Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Reichenbach Falls ... relapsing fever

Reichenbach Falls: falls on the Reichenbach (creek) in Bern canton, central Switzerland, one of the highest falls in the Alps. There are five cascades with an overall height of 650 feet (200 m); best known are Upper and Lower Reichenbach Falls, with ...
Reichenbach, Georg von: German maker of astronomical instruments who introduced the meridian, or transit, circle, a specially designed telescope for measuring both the time when a celestial body is directly over the meridian (the longitude of the instrument) and the angle of the ...
Reichenbach, Hans: philosopher and educator who was a leading representative of the Vienna Circle and founder of the Berlin school of logical positivism, a movement that viewed logical statements as revealing only the basic structure of a priori mental categories and language. ...
Reichskammergericht: supreme court of the Holy Roman Empire. The court was established by Maximilian I in 1495 and survived as the empire's highest court until the empire's dissolution in 1806.
Reichstadt, Napoleon-Francois-Charles-Joseph Bonaparte, Herzog von, principe di Parma, Piacenza, e Guastalla: only son of Emperor Napoleon I and Empress Marie-Louise; at birth he was styled king of Rome.
Reichstag: building in Berlin that is the meeting place of Germany's national legislature. One of Berlin's most famous landmarks, it is situated at the northern end of the Erberstrasse and near the south bank of the Spree River. Tiergarten Park is ...
Reichstag fire: burning of the Reichstag (parliament) building in Berlin, on the night of Feb. 27, 1933, a key event in the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship and widely believed to have been contrived by the newly formed Nazi government itself to ...
Reichstein, Tadeus: Swiss chemist who, with Philip S. Hench and Edward C. Kendall, received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1950 for his discoveries concerning hormones of the adrenal cortex.
Reid, Forrest: Irish novelist and critic who early came under the influence of Henry James; he is best known for his romantic and mystical novels about boyhood and adolescence and for a notable autobiography, Apostate (1926).
Reid, Harry Fielding: American seismologist and glaciologist who in 1911 developed the elastic rebound theory of earthquake mechanics, still accepted today.
Reid, Sir George Houston: statesman and prime minister of Australia (1904-05) who as premier of New South Wales (1894-99) directed an economic recovery program, maintained free trade, and introduced a tax to break up land monopolies.
Reid, Thomas: Scottish philosopher who rejected the skeptical Empiricism of David Hume in favour of a "philosophy of common sense," later espoused by the Scottish School.
Reid, Whitelaw: U.S. journalist, diplomat, and politician, successor to Horace Greeley in 1872 as editor in chief (until 1905) and publisher (until his death) of the New York Tribune, which, during much of that period, was perhaps the most influential newspaper in ...
Reidy, Affonso: Brazilian architect, a pioneer of the modern architectural movement in Brazil.
reification: the treatment of something abstract as a material or concrete thing, as in the following lines from Matthew Arnold's poem "Dover Beach": The Sea of FaithWas once, too, at the full, and round earth's shoreLay like the folds of a ...
Reigate and Banstead: borough (district), administrative and historic county of Surrey, southeastern England immediately south of Greater London. Named after the two principal locales of the district, Reigate and Banstead extends across the North Downs, a range of low chalk hills trending east-west. ...
Reilly, Sidney: spy who obtained Persian oil concessions and German naval secrets for Britain. Many of the romanticized stories about him may have been inventions of his own.
Reimarus, Hermann Samuel: German philosopher and man of letters of the Enlightenment who is remembered for his Deism, the doctrine that human reason can arrive at a religion more certain than religions based on revelation.
Reims: city, Marne departement, Champagne-Ardenne region, northeastern France, east-northeast of Paris. On the Vesle River, a tributary of the Aisne, and the Marne-Aisne canal, the city is situated in vine-growing country in which champagne wine is produced. It is overlooked from ...
Reims Cathedral: cathedral located in the city of Reims, France, on the Vesle River east-northeast of Paris. Reims was the site of 25 coronations of the kings of France, from Louis VIII in 1223 to Charles X in 1825, including the crowning ...
rein orchid: any of about 100 species of terrestrial orchids of the genus Habenaria, family Orchidaceae, found in grasslands, bogs, forests, and sand dunes in subtropical and warm temperate areas of both hemispheres. All rein orchids have a spur at the base ...
reincarnation: in religion and philosophy, rebirth of the soul in one or more successive existences, which may be human, animal, or, in some instances, vegetable. While belief in reincarnation is most characteristic of Asian religions and philosophies, it also appears in ...
reindeer: species of deer (family Cervidae) found in the Arctic tundra and adjacent boreal forests of Greenland, Scandinavia, Russia, Alaska, and Canada. Reindeer have been domesticated in Europe. There are two varieties, or ecotypes: tundra reindeer and forest (or woodland) reindeer. ...
