Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Norfolk Island ... North American Desert

Norfolk Island: external territory of Australia, in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, 1,041 miles (1,676 km) northeast of Sydney. The island, with an area of 13 square miles (35 square km), is about 5 miles (8 km) long and 3 miles (5 km) ...
Norfolk Island pine: (species Araucaria excelsa, or A. heterophylla), evergreen timber and ornamental conifer of the family Araucariaceae, native to Norfolk Island, situated in the South Pacific Ocean between New Caledonia and New Zealand. In nature this pine grows to a height of ...
Norfolk, John Howard, 1st Duke of, Earl Marshal, Lord Howard: English lord who supported the Yorkist kings in the Wars of the Roses.
Norfolk, Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of, Earl Of Surrey, Earl Marshal: noble prominent during the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII of England.
Norfolk, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of, Earl Of Surrey, Earl Marshal: powerful English noble who held a variety of high offices under King Henry VIII. Although he was valuable to the King as a military commander, he failed in his aspiration to become the chief minister of the realm.
Norfolk, Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of, Earl Of Surrey, Earl Marshal: English nobleman executed for his intrigues against Queen Elizabeth I on behalf of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, a Roman Catholic claimant to the English throne.
Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray, 1st Duke of, Earl Of Nottingham, Earl Marshal: English lord whose quarrel with Henry of Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford (later King Henry IV, reigned 1399-1413), was a critical episode in the events leading to the overthrow of King Richard II (reigned 1377-99) by Bolingbroke. The quarrel dominates the ...
Norfolk, Thomas of Brotherton, Earl of: half brother of King Edward II of England and of Edmund of Woodstock, Earl of Kent.
Norge, Geo: Belgian poet whose love of language found expression in a concise, often playful style.
Norian Stage: middle of three divisions in the Upper Triassic Series, representing those rocks deposited worldwide during Norian time (221 million to 210 million years ago) in the Triassic Period. The stage was named after an ancient Roman province south of the ...
Noric Alps: segment of the Eastern Alps extending across southern Austria between the Hohe Tauern range and Katschberg Pass (west) and the city of Graz on the Mur River (east). With the Drava River to the south and the upper Mur River ...
Noricum: region of Europe north of what is now Italy, roughly comprising modern central Austria and parts of Bavaria, Ger. Noricum was originally a kingdom controlled by a Celtic confederacy that dominated an earlier Illyrian population. It reached its greatest extent ...
Noriega, Manuel: Panamanian military leader, commander of the Panamanian Defense Forces (1983-89), who, for the years of his command, was the actual power behind the civilian president.
Norilsk: city, Krasnoyarsk kray (region), central Russia, in the Rybnaya Valley amid the Putoran Mountains. Founded in 1935, Norilsk lies north of the Arctic Circle and is one of the world's leading producing centres for nickel and platinum. Copper is also ...
norito: in the Shinto religious practices of Japan, words, or prayer, addressed by worshipers to a deity. The efficacy of prayer is founded on the concept of koto-dama, the spiritual power that resides in words. According to ancient belief, beautiful, correct ...
norm: rule or standard of behaviour shared by members of a social group. Norms may be internalized-i.e., incorporated within the individual so that there is conformity without external rewards or punishments, or they may be enforced by positive or negative sanctions ...
Normal: town, McLean county, central Illinois, U.S. At the junction of three interstate highways, Normal adjoins Bloomington (south) and is located about 65 miles (105 km) northeast of Springfield. It was founded in the early 1850s at the intersection of the ...
normal distribution: the most common distribution function for independent, randomly generated variables. Its familiar bell-shaped curve is ubiquitous in statistical reports, from survey analysis and quality control to resource allocation.
normal school: institution for the training of teachers. One of the first schools so named, the Ecole Normale Superieure ("Normal Superior School"), was established in Paris in 1794. Based on various German exemplars, the school was intended to serve as a model ...
Norman: city, seat (1907) of Cleveland county, central Oklahoma, U.S. The city is located on the South Canadian River, immediately southeast of Oklahoma City. Beginning as a tent city in April 1889 when Oklahoma was opened to white settlement, it was ...
Norman: member of those Vikings, or Norsemen, who settled in northern France (or the Frankish kingdom), together with their descendants. The Normans founded the duchy of Normandy and sent out expeditions of conquest and colonization to southern Italy and Sicily and ...
Norman Conquest: the military conquest of England by William, duke of Normandy, primarily effected by his decisive victory at the Battle of Hastings (Oct. 14, 1066), and resulting ultimately in profound political, administrative, and social changes in the British Isles.
Norman River: river rising in the Gregory Range of the Eastern Highlands of Queensland, Australia, and flowing for 260 miles (420 km) northwest through level country to the Gulf of Carpentaria at Karumba, a centre for the prawning industry. For long stretches ...
Norman style: Romanesque architecture that developed in Normandy and England between the 11th and 12th century and during the general adoption of Gothic architecture in both countries. Because only shortly before the Norman Conquest of England (1066) did Normandy become settled and ...
Norman, Jessye: American operatic soprano, one of the finest of her day, who also enjoyed a successful concert career.
Normanby Island: one of the D'Entrecasteaux Islands, 10 miles (16 km) across Goschen Strait from the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea, in the Solomon Sea, southwestern Pacific Ocean. Normanby Island lies southwest across Dawson Strait from Fergusson Island. Volcanic Normanby, measuring ...
