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84ab2c1bff7fb5b7e4c5d9e59b66e4cf | https://www.britannica.com/topic/latitudinarian | Latitudinarian | Latitudinarian
Latitudinarian, any of the 17th-century Anglican clerics whose beliefs and practices were viewed by conservatives as unorthodox or, at best, heterodox. After first being applied to the Cambridge Platonists, the term was later used to categorize churchmen who depended upon reason to establish the moral certainty of Christian doctrines rather than argument from tradition. Limiting that doctrine to what had to be accepted, they allowed for latitude on other teachings. The Latitudinarians thus became the precursors of the similar Broad Church (q.v.) movement in the 19th-century Church of England.
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94967894d2358437103f761dc7118685 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Latium-maius | Latium maius | Latium maius
…pattern, the language, and the law of Latins. Their demand for Roman citizenship quickly became a political issue in Rome and was granted in 49 by Julius Caesar and Augustus to many native communities in the western provinces, and the process went on until Vespasian gave it to all the…
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d9eb15e19910f89159266f91d9f47df7 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Latter-Day-Pamphlets | Latter-Day Pamphlets | Latter-Day Pamphlets
His next important work was Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), in which the savage side of his nature was particularly prominent. In the essay on model prisons, for instance, he tried to persuade the public that the most brutal and useless sections of the population were being coddled in the new prisons…
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c74687115cf46e97949e797736bb78b5 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Laudes-creaturarum-o-Cantico-del-Sole | Laudes creaturarum o Cantico del Sole | Laudes creaturarum o Cantico del Sole
…work that has been called Laudes creaturarum o Cantico del Sole (“Praises of God’s Creatures or the Canticle of the Sun”). Another outstanding early master of the lauda was the gifted 13th-century Franciscan poet Jacopone da Todi, who wrote many highly emotional and mystical laudi spirituali (“spiritual canticles”) in the…
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a2b263251f2fa3e48be3db7ca4980d1e | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Laudi-del-cielo-del-mare-della-terra-e-degli-eroi | Laudi del cielo del mare della terra e degli eroi | Laudi del cielo del mare della terra e degli eroi
…work is the lyrical collection Laudi del cielo del mare della terra e degli eroi (1899; “In Praise of Sky, Sea, Earth, and Heroes”). The third book in this series, Alcyone (1904), a re-creation of the smells, tastes, sounds, and experiences of a Tuscan summer, is considered by many his…
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5bed3016b42dd23a186bff9764c23555 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Laudin-family | Laudin family | Laudin family
The Laudin family dominated the production of the ware in the 17th century and were the last major enamellers at Limoges. See also Limosin, Léonard; Pénicaud family.
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3cd464113682079510570d788a818a54 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Laughing-Bill-Hyde | Laughing Bill Hyde | Laughing Bill Hyde
…starred in his first film, Laughing Bill Hyde. Though Rogers would never admit to being anything but an amateur actor, critics appreciated his natural charm and appealingly plain face. For the next few years, he appeared in silent features for producer Sam Goldwyn, as well as several comedies he produced…
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482cd4ba64756037a1c2ade00366b200 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Laughing-Boy | Laughing Boy | Laughing Boy
His first novel, Laughing Boy (1929; film version 1934), is a poetic but realistic story of the clash of two cultures; it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1929. La Farge’s novels have been called lyrical, yet they are always based on social awareness. Sparks Fly…
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70b04ccfa2469e381b7c7aba4f474f98 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Laughing-in-the-Jungle | Laughing in the Jungle | Laughing in the Jungle
…the American melting pot in Laughing in the Jungle (1932). He returned to Yugoslavia on a Guggenheim Fellowship and wrote about the experience in The Native’s Return (1934), the story of a man who finds he cannot slip comfortably into his former life as a peasant. Two successful sequels, Grandsons…
