Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Offa ... Ohio River

Offa: town, Kwara state, southwestern Nigeria. It lies along the railroad from Lagos and at the intersection of roads from Ilorin town, Lafiagi, and Ikirun. A traditional settlement of the Yoruba people in a savanna area, it now serves as a ...
Offa: one of the most powerful kings in early Anglo-Saxon England. As ruler of Mercia from 757 to 796, Offa brought southern England to the highest level of political unification it had yet achieved in the Anglo-Saxon period (5th-11th century AD). ...
Offa Of Angel: continental Anglian ruler from whom the royal house of Anglo-Saxon Mercia claimed descent.
Offa's Dyke: great English earthwork extending linearly, with some gaps, from the River Severn near Chepstow to the seaward end of the Dee estuary, passing for 169 miles (270 kilometres) through the counties of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Radnorshire, Montgomeryshire, Shropshire, Denbighshire, and Flintshire. ...
offal: any of various nonmuscular parts of the carcasses of beef and veal, mutton and lamb, and pork, which are either consumed directly as food or used in the production of other foods. Variety meats have been a part of the ...
Offaly: county in the province of Leinster, central Ireland. Offaly is bounded by Counties Westmeath and Meath (north), Kildare (east), Laoighis and Tipperary (south), and Galway and Roscommon (west). The River Shannon forms its western boundary.
Offenbach: city, Hessen Land (state), west-central Germany. Offenbach, a river port, lies on the left bank of the canalized Main River just southeast of Frankfurt am Main. First mentioned in 977, it was part of the imperial forest ...
Offenbach, Jacques: composer who created a type of light burlesque French comic opera known as the operette, which became one of the most characteristic artistic products of the period.
Offenburg: city, Baden-Wurttemberg Land (state), southwestern Germany. It is situated in the Kinzig River valley, at the western edge of the Black Forest (Schwarzwald), southeast of Strasbourg, France. First mentioned in 1101, it was founded by the Zahringen ...
offroad racing: form of motor racing conducted over rough, unmarked, often desert terrain. An outgrowth of the post-World War II popularity of motorcycle trail racing, offroad racing involves contestants racing from checkpoint to checkpoint along improvised routes.
offset printing: in commercial printing, widely used printing technique in which the inked image on a printing plate is printed on a rubber cylinder and then transferred (i.e., offset) to paper or other material. The rubber cylinder gives great flexibility, permitting printing ...
Ogaden: arid region of eastern Ethiopia. It occupies the barren plain between the Somalia-Ethiopia border and the Ethiopian Eastern Highlands (on which Harer and Dire Dawa are situated). The major river of the region is the Shebeli, fed by ephemeral streams. ...
Ogaki: city, Gifu ken (prefecture), Honshu, Japan, on the Ibi River. The site was settled in prehistoric times, but the present city developed around the castle built in 1535. Since the end of the Meiji period (1868-1912), Ogaki has become a ...
Ogata Kenzan: Japanese potter and painter, brother to the artist Ogata Korin. He signed himself Kenzan, Shisui, Toin, Shokosai, Shuseido, or Shinsho.
Ogata Korin: Japanese artist of the Tokugawa period (1603-1868), regarded, along with Sotatsu, as one of the masters of the Sotatsu-Koetsu school of decorative painting. He is particularly famous for his screen paintings, lacquerwork, and textile designs.
Ogbomosho: town, Oyo state, southwestern Nigeria. It lies on the Plateau of Yorubaland (elevation 1,200 feet [366 m]) in an area of savanna and farmland and at the intersection of roads from Oyo, Ilorin, Oshogbo, and Ikoyi. Founded in the mid-17th ...
Ogburn, William Fielding: American sociologist known for his application of statistical methods to the problems of the social sciences and for his introduction of the idea of "cultural lag" in the process of social change.
Ogden: city, seat (1852) of Weber county, northern Utah, U.S. It lies at the confluence of the Weber and Ogden rivers, just west of the Wasatch Range and east of the Great Salt Lake. The community began as a settlement developed ...
Ogden, C.K.: British writer and linguist who originated Basic English (q.v.), a simplified system of the English language intended as a uniform, standardized means of international communication.
Ogden, Peter Skene: Canadian fur trader and a major explorer of the American West-the Great Basin, Oregon and northern California, and the Snake River country. He was the first to traverse the intermountain West from north to south.
Ogdensburg: city and port, St. Lawrence county, northern New York, U.S. It lies on the St. Lawrence River, at the mouth of the Oswegatchie River and is linked to Ontario, Canada, by the Ogdensburg-Prescott International Bridge (1960). The site was settled ...
ogee clock: clock design that originated in the United States in the 1830s, distinguished by a case the outer edges of which are curved into an S-shape (ogee). This shape is formed by the union of a convex and a concave line. ...
ogham writing: alphabetic script dating from the 4th century AD, used for writing the Irish and Pictish languages on stone monuments; according to Irish tradition, it was also used for writing on pieces of wood, but there is no material evidence for ...
Ogier The Dane: an important character in the French medieval epic poems called chansons de geste. His story is told in a cycle of these poems known as Geste de Doon de Mayence, which deals with the wars of the feudal barons against ...
