Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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rising sun ... Riversleigh fossils

rising sun: in Egyptian religion, amulet conveying life and resurrection to its wearer. It was made in the shape of a sun disk rising on the hilly horizon and was the symbol of Harmakhis, the epithet of Horus as god of the ...
Rising Sun, Order of the: Japanese order founded in 1875 by Emperor Meiji and awarded for exceptional civil or military merit. The order, which has a women's counterpart called the Order of the Sacred Crown, was originally the Order of Merit. It consists of eight ...
risk: in economics and finance, an allowance for the hazard or lack of hazard in an investment or loan. Default risk refers to the chance of a borrower's not repaying a loan. If a banker believes that there is a small ...
Risorgimento: (Italian: "Rising Again"), 19th-century movement for Italian unification that culminated in the establishment of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. The Risorgimento was an ideological and literary movement that helped to arouse the national consciousness of the Italian people, and ...
rispetto: a Tuscan folk verse form, a version of strambotto. The rispetto lyric is generally composed of eight hendecasyllabic (11-syllable) lines. In its earliest form the rhyme scheme was usually abababcc. Later, the scheme ababccdd became more prominent, and other variations ...
Riss Glacial Stage: major division of Pleistocene time and deposits (1,600,000 to 10,000 years ago) in Alpine Europe. The Riss Glacial Stage, during which mountain glaciers descended from the highlands, followed the Mindel-Riss Interglacial Stage and preceded the Riss-Wurm Interglacial Stage, both periods ...
Riss-Wurm Interglacial Stage: major division of Pleistocene time and deposits (1,600,000 to 10,000 years ago) in Alpine Europe. The Riss-Wurm Interglacial Stage, a period of relatively moderate climatic conditions, followed the Riss Glacial Stage and preceded the Wurm Glacial Stage, both periods of ...
Rissho-Kosei-kai: (Japanese: "Society for Establishing Righteousness and Friendly Relations"), lay religious group in Japan based on the teachings of the Nichiren school of Buddhism. The Rissho-Kosei-kai is an offshoot of the Reiyu-kai, from which it separated in 1938. It was founded ...
Ristic, Jovan: statesman who acted as regent of Serbia twice and served as Serbian prime minister four times (1867, 1875, 1877-81, 1887-88).
Ristori, Adelaide: internationally renowned Italian tragedienne.
Ritalin: a mild form of amphetamine used in the treatment of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a condition that occurs primarily in children and is characterized by hyperactivity, inability to concentrate for long periods of time, and impulsivity. Ritalin, a trade-name drug, ...
Ritchie, Charles Thomson Ritchie, 1st Baron: British Conservative politician, notable for his reorganization of local government.
rite of passage: ceremonial event, existing in all historically known societies, that marks the passage from one social or religious status to another. This article describes these rites among various societies throughout the world, giving greatest attention to the most common types of ...
Ritola, Ville: Finnish long-distance runner, winner of three Olympic gold medals and two-time world-record holder for the 10,000-metre run.
ritornello: a recurrent musical section that alternates with different episodes of contrasting material. The repetition can be exact or varied to a greater or lesser extent. In the concerto grosso the full orchestra (tutti) has the ritornello; the solo group (concertino) ...
Ritschl, Albrecht: German Lutheran theologian who showed both the religious and ethical relevance of the Christian faith by synthesizing the teaching of the Scriptures and the Protestant Reformation with some aspects of modern knowledge. Most of the results of Ritschl's scholarship were ...
Ritschl, F.W.: German classical scholar remembered for his work on Plautus and as the founder of the Bonn school of classical scholarship. Influenced by the textual criticism of the English and German classicists Richard Bentley and Gottfried Hermann, he made exhaustive studies ...
Ritsos, Yannis: popular Greek poet whose work was periodically banned for its left-wing content.
Ritsu: school of Buddhist moral discipline primarily concerned with vinaya, or the rules of monastic and religious practice. The school was founded in China in the 7th century by the monk Tao-hsuan on the basis of Theravada texts that emphasized the ...
Ritt, Martin: American motion-picture director noted for his films on socially conscious themes.
Rittenhouse, David: American astronomer and inventor who was an early observer of the atmosphere of Venus.
Ritter, Carl: German geographer who was cofounder, with Alexander von Humboldt, of modern geographical science.
Ritter, Johann Wilhelm: German physicist who discovered the ultraviolet region of the spectrum and thus helped broaden man's view beyond the narrow region of visible light to encompass the entire electromagnetic spectrum from the shortest gamma rays to the longest radio waves.
ritual: the performance of ceremonial acts prescribed by tradition or by sacerdotal decree. Ritual is a specific, observable mode of behaviour exhibited by all known societies. It is thus possible to view ritual as a way of defining or describing humans.
ritual bath: religious or magic ceremony involving the use of water to immerse or anoint a subject's body. The many forms of baptism (q.v.), ranging from total submersion to a symbolic sprinkling, indicate how certain ritual baths can vary in form even ...
Ritz Brothers: American comedy team of three brothers, celebrated for their parodies and energetic slapstick humour. Their true surname was Joachim, and the three were known as Al (Alfred; b. August 27, 1901, Newark, N.J., U.S.-d. December 22, 1965, New Orleans, La.), ...
