Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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National Botanic Gardens of South Africa ... National Museum of New Zealand

National Botanic Gardens of South Africa: one of the world's largest botanical gardens, occupying a 1,305-acre (528-hectare) site in Kirstenbosch, near Cape Town, Western Cape province, South Africa. The 6,200-species collection consists almost exclusively of Cape plants native to the fynbos (scrubland) and ...
National Botanical Garden of Belgium: botanical garden consisting of the plant collections at Meise, on the outskirts of Brussels, Belgium. The garden has about 18,000 different species of plants. Originally founded in 1870 on a 17-acre (7-hectare) site in the heart of Brussels, the botanical ...
National Broadcasting Co., Inc.: major American commercial broadcasting company, now a subsidiary of General Electric Company (GE).
National Capital Parks: system of national monuments and government-owned parks and recreation areas in and around the District of Columbia, U.S. The system was authorized by the U.S. Congress in 1790 and became part of the National Park Service in 1933.
National Centre of Independents and Peasants: French political party founded in 1949. It grew out of the National Centre of Independents, formed in 1948 by Roger Duchet, who, by the following year, had accomplished a coalition of various parliamentarians of the right and had absorbed the ...
National Church of Iceland: established, state-supported Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland. Christian missionaries came to the country in the late 10th century, and about 1000 the Althing (the national Parliament and high court) averted a civil war between pagans and Christians by deciding that ...
National Coal Board: British public corporation created on Jan. 1, 1947, which operates previously private coal mines, manufactures coke and smokeless fuels, and distributes coal, heating instruments, and other supplies. Headquarters are in London.
National Collegiate Athletic Association: organization in the United States that administers intercollegiate athletics. It was formed in 1906 as the Intercollegiate Athletic Association to draw up competition and eligibility rules for football and other intercollegiate sports. The NCAA adopted its current name in 1910. ...
National Communism: policies based on the principle that in each country the means of attaining ultimate communist goals must be dictated by national conditions rather than by a pattern set in another country. The term, popular from the late 1940s to the ...
National Congress of Parents and Teachers: American organization concerned with the educational, social, and economic well-being of children. The PTA was founded on Feb. 17, 1897, as the National Congress of Mothers; membership was later broadened to include teachers, fathers, and other citizens. There are 52 ...
National Consumers League: American organization founded in 1899 to fight for the welfare of consumers and workers who had little voice or power in the marketplace and workplace. Many of the NCL's goals, such as the establishment of a minimum wage and the ...
National Convention: assembly that governed France from September 20, 1792, until October 26, 1795, during the most critical period of the French Revolution. The National Convention was elected to provide a new constitution for the country after the overthrow of the monarchy ...
National Council of Hispanic Women: organization of both individuals and organizations, such as universities and corporations, founded in 1985 with the mission of empowering Hispanic women and giving them a greater role in American society. The main goal of the organization is to have a ...
National Council of Jewish Women: oldest volunteer Jewish women's organization in the United States, founded in 1893. Prompted by Jewish values, the organization works with both the Jewish community and the general public to safeguard rights and freedoms for people worldwide. This objective is sought ...
National Council of Negro Women: American umbrella organization, founded by Mary McLeod Bethune in New York City on December 5, 1935, whose mission is "to advance opportunities and the quality of life for African American women, their families and communities."
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.: an agency of Protestant, Anglican, and Eastern Orthodox denominations that was formed in 1950 in the United States by the merger of 12 national interdenominational agencies. The National Council of Churches is the largest ecumenical body in the United States, ...
National Covenant: solemn agreement inaugurated by Scottish churchmen on Feb. 28, 1638, in the Greyfriars' churchyard, Edinburgh. It rejected the attempt by King Charles I and William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, to force the Scottish church to conform to English liturgical practice ...
National Diet Library: the national library of Japan, formed at Tokyo in 1948 and combining the libraries of the upper and lower houses of the Diet (national legislature) with the collections of the former Imperial Library (established 1872). The library's building opened in ...
National Education Association: American voluntary association of teachers, administrators, and other educators associated with elementary and secondary schools and colleges and universities. It is the world's largest professional organization. Its headquarters are in Washington, D.C.
National Endowment for the Arts: an independent agency of the U.S. government that supports the creation, dissemination, and performance of the arts. It was created by the U.S. Congress in the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965. Literature, music, theatre, ...
National Endowment for the Humanities: an independent agency of the U.S. government that supports research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. It was created by the U.S. Congress in the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965. The legislation ...
National Football League: major U.S. professional gridiron football organization, founded in 1920 in Canton, Ohio, as the American Professional Football Association. Its first president was Jim Thorpe, an outstanding American athlete who was also a player in the league. The present name was ...
national forest: in the United States, any of numerous forest areas set aside under federal supervision for the purposes of conserving water, timber, wildlife, fish, and other renewable resources and providing recreational areas for the public. The national forests are administered by ...
National Gallery: in Oslo, Norwegian national art museum, built in 1879 and enlarged 1903-07, devoted primarily to Norwegian paintings and sculpture of the 19th and 20th centuries. It possesses a significant collection of paintings by the Expressionist artist Edvard Munch. There is ...
National Gallery: German art museum in Berlin that was founded in 1861 and opened to the public in 1876. The National Gallery has one of the world's finest collections of German painting and sculpture from the late 18th to the mid-20th century. ...
