Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

0-9

Yelets ... Yesenin, Sergey Aleksandrovich

Yelets: city, Lipetsk oblast (province), western Russia, on the Sosna River. First mentioned in 1146 and the seat of a minor princedom in the 13th century, Yelets long served as a southern frontier fortress. It was captured by Timur in 1395 ...
yellow birch: (Betula alleghaniensis, or B. lutea), ornamental and timber tree of the family Betulaceae, native to the northeastern part of North America.
Yellow Book, The: short-lived but influential illustrated quarterly magazine devoted to aesthetics, literature, and art. It was published in London from 1894 to 1897.
yellow fever: acute infectious disease, one of the great epidemic diseases of the tropical world, though it sometimes has occurred in temperate zones as well. The disease, caused by a flavivirus, infects humans, all species of monkeys, and certain other small mammals. ...
yellow journalism: the use of lurid features and sensationalized news in newspaper publishing to attract readers and increase circulation. The phrase was coined in the 1890s to describe the tactics employed in furious competition between two New York City newspapers, the
yellow scales: (Xanthoria parietina), lichen species characterized by lobed margins and a wrinkled centre. It is usually found where the air is filled with mineral salts, especially near the sea and on rocks and walls. It was once considered a valuable medication ...
Yellow Sea: large inlet of the western Pacific Ocean lying between the Chinese mainland on the west and north and the Korean Peninsula on the east. It is situated to the north of the East China Sea, which it bounds on a ...
Yellow Springs: village, Greene county, southwestern Ohio, U.S. It lies 23 miles (37 km) east-northeast of Dayton. Founded in 1804, it was named for a local mineral spring, which later (1820-80) was the site of a health resort. The village's manufactures include ...
Yellow Turbans: Chinese secret society whose members' uprising, the Yellow Turban Rebellion (AD 184-c. 204), contributed to the fall of the Han dynasty (AD 220). Led by Chang Chueh, a Taoist faith healer who gained numerous adherents during a widespread pestilence, the ...
yellow-dog contract: agreement between an employer and an employee in which the employee agrees, as a condition of employment, not to join a union during the course of his employment. Such contracts, used most widely in the United States in the 1920s, ...
yellow-green algae: members of the division Xanthophyta (about 6,000 species), once classified with the green algae on the basis of similarity of body organization. The Xanthophyta are distinguished by their food reserve (oil), the quantity of beta-carotene in their plastids, and motile ...
yellowhammer: (Emberiza citrinella), Eurasian bird belonging to the family Emberizidae (order Passeriformes). The name is derived from the German Ammer, "bunting." It is a 16-centimetre- (6-inch-) long streaked brown bird with yellow-tinged head and breast. Its rapid song is heard in ...
Yellowhead Pass: route through the Rocky Mountains, at the Alberta-British Columbia border, Canada, just west of Jasper and leading from Jasper National Park into Mount Robson Provincial Park. It lies at 3,711 feet (1,131 m) above sea level. The pass was noted ...
Yellowknife: city and capital (since 1967) of Northwest Territories, Canada. It lies on the north shore of Great Slave Lake, 5 miles (8 km) south of the mouth of the Yellowknife River.
Yellowknife: a small Athabascan-speaking Indian tribe of Canada who lived northeast of the Great Bear and Great Slave lakes in what is now the Northwest Territories. The name Yellowknife derives from their use of yellow copper in making knives and other ...
yellowlegs: either of two species of American shorebirds with trim, gray-brown and white streaked bodies, long bills, and long, bright yellow legs. They belong to the genus Tringa of the family Scolopacidae; this family also includes the curlews, turnstones, sandpipers, and ...
Yellowstone Lake: lake in Yellowstone National Park, northwestern Wyoming, U.S. It lies at an elevation of 7,731 feet (2,356 metres) above sea level and is the largest body of water in North America, and the second largest in the world, at so ...
Yellowstone National Park: the oldest, one of the largest, and probably the best-known national park in the United States. It is situated in northwestern Wyoming and partly in southern Montana and eastern Idaho and includes the greatest concentration of geothermal features in the ...
Yellowstone River: river, noted for its scenic beauty, in the western United States. It rises on the slopes of Yount Peak in Wyoming and enters Yellowstone National Park. It feeds into Yellowstone Lake, below which it plunges 422 feet (129 metres) in ...
yellowwood: any of about 100 species of coniferous evergreen timber trees and shrubs constituting the genus Podocarpus (family Podocarpaceae) and widely distributed in mountain forests of the Southern Hemisphere. Most have yellowish wood, occasionally brownish or reddish; they are often known ...
Yeltsin, Boris: Russian politician, who became president of Russia in 1990. In 1991 he became the first popularly elected leader in the country's history, guiding Russia through a stormy decade of political and economic retrenching until his resignation on the eve of ...
Yelwa: town, seat of the traditional Yauri emirate, Kebbi state, northwestern Nigeria. It lies on the road between Kontagora and Birnin Kebbi. An early Niger River settlement of the Reshe (Gungawa) people, it was ruled by the kings of Yauri from ...
Yemen: country situated at the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula.
Yemmiganur: city, western Andhra Pradesh state, southern India. It lies west of the city of Kurnool. Yemmiganur was included in the Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar, which flourished during medieval times (14th-16th century). Later, the city came under Muslim rule. Yemmiganur's chief ...