Ritz, Cesar: founder of the Paris hotel that made his name a synonym for elegance and luxury.
Rivadavia, Bernardino: first president of the Argentine republic. Although one of his country's ablest leaders, he was unable to unite the warring provinces or to control the provincial caudillos (bosses).
Rivarol, Antoine Rivaroli, Count de: French publicist, journalist, and epigrammatist and a would-be nobleman whose works supported monarchy and traditionalism in the era of the French Revolution.
Rivas: city, southwestern Nicaragua, on a narrow strip of land between Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific Ocean. Founded in 1736 and formerly known as Nicaragua, Rivas gained fame as a town on the "Vanderbilt Road," over which Americans joining the California ...
Rive, Richard: South African writer, literary critic, and teacher whose short stories, which were dominated by the ironies and oppression of apartheid and by the degradation of slum life, have been extensively anthologized and translated into more than a dozen languages. He ...
Rivea: a genus of 5 to 10 species of plants, native in tropical America and Southeast Asia, belonging to the morning glory family (Convolvulaceae). Of special interest is the woody stemmed perennial climber known to the ancient Aztecs as ololiuqui (Rivea, ...
river: any natural stream of water that flows in a channel with defined banks (ultimately from Latin ripa, "bank"). Modern usage includes rivers that are multichanneled, intermittent, or ephemeral in flow and channels that are practically bankless. The concept of channeled ...
river birch: ornamental tree of the family Betulaceae, found on river and stream banks in the eastern one-third of the United States. Because the lower trunk becomes very dark with age, the tree is sometimes called black birch, a name more properly ...
river dolphin: any of four or five species of small, usually freshwater aquatic mammals that are related to whales (order Cetacea). These dolphins are found in rivers of south-central Asia, China, and South America and in the coastal waters of Brazil, Argentina, ...
River Forest: village, Cook county, northeastern Illinois, U.S. A residential suburb of Chicago, River Forest lies on the Des Plaines River, about 12 miles (19 km) west of the city's downtown. A sawmill built on the riverbank in 1831 drew settlers to ...
River Rouge: city, adjacent to southwest Detroit, Wayne county, Michigan, U.S.. It lies along the Detroit and Rouge rivers. The site of an early French settlement, it grew in the 1920s with the development of the Ford Motor Company's plant in nearby ...
river terrace: bench or step that extends along the side of a valley and represents a former level of the valley floor. A terrace results from any hydrological or climatic shift that causes renewed downcutting. It generally has a flat top made ...
Rivera: city, northern Uruguay. It is built atop two hills in the basaltic Santa Ana Hills and is contiguous to Santana do Livramento, Brazil. One of Uruguay's largest cities, Rivera is the commercial and manufacturing centre for an agricultural and pastoral ...
Rivera, Diego: Mexican painter whose bold, large-scale murals stimulated a revival of fresco painting in Latin America.
Rivera, Jose Eustasio: Colombian poet and novelist whose novel La voragine (1924; The Vortex), a powerful denunciation of the exploitation of the rubber gatherers in the upper Amazon jungle, is considered by many critics to be the best of many South American novels ...
Riverina: predominantly rural region, south-central New South Wales, Australia. Occupying 26,509 square miles (68,658 square km), it is bounded on the north and northwest by the Lachlan and Murrumbidgee rivers, on the south by the Murray River, and on the east ...
riverine ecosystem: any spring, stream, or river viewed as an ecological unit of the biotic community and the physiochemical environment, within which mass and energy are exchanged. The waters are usually flowing (lotic) and exhibit a longitudinal gradation in temperatures, concentration of ...
Rivers: state, southern Nigeria, comprising the Niger River delta on the Gulf of Guinea. It is bounded by the states of Anambra and Imo on the north, Abia and Akwa Ibom on the east, and Delta on the west. Rivers state ...
Rivers, Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl, Baron Rivers: English noble, a leading supporter of his brother-in-law, the Yorkist king Edward IV.
Rivers, Larry: American painter whose works frequently combined the vigorous, painterly brushstrokes of Abstract Expressionism with the commercial images of the Pop art movement.
Rivers, Richard Woodville, 1st Earl, Baron Rivers: father-in-law of the Yorkist king Edward IV of England (reigned 1461-70, 1471-83). Nobles opposed to Rivers initiated the uprising that temporarily drove Edward into exile in 1470.
Rivers, Thomas Milton: American virologist who, as chairman of the virus research committee of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (now the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation; 1938-55), organized the long-range research program that led to development of the Salk and Sabin ...
Rivers, W H R: English medical psychologist and anthropologist known principally for The Todas (1906), a model of precise documentation of a people, and the important History of Melanesian Society, 2 vol. (1914).
Riverside: city, seat (1893) of Riverside county, southern California, U.S. The city lies on the Santa Ana River. With San Bernardino and Ontario it forms a metropolitan complex east of Los Angeles. The city was laid out in 1870 in part ...
Riversleigh fossils: any of numerous assemblages of fossils found at Riversleigh Station, in northwestern Queensland, Australia, which together constitute the richest and most diverse collection of fossils ever found on that continent. Riversleigh is an isolated area about 140 miles (225 km) ...