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ea00ebb6d2fec979cc104868dc4afbf7 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Laughing-Stalks | Laughing Stalks | Laughing Stalks
…Sea (1956), love poems; and Laughing Stalks (1958), a social satire that includes parodies of Canadian poets and critics. Dudek’s poems reflect his power of observation of people, places, and objects. The influence of Ezra Pound is evident in Europe (1954; rev. ed. 1991), a travelogue poem in 99 cantos…
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e7e9a530b3050a862db5a6aa369cc8a9 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Laughing-Truths | Laughing Truths | Laughing Truths
…stimulating essays, Lachende Wahrheiten (1898; Laughing Truths), and biographical works of charm, including Meine frühesten Erlebnisse (1914; “My Earliest Experiences”). In 1914 he published a politically influential tract, “Unser Schweizer Standpunkt,” directed against a one-sided pro-German view of World War I. An English translation of his Selected Poems appeared in…
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332c441679aaf9217dc17e8abaae2ed0 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/laughter | Laughter | Laughter
…that tends to elicit the laughter reflex. Spontaneous laughter is a motor reflex produced by the coordinated contraction of 15 facial muscles in a stereotyped pattern and accompanied by altered breathing. Electrical stimulation of the main lifting muscle of the upper lip, the zygomatic major, with currents of varying intensity…
The analogy with laughter—which, in some views, is itself a species of aesthetic interest—introduces a concept without which there can be no serious discussion of the value of art: the concept of taste. If I am amused, it is for a reason, and this reason lies in the…
…of the corrective purpose of laughter; specifically, he felt, laughter is intended to bring the comic character back into conformity with his society, whose logic and conventions he abandons when “he slackens in the attention that is due to life.”
Although most vocal sounds other than words are usually considered prelinguistic language, the phenomenon of laughter as a form of communication is in a category by itself, with its closest relative being its apparent opposite, crying. Twentieth-century ethnologists, like Konrad Lorenz, attempted to associate…
The inborn automatic reflexes of laughing and yawning illustrate the resonator action of the vocal organ. Together with a widely opened mouth, flat tongue, elevated palate, and maximally widened pharynx, the larynx assumes a lowered position with maximally elevated epiglottis. This configuration is ideal for the unimpeded radiation of the…
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043f1a3e36d113e4f076ff332447ef2c | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Laughter-by-Bergson | Laughter | Laughter
…comedy in his essay “Laughter,” which deals directly with the spirit of contradiction that is basic both to comedy and to life. Bergson’s central concern is with the opposition of the mechanical and the living; stated in its most general terms, his thesis holds that the comic consists of…
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9d1b8eab9f8faa1476892ebb55f4e77e | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Laukika-era | Laukika era | Laukika era
…pole was the Saptarṣi, or Laukika, era (3076 bc), formerly used in Kashmir and the Punjab. The alleged movement of this constellation has been used in Purāṇa compilations and even by astronomers for indicating the centuries.
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d5aa4af018fbab25221a5265df8132bf | https://www.britannica.com/topic/lauma | Lauma | Lauma
Lauma, (Latvian), Lithuanian Laumė or Deivė, in Baltic folklore, a fairy who appears as a beautiful naked maiden with long fair hair. Laumas dwell in the forest near water or stones. Yearning for children but being unable to give birth, they often kidnap babies to raise as their own. Sometimes they marry young men and become excellent wives, perfectly skilled in all domestic work. They are noted as swift spinners and weavers; when they spin on Thursday evenings and launder after sunset on the other days, no mortal woman is allowed to do the same.
Laumas are very temperamental. They are benevolent motherly beings, helpful to orphans and poor girls, but are extremely vindictive when angered, particularly by disrespectful men.
Among the Lithuanians, a laumė was sometimes called laumė-ragana, indicating that she may have been a prophetess (ragana) at one time. By the 18th century laumė was totally confused with ragana and came to denote a witch or hag capable of changing into a snake or toad. Not only could a laumė fly, she could also transform people into birds, dogs, and horses and dry up a cow’s milk.
