Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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revenue bond ... Rhaetian Alps

revenue bond: bond issued by a municipality, state, or public agency authorized to build, acquire, or improve a revenue-producing property such as a mass transit system, an electric generating plant, an airport, or a toll road. Unlike general obligation bonds, which carry ...
revenue sharing: a government unit's apportioning of part of its tax income to other units of government. For example, provinces or states may share revenue with local governments, or national governments may share revenue with provinces or states. Laws determine the formulas ...
reverberatory furnace: in copper, tin, and nickel production, a furnace used for smelting or refining in which the fuel is not in direct contact with the ore but heats it by a flame blown over it from another chamber. In steelmaking, this ...
Reverdy, Pierre: French poet and moralist who first reflected Cubist and then Surrealist influence.
Revere: city, Suffolk county, Massachusetts, U.S. It lies along Massachusetts Bay just northeast of Boston. First known as Rumney Marsh, it was settled in 1626 and was part of Boston from 1632 until 1739, when it became part of Chelsea. During ...
Revere, Paul: folk hero of the American Revolution whose dramatic horseback ride on the night of April 18, 1775, warning Boston-area residents that the British were coming, was immortalized in a ballad by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
reverend: the ordinary English prefix of written address to the names of ministers of most Christian denominations. In the 15th century it was used as a general term of respectful address, but it has been habitually used as a title prefixed ...
reversibility: in thermodynamics, a characteristic of certain processes (changes of a system from an initial state to a final state spontaneously or as a result of interactions with other systems) that can be reversed, and the system restored to its initial ...
reversion: in Anglo-American law, interest held by a prior owner in property given to another, which, upon the happening of some future event, will return to that prior owner. A reversion is itself specific property, and it can be sold or ...
Revillagigedo Islands: archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, approximately 300 miles (500 km) south-southwest of the tip of the Baja California peninsula and 370 miles (595 km) west-southwest of Cape Corrientes on the Mexican mainland. The islands are administered by Colima state, Mexico. ...
revisionism: in Marxist thought, originally the late 19th-century effort of Eduard Bernstein to revise Marxist doctrine. Rejecting the labour theory of value, economic determinism, and the significance of the class struggle, Bernstein argued that by that time German society had disproved ...
Revius, Jacobus: Dutch Calvinist poet long esteemed only as a theologian but later acknowledged as the greatest Christian lyricist of his period.
revivalism: generally, renewed religious fervour within a Christian group, church, or community, but primarily a movement in some Protestant churches to revitalize the spiritual ardour of their members and win new adherents. Revivalism in its modern form can be attributed to ...
revolution: in social and political science, a major, sudden, and hence typically violent alteration in government and in related associations and structures. The term is used by analogy in such expressions as the Industrial Revolution, where it refers to a radical ...
Revolution Peak: mountain in the northwestern Pamirs range in Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous oblast (province), Tajikistan. At 22,880 feet (6,974 m), it is the highest point in the eastern part of the Yazgulem Range. The mountain consists of an enormous mass with three summits ...
Revolution, The: weekly American women's rights newspaper, first published on January 8, 1868, under the proprietorship of Susan B. Anthony and edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury.
Revolutionary Tribunal: court that was instituted in Paris by the National Convention during the French Revolution for the trial of political offenders. It became one of the most powerful engines of the Reign of Terror.
revolver: pistol (q.v.) whose multi-shot action depends on a revolving cylinder. Some early versions, known as "pepperboxes," had several barrels, but as early as the 17th century pistols were manufactured with a revolving chamber to load the cartridges successively into a ...
revolving credit: system of retail credit in which the buyer makes periodic payments to an account to which his purchases and service charges have been debited. The service charge is based on the outstanding balance; if the buyer pays his entire balance, ...
revolving stage: theatrical device for scene changes, or shifts, by which three or more settings are constructed on a turntable around a central pivot and revolved before the audience. It was invented for the Kabuki theatre in Japan in the 18th century ...
Revson, Charles H: American businessman who turned a $300 investment into the largest retail cosmetics and fragrance manufacturing firm in the United States, with more than 3,000 products and annual sales at his death of $605,000,000.
revue: light form of theatrical entertainment consisting of unrelated acts (songs, dances, skits, and monologues) that portray and sometimes satirize contemporary persons and events. Originally derived from the French street fairs of the Middle Ages, at which events of the year ...
Revue des Deux Mondes: fortnightly journal of criticism of and commentary on literature and other arts, published in Paris in 1829 and from 1831 to 1944. It was one of a number of journals set up in France following the suspension of censorship in ...
Revueltas, Jose: Mexican novelist, short-story writer, and political activist who was one of the originators of the new Mexican novel.
Revueltas, Silvestre: Mexican composer and violinist, best known for his colourfully orchestrated music of distinctive rhythmic vitality.
