopes and the packing fraction of nuclei and whose study of the rare-earth elements led to his discovery of ytterbium in 1878 and codiscovery of gadolinium in 1880.
Marignano, Battle of: (Sept. 13-14, 1515), Franco-Venetian victory over Swiss mercenaries in the first Italian campaign of Francis I of France. Fought near the village of Marignano (modern Melegnano), 10 miles (16 km) southeast of Milan, the battle resulted in the French recovery ...
Marignolli, Giovanni dei: Franciscan friar and one of four legates sent to the court of the Mongol emperor of China, Togon-Temur, at Khanbaliq (Beijing). Marignolli's notes on the journey, though fragmentary, contain vivid descriptions that established him among the notable travelers to the ...
Marigny, Enguerrand de: powerful chamberlain to the French king Philip IV the Fair, who depended heavily on Marigny's advice on foreign policy and on relations between king and church. Marigny was described as the man who knew all the king's secrets and who ...
marigold: any plant of the genus Tagetes of the family Asteraceae, consisting of about 30 species of annual herbs native to southwestern North America, tropical America, and South America. The name marigold also refers to the pot marigold (genus Calendula) and ...
Mariinsky Ballet: prominent Russian ballet company, part of the Mariinsky Theatre of Opera and Ballet in St. Petersburg. Its traditions, deriving from its predecessor, the Imperial Russian Ballet, are based on the work of such leading 19th-century choreographers as Jules Perrot, Arthur ...
Marijampole: administrative centre of a rayon (sector), Lithuania. Marijampole lies along both banks of the Sesupe River. The settlement developed as a monastic centre in the 18th century, when it was known as Starapole, and achieved urban status in 1758. After ...
marijuana: the Indian hemp plant, Cannabis sativa (cannabis), or the crude drug composed of its leaves and flowers. It is usually dried and crushed and put into pipes or formed into cigarettes (joints) for smoking. The drug-known by ...
Marilia: city, west-central Sao Paulo estado ("state"), Brazil, lying between the Aguapei and Peixe rivers in the highlands at 2,139 feet (652 metres) above sea level. Founded in 1611, it was made the seat of a municipality and ...
Marillac, Saint Louise de: cofounder with St. Vincent de Paul of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, a congregation of laywomen dedicated to teaching and hospital work.
marimba: any of several varieties of xylophone. Marimba is one of many African names for the xylophone, and, because African instruments bearing this name frequently have a tuned calabash resonator for each wooden bar, some ethnomusicologists use the name marimba to ...
Marin, Biagio: Italian poet noted for writing with clarity and simplicity in the unique Venetian dialect spoken on Grado.
Marin, Francisco de Paula: horticultural experimenter who introduced numerous plant species to the Hawaiian Islands.
Marin, John: American painter and printmaker especially known for his expressionistic watercolour seascapes of Maine and his views of Manhattan.
Marina: Mexican Indian princess, one of a group of female slaves given as a peace offering to the Spanish conquistadors by the Tabascan Indians (1519); she became mistress, guide, and interpreter to Hernan Cortes during his conquest of Mexico. The success ...
Marinatos, Spyridon: Greek archaeologist whose most notable discovery was the site of an ancient port city on the island of Thera, in the southern Aegean Sea. The city, the name of which was not discovered, apparently had about 20,000 inhabitants when it ...
Marinduque: island, Philippines, in the Sibuyan Sea, south of Luzon and east of Mindoro. A substantial part of the hilly, oval-shaped island is devoted to agriculture (coconuts, rice). There are also cattle ranches and rich fishing grounds, and iron ore and ...
marine: member of a military force especially recruited, trained, and organized for service at sea and in land operations incident to naval campaigns. The use of marines goes far back in history. The 5th-century-BC Greek historians Herodotus and Thucydides referred to ...
Marine Biological Laboratory: independent international research and educational organization founded at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, U.S., in 1888. It was established by the Women's Educational Association of Boston, the Boston Society of Natural History, and other organizations and was modeled on the Naples Zoological ...
marine biology: the science that deals with animals and plants that live in the sea. It also deals with air-borne and terrestrial organisms that depend directly upon bodies of salt water for food and other necessities of life. In the broadest sense ...
marine ecosystem: complex of living organisms in the ocean environment.
marine geology: scientific discipline that is concerned with all geological aspects of the continental shelves and slopes and the ocean basins. In practice, the principal focus of marine geology has been on marine sedimentation and on the interpretation of the many bottom ...
marine geophysics: scientific discipline that is concerned with the application of geophysical methods to problems of marine geology. Each of the principal branches of geophysical knowledge is involved: heat-flow data are obtained from ocean floors and from the midoceanic ridges; seismic reflection ...
marine insurance: contract whereby, for a consideration stipulated to be paid by one interested in a ship or cargo that is subject to the risks of marine navigation, another undertakes to indemnify him against some or all of those risks during a ...
marine phosphorescence: heatless light generated chemically by marine plants and animals. Bioluminescence is exhibited by a wide variety of oceanic organisms, from bacteria to large squids and fish. The light is emitted when a flavin pigment, luciferin, is oxidized in the presence ...
marine sediment: any deposit of insoluble material, primarily rock and soil particles, transported from land areas to the ocean by wind, ice, and rivers, as well as the remains of marine organisms, products of submarine volcanism, chemical precipitates from seawater, and materials ...
marine style: an innovation in the embellishment of Cretan pottery, developed around 1500 BC and characterized by the depiction of octopuses and other sea creatures. Possibly originating at Knossos, marine style pottery began to rival older plant and flower designs and was ...
marine terrace: a rock terrace formed where a sea cliff, with a wave-cut platform (q.v.) before it, is raised above sea level. Such terraces are found in California, Oregon, Chile, and Gibraltar and in New Zealand and other islands of the Pacific. ...
marine worm: any of the segmented worms constituting the class Polychaeta. See polychaete.
Marineland of Florida: world's first oceanarium, located about 20 miles (32 km) south of St. Augustine, Florida, U.S. The facility was opened to the public in 1938 and was originally called Marine Studios. Marineland was built as an underwater studio for filming marine ...
Marineland of the Pacific: former large, commercially operated oceanarium at Rancho Palos Verdes near Los Angeles. It was opened in 1954 following the overwhelming success of Marineland in Florida. The aquarium had the world's largest holding tank, with a circumference of 76 metres (250 ...
Mariner: any of a series of unmanned U.S. space probes sent to the vicinities of Venus, Mars, and Mercury. Mariners 2 (launched 1962) and 5 (1967) passed Venus within 35,000 and 4,000 km (22,000 and 2,500 miles), respectively, and made measurements ...