Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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terrorism ... Teton River

terrorism: the systematic use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective. Terrorism has been practiced by political organizations with both rightist and leftist objectives, by nationalistic and ...
Terry, Eli: American clockmaker who was an innovator in mass production.
Terry, Ellen: English actress who became one of the most popular stage performers in both Great Britain and North America. For 24 years (1878-1902) she worked as the leading lady of Sir Henry Irving in one of the most famous partnerships in ...
Terry, Lucy: poet, storyteller, and activist of colonial and postcolonial America.
Terry, Samuel: pioneer Australian landowner and merchant, known as "the Rothschild of New South Wales."
Terry, Sonny: original name Saunders Terrell American blues singer and harmonica player who became the touring and recording partner of guitarist Brownie McGhee in 1941.
Terry-Thomas: thickly mustachioed, gap-toothed British comic actor noted for his film roles as a pretentious, scheming twit.
Tertiary Period: interval of geologic time lasting from 66.4 to 1.6 million years ago (see ). It constitutes the first of two periods of the Cenozoic Era, the second being the Quaternary. The Tertiary has five subdivisions, which from oldest to youngest ...
tertulia: a type of Spanish literary salon that was popular in Spain from at least the 17th century and that eventually replaced the more formal academies. Tertulias were held in private homes at first, but from the early 19th century they ...
Tertullian: important early Christian theologian, polemicist, and moralist who, as the initiator of ecclesiastical Latin, was instrumental in shaping the vocabulary and thought of Western Christianity.
Teruel: town, capital of Teruel province, in the autonomous community (region) of Aragon, northeastern Spain, at the confluence of the Guadalaviar and Turia rivers, northwest of Valencia. It originated as the Iberian settlement of Turba, which was destroyed by the Romans ...
Teruel: province, in the autonomous community (region) of Aragon, northeastern central Spain. It has an area of 5,715 sq mi (14,803 sq km), three-quarters of which is covered by mountains belonging to the Sistema Iberico. The remainder, principally in the northeast, ...
terza rima: Italian verse form consisting of stanzas of three lines (tercets); the first and third lines rhyming with one another and the second rhyming with the first and third of the following tercet. The series ends with a line that rhymes ...
Terzaghi, Karl: civil engineer who founded the branch of civil engineering science known as soil mechanics, the study of the properties of soil under stresses and under the action of flowing water.
Teschen: eastern European duchy centred on the town of Teschen (Cieszyn; q.v.) that was contested and then divided by Poland and Czechoslovakia after World War I.
teschenite: coarse- to fine-grained, rather dark-coloured, intrusive igneous rock that occurs in sills (tabular bodies inserted while molten between other rocks), dikes (tabular bodies injected in fissures), and irregular masses and is always altered to some extent. It consists primarily of ...
Teschner, Richard: puppeteer who developed the artistic potentialities of the Javanese rod puppet for western puppet theatre.
Teshio-sammyaku: range, northwestern Hokkaido, Japan, extending southward for nearly 125 mi (200 km) from Soya-misaki (Cape Soya), across the transverse gorge of the Ishikari-gawa (Ishikari River), to the Yubari-sammyaku. The mountains consist of Cretaceous formations in the east and coal-bearing Tertiary ...
Teshub: in the religions of Asia Minor, the Hurrian weather god, assimilated by the Hittites to their own weather god, Tarhun (q.v.). Several myths about Teshub survive in Hittite versions. One, called the "Theogony," relates that Teshub achieved supremacy in the ...
tesla: unit of magnetic induction or magnetic flux density in the metre-kilogram-second system (SI) of physical units. One tesla equals one weber per square metre, corresponding to 10⁴ gauss.
Tesla, Nikola: Serbian-American inventor and researcher who discovered the rotating magnetic field, the basis of most alternating-current machinery. He emigrated to the United States in 1884 and sold the patent rights to his system of alternating-current dynamos, transformers, and motors to George ...
Teso: people of central Uganda and Kenya who speak Teso (Ateso), an Eastern Sudanic (Nilotic) language of the Nilo-Saharan language family. The Teso are counted among the most progressive farmers of Uganda; they quickly took to ox plows when they began ...
tessellated pavement: interior or exterior floor covering composed of stone tesserae (Latin: "dice"), cubes, or other regular shapes closely fitted together in simple or complex designs with a durable and waterproof cement, mortar, clay, or grout. Deriving from Greek pebble mosaic (q.v.) ...
tessera: in mosaic work, a small piece of stone, glass, ceramic, or other hard material cut in a cubical or some other regular shape. The earliest tesserae, which by 200 BC had replaced natural pebbles in Hellenistic mosaics, were cut from ...
Tessin, Carl Gustaf, Greve: (Count) Swedish court official, statesman, and writer who was a founder of the 18th-century parliamentary Hat Party and an influential adviser to the court of Adolf Frederick.
Tessin, Nicodemus, The Elder: most eminent Swedish architect of his period, whose principal work is the Drottningholm palace.