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95cb31f9223359e0a1b34ab64792c1ab | https://www.britannica.com/topic/launch-on-warning | Launch on warning | Launch on warning
Launch on warning (LOW), military strategy that allows high-level commanders to launch a retaliatory nuclear-weapons strike against an opponent as soon as satellites and other warning sensors detect an incoming enemy missile. Though the United States had considered the possibility of adopting LOW since the 1950s, the strategy did not become part of the country’s Single Integrated Operational Plan until 1979. LOW was replaced in 1997 by a strategy that emphasized the confirmation of a nuclear detonation before launching a retaliatory strike.
Both the advantages and the disadvantages of the LOW strategy are quite serious. Should an enemy attempt to send nuclear missiles to destroy another nation’s missiles, the LOW strategy would allow the targeted nation to launch its nuclear missiles before the silos that hold them could be struck by incoming enemy missiles. The strategy, however, does not take into consideration the potential for false alarms, such as when a glitch in radar software or a human error in interpreting data causes high-level military commanders to believe that an enemy nuclear strike is imminent. Such false warnings might not be identified and fixed in time to prevent the launch of a retaliatory, yet unprovoked, nuclear strike.
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05bbe698349dc5cdfe4bc2332dd0a0da | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Laur-Olimpijski | Laur Olimpijski | Laur Olimpijski
…1927 a collection of poems, Laur Olimpijski (“Olympic Laurel”), for which he won a special gold medal at the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam. When World War II started he left Poland for Paris but in 1940 moved to Rio de Janeiro and later to Sag Harbor on Long Island,…
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8368240a4fcdb4e0f32f61fb7cac5f6c | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Laura-film-by-Preminger | Laura | Laura
Laura, American film noir, released in 1944, that is considered a classic of the genre. The movie, which was directed by Otto Preminger, is notable as both a suspenseful mystery and a compelling account of obsession.
Hard-boiled police detective Mark McPherson (played by Dana Andrews) is investigating the murder of a young woman who was shot in the face. The victim is believed to be a beautiful advertising executive named Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney). McPherson examines all aspects of Laura’s life, including the two men who knew her best, her mentor—the older, snobbish newspaper columnist Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb)—and her sophisticated fiancé, Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price). Through their stories, which are told in flashback, through Laura’s letters, and—most of all—through a haunting portrait of her, McPherson becomes romantically obsessed with the young woman. The supposedly dead Laura shockingly appears before him in her apartment, however, and McPherson discovers the true identity of the victim and solves the mystery—the jealous Lydecker had killed a woman he mistook for Laura. Determined to murder her a “second” time, Lydecker breaks into Laura’s apartment but is shot before he can kill her. He dies professing his love for her.
Though Laura was the brainchild of Preminger, who had secured rights to the 1943 novel by Vera Caspary, 20th Century Fox mogul Darryl F. Zanuck initially approved Rouben Mamoulian to direct the film and Preminger merely to produce it. Zanuck also envisioned Laura as a B-film designed for a quick release. But when trouble developed between the cast and the director, Mamoulian was fired, and his footage was scrapped and reshot by Preminger. Although Preminger delivered a fine film, Zanuck insisted on shooting an epilogue that made the story appear to be all a dream. When influential columnist Walter Winchell saw an early screening of Laura and was critical of the ending, Preminger’s original version was restored. The theme song, “Laura,” which was adapted from the score composed by David Raskin, with words by the Academy Award-winning lyricist Johnny Mercer, became a classic in its own right. In addition, cinematographer Joseph La Shelle won an Oscar for his work.
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e143045c759b15aaec070e49e53a6988 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Laurentian-Iroquois | Laurentian Iroquois | Laurentian Iroquois
Susquehannock, and Laurentian Iroquois. The Tuscarora, who also spoke an Iroquoian language, lived in the coastal hills of present-day North Carolina and Virginia.
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152ae78eb7afdd387d3b8df14ee61400 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lausiac-History | Lausiac History | Lausiac History
…monk, bishop, and chronicler whose Lausiac History, an account of early Egyptian and Middle Eastern Christian monasticism, provides the most valuable single source for the origins of Christian asceticism.