Ogilby, John: British printer who was a pioneer in the making of road atlases; as a poet and translator he is chiefly remembered for being ridiculed by Dryden in MacFlecknoe and by Pope in the Dunciad.
Ogilvy, David: British advertising executive known for his emphasis on creative copy and campaign themes, founder of the agency of Ogilvy & Mather.
Oglesby, Richard James: governor of Illinois (1865-69, 1873, 1885-89) and U.S. senator (1873-79).
Oglethorpe University: private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. The university comprises nine divisions offering undergraduate study in the humanities, business, sciences, and education. It also offers master's degree programs in education and business administration. The campus is distinguished ...
Oglethorpe, James Edward: English army officer, philanthropist, and founder of the British colony of Georgia in America.
Ogmios: Celtic god of Gaul identified with the Roman Hercules. He was portrayed as an old man with swarthy skin and armed with a bow and club. He was also a god of eloquence, and in that aspect he was represented ...
Ogodei: son and successor of the Mongol ruler Genghis Khan (d. 1227), who greatly expanded the Mongol Empire.
Ogoja: town, Cross River state, southeastern Nigeria, on the road from Abakaliki. A major trade centre (yams, cassava, corn [maize], rice, palm oil and kernels, kola nuts), it is mainly inhabited by the Ekoi peoples. Ogoja is the headquarters of a ...
Ogooue River: stream of west-central Africa, flowing in Gabon for almost its entire course and draining an area of almost 86,000 square miles (222,700 square km). It rises in Congo (Brazzaville) on the eastern slopes of the Massif du Chaillu and flows ...
Ogot, Grace: Kenyan author of widely anthologized short stories and novels.
OGPU: early security and political police of the Soviet Union and a forerunner of the KGB (q.v.).
ogre: a hideous giant represented in fairy tales and folklore as feeding on human beings. The word gained popularity from its use in the late 17th century by Charles Perrault, the author of Contes de ma mere l'oye (Tales of Mother ...
ogre-faced spider: any member of the family Dinopidae (or Deinopidae; order Araneida). One pair of eyes is unusually large, producing an ogrelike appearance. The spiders occur throughout the tropics. One genus, Dinopis, the net-casting spider, carries a web that is thrown over ...
Ogun: state, western Nigeria, created in 1976 and comprising former Abeokuta and Ijebu provinces of former Western state, the latter carved out of former Western region in 1967. Ogun is bounded by Oyo and Osun states to the north, Lagos state ...
Ogunde, Hubert: Nigerian playwright, actor, theatre manager, and musician who was a pioneer in the field of Nigerian folk opera (drama in which music and dancing play a significant role). He was the founder of the Ogunde Concert Party (1945), the first ...
Ogunmola, Kola: Nigerian actor, mime, director, and playwright who took Yoruba folk opera (drama that combines Christian themes with traditional Yoruban folklore, music and dancing, and music popular in urban culture) and developed it into a serious theatre form through his work ...
Oguz: confederation of Turkic peoples whose homeland, until at least the 11th century AD, was the steppes of central Asia and Mongolia. The Orhon inscriptions (q.v.), describing an early Turkic people, probably refer to the Oguz. The Seljuqs, who comprised one ...
Ogyu Sorai: one of the foremost Japanese scholars of Chinese culture and a leading Confucianist. Ogyu stressed the pragmatic application of Confucianism to promote social and political reforms by means of uniform, rational laws. He is also noted for his appreciative commentary ...
Oh Sadaharu: professional baseball player who played for the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants in the Japanese Central League for 22 seasons between 1959 and 1980 who holds the record for the most home runs ever hit. (See also Japanese baseball leagues). He is among ...
Ohain, Hans Joachim Pabst von: German designer of the first operational jet engine.
Ohara: Japanese school of floral art, founded by Ohara Unshin in the early 20th century, which introduced the moribana style of naturalistic landscapes in shallow, dishlike vases. The moribana style, while retaining a basic triangular ...
Ohio: constituent state of the United States of America. Lake Erie lies on the north, Pennsylvania on the east, West Virginia and Kentucky on the southeast and south, and Michigan on the northwest. Its area of 41,330 square miles (107,044 square ...
Ohio Company: in U.S. colonial history, organization of Englishmen and Virginians, established in 1748, to promote trade with groups of American Indians and to secure English control of the Ohio River valley. Its activities in an area also claimed by France led ...
Ohio Gang: in U.S. history, a group of politicians who achieved high office during the presidential administration of Warren G. Harding and who betrayed their public trust through a number of scandals. Leader of the Ohio Gang was Harry M. Daugherty, a ...
Ohio Idea: in U.S. history, proposal first presented in the Cincinnati Enquirer in 1867 and later sponsored by Senator George H. Pendleton of Ohio to redeem American Civil War bonds in paper money instead of gold.
Ohio Players, the: American funk and pop band from Dayton, Ohio, that put an indelible stamp on black music from the urban Midwest in the 1970s. The principal members were Clarence ("Satch") Satchell (b. April 14, 1940, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S., -d. Dec. ...
Ohio River: major river artery of the east-central United States. Formed by the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers at Pittsburgh, it flows northwest out of Pennsylvania, then in a general southwesterly direction to join the Mississippi River at Cairo, Illinois ...