Normand, Mabel: American film actress who was one of the greatest comedians of the silent era. Known for her gaiety and spontaneous spirit, Normand appeared in hundreds of films (and directed several of them) and rose to such heights of popularity that ...
Normandy: historic and cultural region encompassing the northern French departements of Manche, Calvados, Orne, Eure, and Seine-Maritime and coextensive with the former province of Normandy.
Normandy Invasion: during World War II, the Allied invasion of western Europe, which was launched on June 6, 1944 (the most celebrated D-Day of the war), with the simultaneous landing of U.S., British, and Canadian forces on five separate beachheads in Normandy, ...
Normandy, House of: English royal dynasty that provided three kings of England: William I the Conqueror (reigned 1066-87) and his sons, William II Rufus (reigned 1087-1100) and Henry I Beauclerc (reigned 1100-35). During their reigns and the reigns of their immediate successors, England ...
normative ethics: that part of moral philosophy, or ethics, concerned with criteria of what is morally right and wrong. It includes the formulation of moral rules that have direct implications for what human actions, institutions, and ways of life should be like.
Norn: in Germanic mythology, any of a group of supernatural beings who corresponded to the Greek Moirai; they were usually represented as three maidens who spun or wove the fate of men. Some sources name them Urd, Verdandi, and Skuld, perhaps ...
Norodom: king of Cambodia (1860-1904) who, under duress, placed his country under the control of the French in 1863.
Norodom Sihanouk: twice king of Cambodia (1941-55 and 1993-2004), who also served as prime minister, head of state, and president. He attempted to steer a neutral course for Cambodia in its civil and foreign wars of the late 20th century.
Norrbotten: lan (county) of northern Sweden, touching upon the Gulf of Bothnia, Finland, and Norway. It is Sweden's largest lan, as well as the northernmost, extending above the Arctic Circle. It comprises the traditional
Norris: city, Anderson county, eastern Tennessee, U.S. It lies along the Clinch River, about 20 miles (30 km) northwest of Knoxville. Built in 1933-34 by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to accommodate construction workers on the Norris (originally Cove Creek) Dam, ...
Norris, Frank: American novelist who was the first important naturalist writer in the United States.
Norris, George W.: U.S. senator noted for his advocacy of political reform and of public ownership of hydroelectric-power plants.
Norris, John: Anglican priest and philosopher remembered as an exponent of Cambridge Platonism, a 17th-century revival of Plato's ideas, and as the sole English follower of the French Cartesian philosopher Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715).
Norris-La Guardia Act: legislative act passed in 1932 that removed certain legal and judicial barriers against the activities of organized labour in the United States. The act declared that the members of labour unions should have "full freedom of association" undisturbed by employers. ...
Norrish, Ronald George Wreyford: British chemist who was the corecipient, with fellow Englishman Sir George Porter and Manfred Eigen of West Germany, of the 1967 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. All three were honoured for their studies of very fast chemical reactions.
Norristown: borough (town), seat of Montgomery county, southeastern Pennsylvania, U.S. It lies on the north bank of the Schuylkill River, 17 miles (27 km) northwest of Philadelphia and near the eastern terminus of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
Norrkoping: town and port, lan (county) of Ostergotland, Sweden. It lies along the Motala River southwest of Stockholm. Hallristningar, or rock carvings, from the Late Bronze Age are found in the area.
Norrland: region, northern Sweden, encompassing the traditional landskap (provinces) of Gastrikland, Halsingland, Medelpad, Angermanland, Vasterbotten, Norrbotten, Harjedalen, Jamtland, and Lappland. Its land area constitutes about 60 percent of Sweden's total territory. Its most striking features are extensive forests; mountains, notably Mount ...
Norske folkeeventyr: (1841-44; Eng. trans. Norwegian Folktales), collections of folktales and legends, by Peter Christen Asbjornsen and Jorgen Engebretsen Moe, that had survived and developed from Old Norse pagan mythology in the mountain and fjord dialects of Norway. The authors, stimulated by ...
Norstad, Lauris: U.S. Air Force general, commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in Europe during the Berlin crisis of 1961, when East Germany erected the Berlin Wall.
Norte de Santander: departamento, northeastern Colombia, bounded east by Venezuela and located where the Andean Cordillera Oriental bifurcate, one arm continuing northward as the Sierra de Ocana and Serrania (mountains) de los Motilones, the other bending eastward to form the Venezuelan Andes. Cedar ...
North Adams: city, Berkshire county, northwestern Massachusetts, U.S. It lies along the Hoosic River at the western end of the Hoosac Tunnel (extending 5 miles [8 km] under the Hoosac Range) and the Mohawk Trail scenic highway, 22 miles (35 km) north ...
North Africa: region of Africa comprising the modern countries of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya.
North America: third in size among the world's continents, lying for the most part between the Arctic Circle and the Tropic of Cancer. It extends for more than 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometres) to within 500 miles of both the North Pole and ...
North American Desert: vast, irregular belt of inhospitable terrain that stretches north to south down the western side of the North American continent from southern Oregon and Idaho to northern Mexico. It roughly corresponds to the sheltered, and hence rain-starved, intermontane region lying ...