Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Texas Woman's University ... Thanet, Isle of

Texas Woman's University: public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Denton, Texas, U.S. It focuses on liberal arts and professional studies. Texas Woman's University is divided into the University General Divisions, the Institute of Health Sciences, and the Graduate School. The University General ...
Texas, University of: state university system based in Austin, Texas, U.S. Branch campuses are located in Arlington (founded 1895), El Paso (1913), Edinburg (Pan American branch; 1927), Richardson (Dallas branch; 1961), Odessa (Permian Basin branch; 1969), San Antonio (1969), Tyler (1971), and Brownsville ...
Texcoco: city built in the present-day Valley of Mexico by the Acolhuas, a pre-Columbian people of the Nahuatl-speaking group of tribes, which gained mastery of the valley after the collapse of the Toltec hegemony in the mid-12th century AD. The rulers ...
Texcoco, Lake: lake in central Mexico. Originally one of the five lakes contained in Anahuac, or the Valley of Mexico, Texcoco has been drained via channels and a tunnel to the Panuco River since the early 17th century, until it now occupies ...
textile: any filament, fibre, or yarn that can be made into fabric or cloth, and the resulting material itself.
Textron Inc.: American multi-industry company that pioneered the conglomerate concept. Its present-day core organization includes aircraft, automotive, and industrial manufacturing segments. The firm was established in 1923 as a textile maker and acquired its present name in 1956. Headquarters are in Providence, ...
textual criticism: the technique of restoring texts as nearly as possible to their original form. Texts in this connection are defined as writings other than formal documents, inscribed or printed on paper, parchment, papyrus, or similar materials. The study of formal documents ...
texture: the concrete, physical elements of prose or poetry that are separate from the structure or argument of the work. Such elements include metaphor, imagery, metre, and rhyme. The distinction between structure and texture is associated particularly with the New Critics, ...
Tey, Josephine: Scottish playwright and author of popular detective novels praised for their warm and readable style.
Teyateyaneng: village, northwestern Lesotho, 19 miles (31 km) northeast of Maseru, on the country's main north-south road. Named after the Teja-Tejane ("Quicksands") River that flows south of the village, Teyateyaneng is often abbreviated as TY. The village is on a hilltop, ...
Teyte, Dame Maggie: English soprano, a well-known opera, concert, and recording artist who was considered one of the 20th century's foremost interpreters of French song.
Tezcatlipoca: (Nahuatl: "Smoking Mirror"), god of the Great Bear constellation and of the night sky, one of the major deities of the Aztec pantheon. Tezcatlipoca's cult was brought to central Mexico by the Toltecs, Nahua-speaking warriors from the north, about the ...
Tezpur: city, north-central Assam state, northeastern India. Situated along the Brahmaputra River, it is a trade centre for tea, rice, and other crops grown in the surrounding agricultural area. There is also some tea processing. The city is served by a ...
Tha River: river in northwestern Laos, one of the 12 principal tributaries of the Mekong River. The Tha River rises on the Chinese frontier and flows generally southwestward in deep, narrow valleys for about 134 miles (215 km) to join the Mekong ...
Thaba Bosiu: site and sandstone plateau (elevation 5,919 feet [1,804 m]) in the foothills of the southern African state of Lesotho. It is located about 15 miles (24 km) east of Maseru, capital of Lesotho. Forming a natural fortress nearly 400 feet ...
Thabana Ntlenyana: mountain peak (11,425 feet [3,482 m]) in the Drakensberg and the highest in Africa south of Mount Kilimanjaro. The peak lies in Lesotho, an independent country entirely within South Africa, just west of the border with the province of KwaZulu/Natal. ...
Thabazimbi: iron ore mine and town, Northern province, South Africa, near the Botswana border. The name means "mountain of iron." Thabazimbi is situated in remote, semiarid country, and its superior-grade hematite was first discovered in 1919 and mined in 1931. Owned ...
Thabit ibn Qurra: Arab mathematician, astronomer, physician, and philosopher, a representative of the flourishing Arab-Islamic culture of the 9th century.
Thackeray, William Makepeace: English novelist whose reputation rests chiefly on Vanity Fair (1847-48), a novel of the Napoleonic period in England, and The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. (1852), set in the early 18th century.
Thai Binh: town, northern Vietnam. Thai Binh is a market centre on the Tra Ly River and is connected by road with Hanoi, 53 miles (85 km) northwest. The surrounding region is a densely populated and intensely cultivated low delta. It is ...
Thai language: the standard spoken and literary language of Thailand, belonging to the Tai language family of Southeast Asia. It is based largely on the dialect of Bangkok and its environs in the central region of the country but retains certain consonant ...
Thai literature: body of writings of the Thai (Siamese) people, historically fostered by the kings, who themselves often produced outstanding literary works.
Thai Nguyen: city, north-central Vietnam. The city is located on the right bank of the Cau River, which flows southeastward into the Gulf of Tonkin, and is connected with Haiphong by river steamers and with Hanoi by road. The population includes a ...
Thailand: country located in the centre of mainland Southeast Asia. Its area of 198,115 square miles (513,115 square kilometres) consists of two broad geographic areas: a larger section in the north and a smaller peninsular section in the south. The main ...
Thailand, Gulf of: inlet of the South China Sea bordering Thailand (southwest through north), Cambodia, and southern Vietnam (northeast). The Gulf of Thailand is 300 to 350 miles (500 to 560 km) wide and 450 miles (725 km) long. The Chao Phraya and ...