Tessin, Nicodemus, The Younger: notable Swedish Baroque architect.
tessitura: (Italian: "texture"), in music, the general range of pitches found in a melody or vocal part. It differs from the compass of a piece to the extent that it does not take into account the extremes of the piece's range ...
test: in zoology, a protective, loose-fitting shell secreted by some protozoans (especially foraminiferans and radiolarians). In most species the organic test contains inorganic materials that may be foreign objects (e.g., sand grains, shell fragments) or substances secreted by the organism (calcium ...
test act: in England, Scotland, and Ireland, any law that made a person's eligibility for public office depend upon his profession of the established religion. In Scotland, the principle was adopted immediately after the Reformation, and an act of 1567 made profession ...
Test Valley: borough (district), administrative and historic county of Hampshire, England, occupying a mostly rural area in the northwestern part of the county. Situated directly north of the port of Southampton, Test Valley district embraces nearly the entire north-south length of the ...
testacean: any member of the protozoan order Arcellinida (formerly Testacida) of the class Rhizopodea. Testaceans are usually encased in one-chambered tests, or shells, and usually found in fresh water, although sometimes they occur in salt water and in mossy soil. The ...
testament: in literature, a tribute or an expression of conviction, as in Thomas Usk's prose allegory The Testament of Love (c. 1384) and Robert Bridges's poem The Testament of Beauty (1929). A literary testament can also be a kind of last ...
Testamentum Domini: one of a series of writings (including the Apostolic Constitutions and the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus) that claim to set forth the fundamental rules of the early Christian Church. Originally written in Greek, probably in the 4th-5th century, it survives ...
testcross: the mating of an organism whose genetic constitution is unknown with an organism whose entire genetic makeup for a trait is known, to determine which genes are carried by the former. In a breed of dog, for example, in which ...
testegiatta: in calligraphy, the headed ascenders or plumelike terminals to b, d, h, and l, in particular, which became an ornamental feature of the 16th-century italic bastarda script. Vespasiano Amphiareo published at Venice, in 1554, models that combined an overdisciplined cancellaresca ...
tester: canopy, usually of carved or cloth-draped wood, over a bed, tomb, pulpit, or throne. It dates from the 14th century and is usually made of the same material as the object it covers. It can be supported either by four ...
testicular cancer: disease characterized by uncontrolled growth of cells within the testis, the reproductive organ that produces sperm. Although testicular cancer represents only 1 percent of all cancers, it is the most common malignancy for men between the ages of 20 and ...
testis: in animals, the organ that produces sperm (q.v.), the male reproductive cell. In humans the testis is either of the paired, oval-shaped organs that produce sperm and the male hormones, the androgens. They are contained within the scrotal sac, which ...
testosterone: an organic compound belonging to the steroid family and occurring as the androgenic, or masculinizing, hormone produced by the testis. Testosterone is responsible for development of the male sex organs and such masculine characteristics as facial hair and deepening of ...
Testudinidae: family of terrestrial turtles, or tortoises (order Chelonia). The group is closely related to turtles in the family Emydidae. The approximately 40 species are characterized by heavy domed shells, elephantine limbs, and slow-moving, herbivorous habits. The family is widespread in ...
tetanus: acute infectious disease of humans and other animals, caused by toxins produced by the bacillus Clostridium tetani and characterized by rigidity and spasms of the voluntary muscles. The almost constant involvement of the jaw muscles accounts for ...
tetany: a type of cramp that is a symptom of metabolic imbalance. The muscles of the hands and feet cramp rhythmically, and there may be spasms of the larynx with difficulty in breathing, nausea, vomiting, convulsions, and considerable pain. Tetany may ...
Tete: port city, west-central Mozambique. Tete is situated on the right bank of the Zambezi River near the rich coal mines of Moatize. Under Portuguese influence Tete had become a market centre for ivory and gold by the mid-17th century. Given ...
Tetens, Johannes Nikolaus: German psychologist, mathematician, economist, educator, and empiricist philosopher who strongly influenced the work of Immanuel Kant.
Tethys: major regular moon of Saturn, remarkable for a fissure that wraps around the greater part of its circumference. It was discovered in 1684 by the Italian-born French astronomer Gian Domenico Cassini and named for a Titan in Greek mythology.
Tethys: former equatorial ocean that is believed to have separated the former supercontinent of Laurasia in the north from Gondwana, or Gondwanaland, in the south during much of the Mesozoic Era (245 to 66.4 million years ago). Laurasia consisted of North ...
Tetley, Glen: American dancer, choreographer, and ballet director whose performances and compositions integrated elements of modern dance and classical ballet.
Tetmajer, Kazimierz: poet and short-story writer who was a member of the Young Poland movement.
Teton Range: segment of the Middle Rocky Mountains in the western United States, extending southward for 40 miles (64 km) across northwestern Wyoming, from the southern boundary of Yellowstone National Park to Teton Pass, just west of Jackson. Some foothills reach into ...
Teton River: river in Teton county, north-central Montana, U.S. The Teton rises northeast of the Sun River on the east slopes of the Continental Divide and is joined from the south by Deep Creek and from the north by Muddy Creek. It ...