Reindeer Lake: lake in northern Canada, straddling the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border, near the northern limit of the coniferous forest. At an elevation of 1,106 feet (337 m), it is 2,568 square miles (6,650 square km) in area, 152 miles (245 km) long and ...
reindeer moss: (Cladonia rangiferina), a fruticose (bushy, branched) lichen found in great abundance in Arctic lands. It is an erect, many-branched plant that grows up to 8 cm high, covers immense areas, and serves as pasture for reindeer, moose, caribou, and musk ...
reindeer sacrifice: magico-religious practice observed by various Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic northern European and Asian peoples. The rite, which inaugurated their annual hunting season, consisted primarily of submerging a young doe in a lake or pond or burying it in the ground ...
Reinecke, Carl: German pianist, composer, conductor, and teacher who sought, in his works and teaching, to preserve the Classical tradition in the late 19th century.
Reiner, Fritz: Hungarian-born American conductor known for his technical precision and control, both in symphonic music and in opera. He was especially known for his work with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, of which he was music director from 1953 to 1962.
Reines, Frederick: American physicist who was awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize for Physics for his discovery 40 years earlier, together with his colleague Clyde L. Cowan, Jr., of the subatomic particle called the neutrino, a tiny lepton with little or no mass ...
Reinhard, Hans: statesman and burgomaster of Zurich who headed the federal government six times and led the Swiss delegation at the Congress of Vienna (1814-15).
Reinhardt, Ad: American painter who painted in several abstract styles and influenced the Minimalist artists of the 1960s.
Reinhardt, Django: guitarist who is generally considered one of the few European jazz musicians of true originality.
Reinhardt, Max: one of the first theatrical directors to achieve widespread recognition as a major creative artist, working in Berlin, Salzburg, New York City, and Hollywood. He helped found the annual Salzburg Festival.
Reinheim: small village near Saarbrucken in Saarland Land (state), southwestern Germany. It is famous for an unusually rich Celtic grave found there in 1954. The grave, which may have belonged to local princesses, is one of the most notable of the ...
Reinkens, Joseph Hubert: German bishop, historical scholar, and a leader of the Old Catholics (Altkatholiken), a dissident group that separated from the Roman Catholic church because of opposition to the doctrine of papal infallibility pronounced by the First Vatican Council (1869-70). After his ...
Reinmar Von Hagenau: German poet whose delicate and subtle verses constitute the ultimate refinement of the classical, or "pure," minnesang (Middle High German love lyric).
Reinsurance Treaty: (June 18, 1887), a secret agreement between Germany and Russia arranged by the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck after the German-Austrian-Russian Dreikaiserbund, or Three Emperors' League, collapsed in 1887 because of competition between Austria-Hungary and Russia for spheres of influence ...
Reis, Johann Philipp: German physicist who constructed a precursor of the electric telephone.
Reischauer, Edwin O.: American historian, diplomat, and educator and a leading expert on Asian, particularly Japanese, affairs.
Reiske, Johann Jakob: preeminent 18th-century European scholar of Arabic literature whose commentary to his Abulfedae Annales Moslemici, 5 vol. (1754; "Abulfeda Muslim Annals"), laid the foundation for Arabic historical scholarship.
Reisner, George Andrew: U.S. archaeologist who directed many excavations in Egypt and Nubia (Nilotic Sudan) and discovered the tomb of Queen Hetepheres, mother of King Khufu (Cheops), builder of the Great Pyramid at Giza.
Reiss, Winold: German-born American artist known for his portraits of Native Americans and African Americans.
Reiter syndrome: disorder characterized by arthritis and sometimes inflammation of the eye, urogenital tract, or mucous membranes that is typically triggered by a sexually transmitted disease or a gastrointestinal infection. Presumably, Reiter syndrome reflects an aberrant immune response to various infectious agents ...
Reith, John Charles Walsham Reith, 1st Baron: a principal architect of the modern pattern of publicly owned but independent corporations in Great Britain.
Reitsch, Hanna: aviator who was the leading female German pilot in the 20th century.
Reiyu-kai: (Japanese: Association of the Friends of the Spirit), Japanese lay religion based on the teachings of the Nichiren school of Buddhism. The Reiyu-kai was founded in 1925 by Kubo Kakutaro, a carpenter, and Kotani Kimi, who took over its leadership ...
Reizei Tamechika: Japanese painter of the late Tokugawa period (1603-1867) whose talent and efforts contributed a great deal to the revival of the traditional Yamato-e (paintings stressing Japanese themes and techniques as against the Kara-e, a style under strong Chinese influence).
Rejang: tribe inhabiting Bengkulu province, southern Sumatra, Indonesia, on the upper course of the Musi River. Of Proto-Malay stock and numbering about 238,000 in the late 20th century, they speak a Malayo-Polynesian dialect called Rejang, whose written form is of Indian ...
Rejlander, O.G.: Swedish painter and photographer who is known as the "father of art photography."
rejoneo: a form of bullfighting in which the principal fighter, the rejoneador, is mounted on a highly trained horse and uses a rejon, a short, broad blade fixed to a shaft, to kill the bull. ...
relapsing fever: infectious disease characterized by recurring episodes of fever separated by periods of relative well-being and caused by spirochetes, or spiral-shaped bacteria, of the genus Borrelia. The spirochetes are transmitted from one person to another by lice (genus ...