Thais: Athenian courtesan who traveled with the army of Alexander the Great in its invasion of Persia. She is chiefly known from the story that represents her as having persuaded Alexander to set fire to the Achaemenian capital of Persepolis in ...
Thal: central section of the Sindh Sagar Doab (tract), Punjab province, Pakistan, lying between the Indus and the Jhelum and Chenab rivers. Formerly desert, it is now irrigated by canals from the Jinnah Barrage (Kalabagh Barrage) on the Indus. The Thal ...
thalamus: either of a pair of large, ovoid organs that form most of the lateral walls of the third ventricle of the brain. The thalamus translates neural impulses from various receptors to the cerebral cortex, where they are experienced as the ...
thalassemia: group of blood disorders characterized by a deficiency of hemoglobin, the blood protein that transports oxygen to the tissues. Thalassemia is caused by genetically determined abnormalities in the synthesis of one or more of the polypeptide chains that make up ...
Thalberg, Irving: American film executive called the "boy wonder of Hollywood" who, as the production manager of MGM, was largely responsible for that studio's prestigious reputation.
Thalberg, Sigismond: the leading rival of Franz Liszt as a virtuoso pianist.
Thales of Miletus: philosopher renowned as one of the legendary Seven Wise Men, or Sophoi, of antiquity (see philosophy, Western: The pre-Socratic philosophers). He is remembered primarily for his cosmology based on water as the essence of all matter, with the Earth a ...
Thalia: in Greek religion, one of the nine Muses, patron of comedy; also, according to the Greek poet Hesiod, a Grace (one of a group of goddesses of fertility). She is the mother of the Corybantes, celebrants of the Great Mother ...
thalidomide: compound in medicine initially used as a sedative and an antiemetic until the discovery that it caused severe fetal malformations. Thalidomide was developed in West Germany in the mid-1950s and was found to induce drowsiness and sleep. The drug appeared ...
thallium: (Tl), chemical element, metal of main Group IIIa, or boron group, of the periodic table, poisonous, chiefly univalent, and of limited commercial value. Like lead, thallium is a soft, low-melting element of low tensile strength. Freshly cut thallium has a ...
thallus: plant body of algae, fungi, and other lower organisms formerly assigned to the obsolete group Thallophyta. A thallus is composed of filaments or plates of cells and ranges in size from a unicellular structure to a complex treelike form. It ...
Thalmann, Ernst: German Communist leader and twice presidential candidate during the Weimar Republic (1919-33), who was chiefly responsible for molding the German Communist Party (KPD; Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands), the most powerful communist party outside the Soviet Union.
Thames River: river in southern Ontario, Canada. The Thames is 160 miles (260 km) long. It rises north-northwest of Woodstock, in the uplands between Lakes Huron and Erie, and flows southwest past the towns of Woodstock, London, and Chatham to Lake Saint ...
Thames Sword: weapon inlaid with brass and silver wire and inscribed with runes, discovered in 1857 near London in the bed of the River Thames. Probably carved in the 8th or 9th century, the inscription contains one of the two earliest examples ...
Thames Tunnel: tunnel designed by Marc Isambard Brunel and built under the River Thames in London. Drilled from Rotherhithe (in the borough of Southwark) to Wapping (now in Tower Hamlets), it was the first subaqueous tunnel in the world and was for ...
Thames, Battle of the: (Oct. 5, 1813), in the War of 1812, decisive U.S. victory over British and Indian forces in Ontario, Canada, enabling the United States to consolidate its control over the Northwest.
Thames, River: chief river of southern England. Rising in the Cotswold Hills, its basin covers an area of approximately 5,500 square miles (14,250 square km). The traditional source at Thames Head, which is dry for much of the year, is marked by ...
Thamud: in ancient Arabia, tribe or group of tribes that seem to have been prominent from about the 4th century BC to the first half of the 7th century AD. Although the Thamud probably originated in southern Arabia, a large group ...
Thamugadi: ancient Roman city, the site of which, at present-day Timgad, on the high plateau north of the Aures Mountains in northeastern Algeria, offers the most extensive and best-preserved Roman remains in North Africa. Thamugadi, founded by the emperor Trajan in ...
Thamyris: in Greek mythology, a Thracian poet who loved the beautiful youth Hyacinthus (q.v.). Thamyris' attentions, however, were rivaled by those of the god Apollo, who jealously reported to the Muses the boast by Thamyris that he could surpass them in ...
Than Tun, Thakin: Burmese politician, leader of the Communist Party of Burma from 1945 until his death.
Thana: town, Maharashtra state, western India, at the mouth of the Thana River and head of the Ulhas Estuary, northeast of Bombay. The town is primarily a residential suburb of Bombay, though it has a large industrial complex, including an industrial ...
thanatology: the description or study of death and dying and the psychological mechanisms of dealing with them. Thanatology is concerned with the notion of death as popularly perceived and especially with the reactions of the dying, from whom it is felt ...
thane: in English history before the Norman Conquest (1066), a free retainer or lord, corresponding in its various grades to the post-Conquest baron and knight. The word is extant only once in the laws before the time of King Aethelstan (d. ...
Thanet: district, administrative and historic county of Kent, England, in the extreme northeast of the county. It roughly coincides with the historic Isle of Thanet, but the modern administrative district extends south of the Great Stour River almost to Sandwich. The ...
Thanet, Isle of: island in the northeastern corner of the administrative and historic county of Kent, England, bounded by the Thames Estuary and two branches of the Great Stour River. It is 42 square miles (109 square km) in area and is composed ...