Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

0-9

Van, Lake ... Vanvitelli, Luigi

Van, Lake: lake, largest body of water in Turkey and the second largest in the Middle East. The lake is located in the region of eastern Anatolia near the border of Iran. It covers an area of 1,434 square miles (3,713 square ...
vanadate mineral: any of the many naturally occurring compounds of vanadium (V), oxygen (O), and various metals; most of these minerals are rare, having crystallized under very restricted conditions. Although vanadinite occasionally is mined as a ...
vanadic anhydride: vanadium pentoxide, a compound of vanadium and oxygen widely used as an oxidation catalyst, as in the oxidation of unburned hydrocarbons in automobile exhaust (see vanadium).
vanadinite: vanadium mineral in the pyromorphite series of the apatite group of phosphates, lead chloride vanadate, Pb₅(VO₄)₃Cl. It is a source of vanadium and a minor source of lead. The mineral's typical occurrences are as orange, red, or brown hairlike or ...
vanadium: (V), chemical element, silvery-white soft metal of Group Vb of the periodic table. It is alloyed with steel and iron for high-speed tool steel, high-strength low-alloy steel, and wear-resistant cast iron.
vanadium processing: preparation of the metal for use in various products.
Vanadzor: city, northern Armenia. It lies at the confluence of the Pambak, Tandzut, and Vanadzoriget rivers. In 1826 the villages of Bolshoy and Maly Karaklis were merged into the town of Karaklis. Construction of the Tiflis-Karaklis-Alexandropol railway at the end of ...
Vanbrugh, Sir John: British architect who brought the English Baroque style to its culmination in Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire. He was also one of the dramatists of the Restoration comedy of manners.
Vance, Cyrus: American lawyer and public official who was secretary of state from 1977 to 1980 during the administration of President Jimmy Carter.
Vance, Zebulon B.: North Carolina representative, governor, and senator during the American Civil War and Reconstruction eras.
Vancouver: city, southwestern British Columbia, Canada. It is the major urban centre of western Canada and the focus of one of the country's most populous metropolitan regions.
Vancouver: city, seat (1854) of Clark county, southwestern Washington, U.S. It lies at the head of deepwater navigation on the Columbia River, there bridged to Portland, Oregon. The oldest continuously inhabited white settlement in the state, it was founded in 1824 ...
Vancouver Aquarium: aquarium located in Stanley Park, Vancouver, B.C., Can., that has the largest collection of fishes and marine invertebrates in Canada. The collection includes nearly 3,000 specimens of about 300 fish species and more than 3,500 representatives of approximately 150 different ...
Vancouver Island: island lying off of southwestern British Columbia, Canada, that is the largest island (area 12,079 square miles [31,285 square km]) on the Pacific coast of North America. It is separated from mainland Canada by the straits of Georgia, Johnstone, and ...
Vancouver, George: English navigator who, with great precision, completed one of the most difficult surveys ever undertaken, that of the Pacific coast of North America, from the vicinity of San Francisco northward to present-day British Columbia. At that time he verified that ...
Vanda: genus of colourful orchids, family Orchidaceae, with about 70 species distributed from East Asia to Australia. Most species have long, sturdy stems that bear closely spaced, strap-shaped leaves. Many hybrids have been developed by crossing species within the genus and ...
Vandal: member of a Germanic people who maintained a kingdom in North Africa from AD 429 to 534 and who sacked Rome in 455. Their name has remained a synonym for willful desecration or destruction.
Vandalia: city, seat (1821) of Fayette county, south-central Illinois, U.S. Vandalia lies on the Kaskaskia River, about 70 miles (115 km) southeast of Springfield. Its name is of unknown origin but is thought to be derived from either a Vandal tribe, ...
Vandamme, Dominique-Rene, Count d'Unebourg: French general in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.
Vandegrift, Alexander A.: U.S. Marine Corps officer who led the first large-scale U.S. offensive against the Japanese, on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, during World War II.
Vandenberg, Arthur H.: U.S. Republican senator who was largely responsible for bipartisan congressional support of international cooperation and of President Harry S. Truman's anticommunist foreign policy after World War II.
Vanderbijlpark: town, Gauteng province, South Africa, on the Vaal River, southwest of Johannesburg. It was founded in 1942 after it was determined that the South African Iron and Steel Industrial Corporation steelworks at Pretoria could no longer be expanded. Officially declared ...
Vanderbilt Family: one of the wealthiest and most prominent families in the United States. The third generation of Vanderbilts-following Cornelius and William Henry Vanderbilt (qq.v.)-was led by three of William Henry's four sons: Cornelius (1843-99), William Kissam (1849-1920), and George Washington (1862-1914). ...
Vanderbilt University: private, coeducational institution of higher education in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. Baccalaureate degrees are awarded through the College of Arts and Science, School of Engineering, Peabody College (education and human development), and Blair School of Music. About 40 master's, 40 doctoral, ...
Vanderbilt, Amy: American journalist and author, an acknowledged authority on manners, mores, and etiquette.