…5th-century historian Palladius in his Lausiac History. The Rule of Pachomius and other works by him can be found in Armand Veilleux (ed.), Pachomian Koinonia, 3 vol. (1980–82).
His Lausiac History (so called after Lausus, the court chamberlain to whom he dedicated it), composed about 419/420, describes the movement in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Asia Minor. Since much of the work is based on personal reminiscences or information received from observers, it is, despite…
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d60b389d8a2c4d8ff895e589b4124d80 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lava-Hindu-mythology | Lava | Lava
…their two children, Kusha and Lava. After they reached maturity and were acknowledged by Rama to be his sons, she called upon her mother, Earth, to swallow her up.
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669c368cc1414e2e6ab8763bae6884f5 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Laval-Mussolini-agreements | Laval-Mussolini agreements | Laval-Mussolini agreements
The Laval–Mussolini agreements of Jan. 7, 1935, declared France’s disinterest in the fate of Abyssinia in implicit exchange for Italian support of Austria. Mussolini took this to mean that he had French support for his plan to conquer that independent African country. Just six days later…
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6ad5b995e939bd95c3f8948556a9ce88 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Laval-University | Laval University | Laval University
Laval University, French Université Laval, a French-language university located on the outskirts of the city of Quebec. Laval’s predecessor institution, the Seminary of Quebec, considered the first Canadian institution of higher learning, was founded by François de Montmorency Laval, first Roman Catholic bishop of Quebec, in 1663. Queen Victoria granted the seminary a university charter in 1852, and it was recognized by a papal bull in 1872. In 1970 the university was reorganized and given a new charter by the national assembly of Quebec. Laval currently carries on an active educational exchange with French-language universities in Africa and Europe. Numerous scientific research institutes are affiliated with the university.
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77049b6a724457c6c9eac7db1ff30f3b | https://www.britannica.com/topic/lavender-oil | Lavender oil | Lavender oil
Lavender oil, or lavender flower oil, is obtained by distillation of the flowers and is used chiefly in fine perfumes and cosmetics. It is a colourless or yellow liquid, the fragrant constituents of which are linalyl acetate, linalool, pinene, limonene, geraniol, and cineole. Lavender water,…
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47c2b4bd85abbc212ce7ecf89525b541 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Laverne-and-Shirley | Laverne & Shirley | Laverne & Shirley
… (1979), Joanie Loves Chachi (1982–83), Laverne and Shirley (1976–83), and Mork and Mindy (1978–82), the last two of which, like Happy Days, were produced by Gary Marshall, who went on to direct motion pictures such as Pretty Woman (1990). Howard, who had received his start in television on The Andy…
Other nostalgic programming such as Laverne & Shirley (ABC, 1976–83), set in the early 1960s, The Waltons (CBS, 1972–81), the saga of a Depression-era mountain family, and Little House on the Prairie (NBC, 1974–83), set in the late 19th century, also reached large audiences during this period. As its title…
…made several guest appearances on Laverne & Shirley in 1982–83. The producer of the sci-fi comedy The Ice Pirates (1984)—in which Huston played one of the titular buccaneers—gave her a copy of the novel Prizzi’s Honor by Richard Condon in the hopes that she would consider playing manipulative Mafia daughter…
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26fcaecf7b565d2bace0858bdc7bea2f | https://www.britannica.com/topic/LAvision-de-Christine | L’Avision de Christine | L’Avision de Christine
The story of her life, L’Avision de Christine (1405), told in an allegorical manner, was a reply to her detractors. At the request of the regent, Philip the Bold of Burgundy, Christine wrote the life of the deceased king, Charles—Le Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles…
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06229cbafdbd1ee9c7d60546503be91f | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lavon-Affair | Lavon Affair | Lavon Affair
…implications of the 1954 “Lavon Affair,” involving Israeli-inspired sabotage of U.S. and British property in Egypt. The affair led Ben-Gurion in 1965 to leave Mapai with a number of his supporters and to found a small opposition party, Rafi, at the head of which he fought, with little success,…
…of all charges, the “Lavon Affair,” as it came to be known, effectively ended his political career.
