Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Madeira Islands ... Madrid, Treaty of

Madeira Islands: archipelago of volcanic origin in the North Atlantic Ocean, belonging to Portugal and comprising two inhabited islands, Madeira and Porto Santo, and two uninhabited groups, the Desertas and the Selvagens. The islands are the summits of mountains that have their ...
Madeira River: major tributary of the Amazon. It is formed by the junction of the Mamore and Beni rivers at Villa Bella, Bolivia, and flows northward forming the border between Bolivia and Brazil for approximately 60 miles (100 km). After receiving the ...
madeleine: delicate, scallop-shaped French tea cake often served with fruit or sherbet. In its preparation, flour, eggs, and sugar are beaten with a large proportion of butter, incorporating as much air as possible; then grated lemon rind and vanilla extract, and ...
Madeleine: Paris, church designed by Pierre-Alexandre Vignon in 1806. The Madeleine, in the form of a Roman temple surrounded by a Corinthian colonnade, reflects the taste for classical art and architecture that predominated in France during the Empire phase of the ...
mademoiselle: the French equivalent of "Miss," referring to an unmarried female. Etymologically it means "my (young) lady" (ma demoiselle).
Maderna, Bruno: Italian composer of avant-garde and electronic music and a noted conductor.
Maderno, Carlo: leading Roman architect of the early 17th century, who determined the style of early Baroque architecture.
Madero, Francisco: Mexican revolutionary and president of Mexico (1911-13) who successfully ousted the dictator Porfirio Diaz by temporarily unifying various democratic and anti-Diaz forces. He proved incapable of controlling the reactions from both conservatives and revolutionaries that his moderate reforms provoked, however.
Madgaon: town, west-central Goa state, western India. Madgaon is situated on the railway that extends from Marmagao port to Castle Rock in Karnataka state. The third largest city in Goa, it gained importance with the development of Marmagao port, the best ...
Madhavacarya: Hindu statesman and philosopher. He lived at the court of Vijayanagar, a southern Indian kingdom.
Madhubani: town, north-central Bihar state, northeastern India. It is situated 16 miles (26 km) northeast of Darbhanga town. Madhubani derives its name from the abundance of honey that is to be found in nearby forests (madhu, "honey"; bani, "forest"). Trade in ...
Madhubuti, Haki R.: African-American author, publisher, and teacher.
Madhumati River: tributary of the Padma (Ganges) River, flowing through southwestern Bangladesh. It leaves the Padma just north of Kushtia and flows 190 miles (306 km) southeast before turning south across the Sundarbans to empty into the Bay of Bengal. In its ...
Madhva: Hindu philosopher, exponent of Dvaita (q.v.; dualism, or belief in a basic difference in kind between God and individual souls). His followers are called Madhvas.
Madhya Bharat Plateau: plateau comprising the northern part of the Central Highlands, central India. Extending over approximately 22,000 square miles (57,000 square km) and including most of northwestern Madhya Pradesh state and central Rajasthan state, it is bounded by the East Rajasthan Uplands ...
Madhya Pradesh: state of India, extending over 114,705 square miles (297,085 square km). As its name implies-madhya means "central" and pradesh means "region" or "state"-it is situated in the heart of India. The state has no ...
Madhyamika: (Sanskrit: "Intermediate"), important school in the Mahayana ("Great Vehicle") Buddhist tradition. Its name derives from its having sought a middle position between the realism of the Sarvastivada ("Doctrine That All Is Real") school and the idealism of the Yogacara ("Mind ...
Madi: group of more than 150,000 people who inhabit both banks of the Nile River in northwestern Uganda and in The Sudan. They speak a Central Sudanic language of the Nilo-Saharan language family and are closely related to the Lugbara, their ...
Madikizela-Mandela, Winnie: South African social worker and activist considered by many black South Africans to be the "Mother of the Nation." She was the second wife of Nelson Mandela, from whom she separated in 1992 after her questionable behaviour and unrestrained militancy ...
Madinah 'Isa: planned community in the state and emirate of Bahrain, north-central Bahrain island, in the Persian Gulf. Conceived and underwritten by the Bahraini government as a residential settlement, it was laid out on an uninhabited site by British town planners in ...
Madinat ash-Sha'b: town, southern Yemen, former administrative capital of Yemen (Aden). The town is located on the Little Aden Peninsula on the western side of At-Tawahi Bay (Aden Harbour), across from Aden city. Founded in 1959 as Al-Ittihad (Arabic: "Unity"), it was ...
Madinat Habu: southernmost part of the necropolis region of western Thebes in Upper Egypt, although the name often refers specifically to the mortuary temple built there by Ramses III (1187-56 BC). (See Thebes.) This temple, which was also dedicated to the god ...
Madison: county, central New York state, U.S., mostly comprising a rugged upland, bounded by Oneida Lake and Chittenango and Oneida creeks to the north and the Unadilla River to the southeast. Other waterways include the Chenango and Sangerfield rivers and Cazenovia ...
Madison: city, seat (1811) of Jefferson county, southeastern Indiana, U.S. It lies along the Ohio River (bridged), opposite Milton, Ky. Settled about 1808 and named for President James Madison, it flourished as a river port until overshadowed by Louisville, Ky. (46 ...
Madison: city, capital (1838) of Wisconsin, U.S., and seat (1836) of Dane county. Madison, Wisconsin's second largest city, lies in the south-central part of the state, centred on an isthmus between Lakes Mendota and Monona (which, with Lakes Waubesa and Kegonsa ...