National Gallery: art museum in London that houses Great Britain's national collection of European paintings. It is located on the north side of Trafalgar Square, Westminster.
National Gallery of Art: American museum of art, part of the federally operated Smithsonian Institution system, located at the east end of the Mall, Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1937 when the financier and philanthropist Andrew W. Mellon donated to the government a ...
National Gallery of Modern Art: in Rome, important collection devoted to Italian artists and forming a full survey of 19th- and 20th-century Italian art. The museum was begun in 1883 and moved to its present site in 1911. The collection is enormous, with early examples ...
National Gallery of Victoria: major Australian art museum, located in Melbourne, with collections ranging over European, Asian, and Australian art of all periods. The museum is housed in the Victorian Arts Centre. The Great Hall features a dramatic stained-glass ceiling by Leonard French, a ...
National Geographic Magazine: monthly magazine of geography, archaeology, anthropology, and exploration, providing the armchair traveler with literate and accurate accounts and unsurpassed photographs and maps to comprehend those pursuits. It is published in Washington, D.C.
National Geographic Society: American scientific society founded (1888) in Washington, D.C., by a small group of eminent explorers and scientists "for the increase and diffusion of geographic knowledge." With more than nine million members in the mid-1990s, the organization is the world's largest ...
National Health Service: in Great Britain, a comprehensive public-health service under government administration, established by the National Health Service Act of 1946 and subsequent legislation. Virtually the entire population is covered, and health services are free except for certain minor charges.
National Hockey League: organization of professional ice hockey teams in North America, formed in 1917 by five Canadian teams, to which the first U.S. team, the Boston Bruins, was added in 1924. The NHL became the strongest league in North America and in ...
national income accounting: a set of principles and methods used to measure the income and production of a country. There are basically two ways of measuring national economic activity: as the money value of the total production of goods and services during a ...
National Institutes of Health: agency of the United States government that conducts and supports biomedical research into the causes, cure, and prevention of disease. The NIH is an agency of the Public Health Service of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It ...
National Intergroup, Inc.: American holding company established in 1983 to facilitate the diversification of National Steel Corporation. Formerly headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pa., NII moved to Dallas, Texas, in 1991, and National Steel moved to Mishawaka, Ind., in 1992.
National Invitation Tournament: collegiate basketball competition initiated in the United States in 1938 by New York City basketball writers and held annually since then in Madison Square Garden under the auspices of the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Association (MIBA). It is a single-elimination tournament ...
National Labor Relations Board: independent federal agency created by the U.S. Congress in 1935 to administer the National Labor Relations Act (also called the Wagner Act). The act was amended in 1947 through the Taft-Hartley Act and in 1959 through the Landrum-Griffin Act.
National Labor Union: in U.S. history, a political-action movement that from 1866 to 1873 sought to improve working conditions through legislative reform rather than through collective bargaining.
National League: oldest existing major-league professional baseball organization in the United States. The league began play in 1876 as the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, replacing the failed National Association of Professional Base Ball Players. The league's supremacy was challenged by ...
National Liberal Party: political party that was active first in Prussia and the North German Confederation from 1867, then in Germany in 1871-1918. With largely middle-class support, the National Liberals hoped to make the government under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck less autocratic. Originally ...
National Liberation Front: Vietnamese political organization formed on Dec. 20, 1960, to effect the overthrow of the South Vietnamese government and the reunification of North and South Vietnam. An overtly communist party was established in 1962 as a central component of the NLF, ...
National Liberation Front: the only constitutionally legal party in Algeria from 1962 to 1989. The party was a continuation of the revolutionary body that directed the Algerian war of independence against France (1954-62).
National Maritime Museum: national museum concerned with the maritime history of Great Britain. It is situated near the River Thames in Greenwich Park, Greenwich, southeast London.
national monument: in the United States, any of numerous areas reserved by act of Congress or presidential proclamation for the protection of objects or places of historical, prehistoric, or scientific interest. They include natural physical features, remains of Indian cultures, and places ...
National Museum of Anthropology: in Mexico City, world-famous repository of some 600,000 art and other objects relating to Mexico. Many anthropological, ethnological, and archaeological materials in the collection date from the pre-Hispanic period. Exhibited on two large floors, these displays show ancient human remains ...
National Museum of Fine Arts: national art collection, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, inherited from the Imperial Academy, later the Imperial Museum of Fine Arts. It was founded after the arrival of French artists in Brazil in 1816 and moved to its present building in ...
National Museum of History: in Mexico City, an offshoot of the National Museum of Anthropology (founded 1825). In 1940 the National Historical Museum became a separate institution specializing in Mexican history from the Spanish conquest in the 1500s to the promulgation of the constitution ...
National Museum of India: in New Delhi, museum devoted to Indian art history and iconography as well as to Buddhist studies. The museum was merged with the Asian Antiquities Museum to bring the treasures of India and Central Asia together. The collections include examples ...
National Museum of Modern Art: museum in Tokyo devoted to important Japanese works of art of the 20th century. The collection covers works of past artists outstanding in the history of Japanese art; outstanding works of contemporary artists; and works selected for their historical importance. ...
National Museum of New Zealand: in Wellington, general museum of science and the natural history of New Zealand. A Maori section contains artifacts and carvings. The collections include relics of Captain James Cook, particularly the original figurehead from his ship Resolution. A typical colonial house ...