Rewa: town, northeastern Madhya Pradesh state, central India. The town was chosen as the capital of the former Rewa princely state in 1597 and served also as capital of the British Baghelkhand Agency (1871-1931) and of Vindhya Pradesh state (1948-56). It ...
Rewa River: longest and most important stream of the Fijian islands, in the South Pacific. It rises on the flanks of Tomanivi, in north-central Viti Levu, the principal island of Fiji, and flows southeast for 90 miles (145 km) to its mouth ...
Rewari: city, southern Haryana state, northwestern India. It is connected by rail to Delhi (northeast). A historic centre of trade between Delhi and Rajasthan, Rewari is said to have been built by Raja Rao (or Rewat), who named it after his ...
Rex cat: curly-coated breed of domestic cat that has a dense, soft coat lacking any projecting guard hairs, or outer coat. Except on the head, legs, and paws, the coat forms fairly deep waves, or crimps. The eyebrows and whiskers of the ...
Rexburg: city, seat (1913) of Madison county, southeastern Idaho, U.S. Founded by Mormon farmers led by Thomas Ricks in 1883, the city lies in the irrigated agricultural district of the Snake River plain and is a centre of grain and dairy ...
Rexroth, Kenneth: American painter, essayist, poet, and translator, an early champion of the Beat movement.
Reye syndrome: acute neurologic disease that develops primarily in children following influenza, chicken pox, or other viral infections. It may result in accumulation of fat in the liver and swelling of the brain. The disease was first reported by the Australian pathologist ...
Reyes, Alfonso: poet, essayist, short-story writer, literary scholar and critic, educator, and diplomat, generally considered one of the most distinguished Mexican men of letters of the 20th century.
Reyes, Rafael: explorer and statesman who was president and dictator of Colombia from 1904 to 1909. He attempted to give his nation a strong one-man rule that would attract foreign investment and foster domestic industrialization.
Reykjavik: capital and largest town of Iceland. It is located on the northern side of the Seltjarnar Peninsula, at the southeastern corner of Faxa Bay, in southwestern Iceland.
Reymont, Wladyslaw Stanislaw: Polish writer and novelist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1924.
Reynard The Fox: hero of several medieval European cycles of versified animal tales that satirize contemporary human society. Though Reynard is sly, amoral, cowardly, and self-seeking, he is still a sympathetic hero, whose cunning is a necessity for survival. He symbolizes the triumph ...
Reynaud, Paul: French politician and statesman who, as premier in June 1940, unsuccessfully attempted to save France from German occupation in World War II.
Reynolds number: in fluid mechanics, a criterion of whether fluid (liquid or gas) flow is absolutely steady (streamlined, or laminar) or on the average steady with small unsteady fluctuations (turbulent). Whenever the Reynolds number is less than about 2,000, flow in a ...
Reynolds, Albert: prime minister (taoiseach) of Ireland from February 1992 to December 1994.
Reynolds, Osborne: British engineer, physicist, and educator best known for his work in hydraulics and hydrodynamics.
Reynolds, Sir Joshua: portrait painter and aesthetician who dominated English artistic life in the middle and late 18th century. Through his art and teaching, he attempted to lead British painting away from the indigenous anecdotal pictures of the early 18th century toward the ...
Reynolds, Walter: archbishop of Canterbury best known for his political involvement with Edward II.
Reynosa: city, north-central Tamaulipas estado ("state"), northeastern Mexico. It lies just across the Rio Grande (Rio Bravo del Norte) from Hidalgo, Texas, U.S. Reynosa was founded in 1749 as part of a program to develop the Mexican interior. Subject to repeated ...
Reza: the major Persian painter of the Esfahan school (q.v.) and the favourite painter of Shah 'Abbas I the Great.
Reza Shah Pahlavi: Iranian army officer who rose through army ranks to become shah of Iran (1925-41) and began the regeneration of his country.
Rezanov, Nikolay Petrovich: Russian trader, diplomat, and administrator who was a founder of the Russian-American Company, which played a major part in the history of Alaska and of the North Pacific. He wished to annex the western coast of North America to Russia ...
Reznikoff, Charles: American translator and poet affiliated with the Objectivist school of poetry, who wrote poetry based on actual documents and events that was moral in purpose.
Rh blood group system: system for classifying blood according to the presence or absence of the Rh antigen, often called the Rh factor, in the cell membranes of the red blood cells. The designation Rh is derived from the use of the blood of ...
rhabdovirus: any of a group of viruses constituting the family Rhabdoviridae, responsible for rabies and vesicular stomatitis of cattle and horses. The virus particle is enveloped in a fatty membrane; is bullet-shaped, 70 by 180 nanometres (nm; 1 nm = 10^-9 ...
Rhaetian Alps: segment of the Central Alps extending along the Italian-Swiss and Austrian-Swiss borders but lying mainly in Graubunden canton, eastern Switzerland. The mountains are bounded by the Lepontine Alps and Splugen Pass (west-southwest), the Hinterrhein River (west), the Lechtaler Alps (northeast), ...