Madison: city, seat (1873) of Lake county, southeastern South Dakota, U.S. It lies about 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Sioux Falls. In 1870 settlers William Lee and Charles Walker arrived in the area and named it for Madison, Wisconsin, which ...
Madison: borough (town), Morris county, northeastern New Jersey, U.S. It lies 18 miles (29 km) west of Newark. The borough of Madison includes the communities of Montville, Wood Ridge, and Hopewell Valley. The centre of a greenhouse industry and nicknamed the ...
Madison River: river in southwestern Montana and northwestern Wyoming, U.S. The Madison River rises in the northwestern corner of Yellowstone National Park at the junction of the Gibbon and Firehole rivers. It flows west through Hebgen Lake (impounded by a dam) into ...
Madison Square Garden: indoor sports arena in New York City. The original Madison Square Garden (1874) was a converted railroad station at Madison Square; in 1891 a sports arena was built on the site, designed by Stanford White and dedicated chiefly to boxing. ...
Madison, Dolley: American first lady (1809-17), the wife of James Madison, fourth president of the United States. Raised in the plain style of her Quaker family, she was renowned for her charm, warmth, and ingenuity. Her popularity as manager of the White ...
Madison, Helene: American swimmer, the outstanding performer in women's freestyle competition between 1930 and 1932. She won three Olympic gold medals and at her peak held every American freestyle record.
Madison, James: fourth president of the United States (1809-17) and one of the founding fathers of his country. At the Constitutional Convention (1787) he influenced the planning and ratification of the U.S. Constitution and collaborated with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay in ...
Madiun: kotamadya (municipality) and kabupaten (regency) in Jawa Timur provinsi ("province"), eastern Java, Indonesia. The city lies on the east bank of the Madiun River. The population is mostly Indonesian and Chinese. The city was the scene of a short-lived communist ...
Madiun Affair: communist rebellion against the Hatta-Sukarno government of Indonesia, which originated in Madiun, a town in eastern Java, in September 1948. The Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) had been declared illegal by the Dutch following uprisings in 1926-27; it was officially reestablished ...
Madler, Johann Heinrich von: German astronomer who (with Wilhelm Beer) published the most complete map of the Moon of the time, Mappa Selenographica, 4 vol. (1834-36). It was the first lunar map to be divided into quadrants, and it remained unsurpassed in its detail ...
Madog Ab Owain Gwynedd: legendary voyager to America, a son (if he existed at all) of Owain Gwynedd (d. 1170), prince of Gwynedd, in North Wales.
Madonie, Le: mountain range in Palermo provincia, northwest-central Sicily. The range extends for 30 miles (48 km) between the Torto River and the Nebrodi Mountains. Of limestone formation, its highest peaks are Antenna Peak, 6,480 feet (1,975 m), and Carbonara Peak, 6,493 ...
Madonna: American singer, songwriter, actress, and entrepreneur whose immense popularity in the 1980s and '90s allowed her to achieve levels of power and control unprecedented for a woman in the entertainment industry.
Madonna: in Christian art, depiction of the Virgin Mary; the term is usually restricted to those representations that are devotional rather than narrative and that show her in a nonhistorical context and emphasize later doctrinal or sentimental significance. The Madonna is ...
Madox, Thomas: English legal antiquary and historian whose critical studies of medieval English documents establish him as the virtual founder of British administrative history and the precursor of modern English historical scholarship.
Madras: capital of Tamil Nadu state, India, on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal.
Madras, University of: state-controlled institution of higher learning located in Madras, India. One of three affiliating universities founded by the British in 1857, Madras has developed as a teaching and research institution since the 1920s. By the mid-1970s the university comprised 11 postgraduate ...
madrasah: in Muslim countries, an institution of higher education. The madrasah functioned until the 20th century as a theological seminary and law school, with a curriculum centred on the Qur'an. In addition to Islamic theology and law, Arabic grammar and literature, ...
Madre de Dios River: headwater tributary of the Amazon in southeastern Peru and northwestern Bolivia. It flows from the Cordillera de Carabaya, easternmost range of the Andes, in Peru, and meanders generally eastward past Puerto Maldonado to the Bolivian border. There it turns northeastward ...
Madre, Laguna: narrow, shallow lagoon along the shore of southern Texas, U.S., and northeastern Mexico, sheltered from the Gulf of Mexico by barrier islands, of which Padre Island (a national seashore) in Texas is the most notable. The lagoon is divided into ...
Madrid: city, capital of Spain and of Madrid provincia. Spain's arts and financial centre, the city and province form an autonomous region.
Madrid: comunidad autonoma ("autonomous community") of central Spain, coextensive with the provincia of the same name and established by the statute of autonomy of 1983. The provincia was formed in 1833. It roughly coincides with the drainage of the southern slopes ...
Madrid Codex: together with the Paris and Dresden codices, one of several richly illustrated glyphic texts of the pre-Conquest Mayan period to have survived the mass book-burnings by the Spanish clergy during the 16th century. The Madrid Codex is believed to be ...
Madrid, Complutensian University of: institution of higher learning founded in 1508 at Alcala de Henares, in the province of Madrid, and moved in 1836 to the city of Madrid.
Madrid, Miguel de la: president of Mexico from 1982 to 1988.
Madrid, Treaty of: (Jan. 14, 1526), treaty between the Habsburg emperor Charles V (Charles I of Spain) and his prisoner Francis I, king of France, who had been captured during the Battle of Pavia in February 1525 and held prisoner until the conclusion ...