Vanderbilt, Cornelius: American shipping and railroad magnate who acquired a personal fortune of more than $100,000,000.
Vanderbilt, William Henry: American railroad magnate and philanthropist who nearly doubled the Vanderbilt family fortune established and in large part bequeathed to him by his father, Cornelius.
Vanderlyn, John: U.S. painter and one of the first American artists to study in Paris. He was largely responsible for introducing the Neoclassical style to the United States.
Vandervelde, Emile: Belgian statesman and a prominent figure in European Socialism who served in Belgian coalition governments from 1914 to 1937 and was influential in the peace negotiations following World War I.
VanDerZee, James: American photographer, whose portraits chronicled the Harlem Renaissance.
Vandross, Luther: American soul and pop singer, songwriter, and producer whose widespread popularity and reputation as a consummate stylist began in the early 1980s.
Vane, Sir Henry, The Elder: English statesman, a prominent royal adviser who played an equivocal role in the events leading to the outbreak of the Civil War between King Charles I and Parliament.
Vane, Sir Henry, the Younger: English Puritan, one of the most capable administrators in Parliament during the Civil Wars between the Parliamentarians and Royalists.
Vane, Sir John Robert: English biochemist who, with Sune K. Bergstrom and Bengt Ingemar Samuelsson, won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1982 for the isolation, identification, and analysis of prostaglandins, which are biochemical compounds that influence blood pressure, body temperature, allergic ...
Vane, Sutton: English playwright, remembered for his unusual and highly successful play Outward Bound (1923), about a group of passengers who find themselves making an ocean voyage on a ship that seems to have no crew. Slowly they realize that they are ...
Vanern: largest lake in Sweden, 2,156 square miles (5,585 square km) in area, in the southwestern part of the country. The lake is about 90 miles (145 km) long and as much as 322 feet (98 m) deep, and its surface ...
vanga-shrike: any of the 12 species of Madagascan birds constituting the bird family Vangidae (order Passeriformes). The coral-billed nuthatch is sometimes included. They are 13 to 30 cm (5 to 12 inches) long, with wings and tails of moderate length. The ...
Vanguard: any of a series of unmanned U.S. experimental test satellites. Vanguard I, launched March 1, 1958, consisted of a tiny 3.25-pound (1.47-kilogram) sphere equipped with two radio transmitters. It was the second artificial satellite placed in orbit around the Earth ...
Vanguardia Espanola, La: (Spanish: "The Spanish Vanguard"), morning daily newspaper published in Barcelona, one of the largest and most influential newspapers in Spain. It was established in 1881 by Carlos Godo, in whose family it remained, as a political organ favouring the policies ...
vanilla: (genus Vanilla), any member of a group of tropical climbing orchids, from the pods of which a widely used flavouring agent is extracted. Vanilla had been used to flavour xocoatl, the chocolate beverage of the Aztecs, centuries before the Spanish ...
Vanimo: minor port, northwestern Papua New Guinea. Located on a peninsula surrounded by a white sand beach fronting the Pacific Ocean, Vanimo is about 20 miles (30 km) east of the border with Irian Jaya province, Indonesia. Lying on a well-drained ...
Vanir: in Norse mythology, race of gods responsible for wealth, fertility, and commerce and subordinate to the warlike Aesir. As reparation for the torture of their goddess Gullveig, the Vanir demanded from the Aesir monetary satisfaction or equal status. Declaring war ...
vanitas: in art, a genre of still-life painting that flourished in the Netherlands in the early 17th century. A vanitas painting contains collections of objects symbolic of the inevitability of death and the transience and vanity of earthly ...
Vannes: town, capital of Morbihan departement, Bretagne region, western France. It is situated at the confluence of two streams forming the Vanne River, which opens into the virtually landlocked Gulf of Morbihan about 1 mile (1.5 km) below ...
Vanoise National Park: nature reserve, located in the departement of Savoie, southeastern France, and contiguous with the Gran Paradiso National Park in Italy. The park, created in 1963, is the oldest French national park and occupies 130,565 ac (52,839 ha). The park is ...
Vansittart, Robert Gilbert Vansittart, Baron: British diplomat, author, and extreme Germanophobe.
Vantaa: city in Uudenmaan laani (Uusima province), southern Finland, just north of Helsinki. Located in the estuary of the Vantaa River, it was incorporated as a city in 1972. Notable landmarks are the church of St. Lauri (1492), the parish of ...
Vanua Lava: volcanic island in the Banks Islands of Vanuatu, southwestern Pacific Ocean, 75 mi (120 km) north-northeast of Espiritu Santo. The island, 15 mi long by 12 mi wide, was first explored in 1859 by Bishop George Selwyn, who located a ...
Vanua Levu: second largest island (2,137 sq mi [5,535 sq km]) of Fiji, bordering the Koro Sea in the South Pacific, 40 mi (64 km) northeast of the island of Viti Levu. Sighted by the Dutch navigator Abel Tasman in 1643, the ...
Vanuatu: country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of a chain of 13 principal and many smaller islands located 500 miles (800 kilometres) west of Fiji and 1,100 miles east of Australia. The islands extend from north to south for ...
Vanvitelli, Luigi: Italian architect whose enormous Royal Palace at Caserta (1752-74) was one of the last triumphs of the Italian Baroque.