yen: monetary unit of Japan. The yen was divided into 100 sen and into 1,000 rin until 1954, when these tiny denominations were removed from circulation. Despite having suffered enormous devastation during World War II, Japan enjoyed an economic miracle in ...
Yen Fu: Chinese scholar who translated into Chinese works by T.H. Huxley, J.S. Mill, Herbert Spencer, Adam Smith, and others in an attempt to show that the secret to Western wealth and power did not lie in Western technological advances, such as ...
Yen Jo-chu: great Chinese scholar from the early period of the Ch'ing dynasty (1644-1911/12) who proved that 25 chapters of the Shu Ching (q.v.), or Shang shu, one of the Five Classics of Confucianism, upon which the government modeled itself for more ...
Yen Yuan: Chinese founder of a pragmatic empirical school of Confucianism opposed to the speculative Neo-Confucian philosophy that had dominated China since the 11th century.
Yen-an: town in northeastern Shensi sheng (province), China. It became famous as the wartime stronghold of the Chinese communists from the mid-1930s to 1949. The area around the town is a heavily dissected plateau of loess (windblown soil) ...
Yen-ch'eng: city in the eastern coastal district of northern Kiangsu sheng (province), China.
Yen-chi: city, eastern Kirin sheng (province), China. It is a county-level shih (municipality) and the administrative seat of Yen-pien-ch'ao-hsien-tsu (Yen-pien Korean) autonomous chou (prefecture), which covers a mountainous area on the North Korean-Chinese border, more than half of whose inhabitants are ...
Yen-t'ai: port city on the northern coast of Shantung sheng (province), China.
Yenagoa: town, Rivers state, southern Nigeria, in the Niger Delta. Situated in an area of swamps and mangrove and tropical rain forests, it is a traditional home of the Ijo people, a fishing group who, following contact with European traders, became ...
Yenakiyeve: city, Donetsk oblast (province), eastern Ukraine. It lies along the Krynka River. A pig-iron concern began there in 1858 but lasted only eight years; not until the first coal mines opened in the locality in 1883 did industrialization begin. A ...
Yenangyaung: town, west-central Myanmar (Burma), on the Irrawaddy River, 135 miles (217 km) southwest of Mandalay. It is the centre of oil fields that were long the most productive in Myanmar. Pop. (1983) 62,582.
Yengema: town, east-central Sierra Leone. The headquarters of a diamond-mining area inhabited mainly by the Kono and Mandingo peoples, the town has diamond-washing plants, a hospital, and several schools. Pop. (1985 prelim.) 12,938.
Yeniseian languages: small group of languages grouped with Yukaghir, Nivkh, and the Luorawetlan languages as Paleo-Siberian languages. The Yeniseian group contains at least four languages-Ket, Kott, Arin (Arrin), and Assan-but only Ket is a living language. See also Paleo-Siberian languages.
Yenisey River: river of central Russia, one of the longest rivers in Asia. The world's sixth largest river in terms of discharge, the Yenisey runs from south to north across the great expanse of central Siberia. It traverses a vast region of ...
yeoman: in English history, a class intermediate between the gentry and the labourers; a yeoman was usually a landholder but could also be a retainer, guard, attendant, or subordinate official. The word appears in Middle English as yemen, or yoman, and ...
Yeomen of the Guard: the personal bodyguard of the sovereign of England, in continuous existence since they were established by King Henry VII in 1485. They should not be confused with the yeomen warders of the Tower of London, often called "Beefeaters," who, like ...
Yeppoon: coastal town, east-central Queensland, eastern Australia. It lies 26 miles (42 km) northeast of Rockhampton and 435 miles (700 km) north of the state capital, Brisbane. Surveyed in 1872, the town was at first known as Bald Hill. European settlement ...
Yerby, Frank: American author of popular historical fiction.
Yerevan: capital of Armenia. It is situated on the Hrazdan River, 14 miles (23 km) from the Turkish frontier. Though first historically recorded in AD 607, Yerevan dates by archaeological evidence to a settlement on the site in the 6th-3rd millennium ...
Yerkes, Charles Tyson: American financier who put together the syndicate of companies that built Chicago's mass-transit system.
Yerkes, Robert M.: American psychologist and a principal developer of comparative (animal) psychology in the United States.
Yermak Timofeyevich: Cossack leader of an expeditionary force during the initial Russian attempts to annex western Siberia, who became a hero of Russian folklore.
Yermolova, Maria Nikolayevna: Russian dramatic actress whose 50-year career was devoted to imbuing her portrayals of stage heroines with a liberal spirit of active independence.
Yersin, Alexandre: Swiss-born French bacteriologist and one of the discoverers of the bubonic plague bacillus, Pasteurella pestis, now called Yersinia pestis.
yersiniosis: acute gastrointestinal infection caused by the bacterium Yersinia enterocolitica, characterized by fever, often-bloody diarrhea, and abdominal pain. A temporary rash called erythema nodosum also may appear on the skin, and the disease can lead to a temporary ...
Yes: British progressive rock band known for its extended compositions and virtuoso musicianship. Its principal members were Jon Anderson (b. Oct. 25, 1944, Accrington, Lancashire, Eng., ), Chris Squire (b. March 4, 1948, London, Eng., ), Steve Howe (b. April 8, ...
Yesenin, Sergey Aleksandrovich: the self-styled "last poet of wooden Russia," whose dual image-that of a devout and simple peasant singer and that of a rowdy and blasphemous exhibitionist-reflects his tragic maladjustment to the changing world of the revolutionary era.