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7d3fa3e551e49ddc985902ca90e19b0f | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lavventura | L’avventura | L’avventura
…his first big international success, L’avventura, in 1960; his first film in colour, Il deserto rosso (Red Desert), in 1964; his first full-length English-language film, Blow-Up, in 1966; and his first American film, Zabriskie Point, in 1970. He was responsible for shaping the career of the actress Monica Vitti, whose…
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cd41e86f586a69e804be3db9a818d1ce | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Law-as-a-Means-to-an-End | Law as a Means to an End | Law as a Means to an End
…the 20th century was his Law As a Means to an End, 2 vol. (1877–83; originally in German), which maintained that the purpose of law was the protection of individual and societal interests by coordinating them and thus minimizing occasions for conflict. Where conflict was unavoidable, he assigned greater weight…
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35914debd0f5dc33eab3559dbb0e13bd | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Law-is-a-Bottom-less-Pit-or-The-History-of-John-Bull | Law is a Bottom-less Pit; or, The History of John Bull | Law is a Bottom-less Pit; or, The History of John Bull
…1727 under the composite title Law is a Bottom-less Pit; or, The History of John Bull, and it established and popularized for the first time the character who was to become the permanent symbol of England in cartoon and literature. An edition by A.W. Bower and R.A. Erickson was published…
…year published collectively as The History of John Bull; he appeared as an honest clothier, bringing action with his linen-draper friend Nicholas Frog (Holland) against Lewis Baboon (Louis XIV) for interfering with trade. The wide circulation of the satire fixed Bull as a popular personification in 18th-century political writings.
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c0fa9d26a56171f8b06838ad5bb2395b | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Law-of-Civilization-and-Decay | Law of Civilization and Decay | Law of Civilization and Decay
In 1895 he published his Law of Civilization and Decay, in which he expounded his theory of history. It held that the centre of trade had consistently followed a westward movement from the ancient crossroads in the East to Constantinople, Venice, Amsterdam, and finally to London, in accord with a…
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c9b64e8d58b900ceece645abe0bf0c3a | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Law-of-Desire | Law of Desire | Law of Desire
…La ley del deseo (1987; Law of Desire), deal with the intersection between violence and sexual desire. A dizzying farce called Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (1988; Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) won international acclaim, including an Academy Award nomination for best foreign-language film.…
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331907b231d1a6db9fab0e761103b188 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Law-of-Population | Law of Population | Law of Population
…Macaulay, who had criticized Sadler’s Law of Population (1830), a massive treatise attacking the pessimistic theories of the economist-demographer Thomas Robert Malthus.
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93aef7d4b287432f0cb7675b454213e9 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Law-of-Property-Act | Law of Property Act | Law of Property Act
His greatest accomplishments were the Law of Property Act (1922) and subsequent real-property statutes (1925) that replaced a convoluted, largely medieval system of land law. Although enacted after he had left office (Oct. 24, 1922), the County Courts Act (1924) and the Supreme Court of Judicature (Consolidation) Act (1925), which…
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577b99979a13ee850840878c548eb40d | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Law-on-Associated-Labour | Law on Associated Labour | Law on Associated Labour
…socialism, was codified in the Law on Associated Labour of 1976. Each Yugoslav worker belonged to a Basic Organization of Associated Labour (BOAL) that was based on the precise role played by the worker in the production process. The BOALs elected representatives to workers’ councils, which in turn created management…
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82bd38b7a7d31795b3973800496553bb | https://www.britannica.com/topic/law-report | Law report | Law report
Law report, in common law, published record of a judicial decision that is cited by lawyers and judges for their use as precedent in subsequent cases. The report of a decision ordinarily contains the title of the case, a statement of the facts giving rise to the litigation, and its history in the courts. It then reproduces the opinion of the court and concludes with the court’s judgment—affirming or reversing the judgment of the court below. The report of a modern decision is usually preceded by an analytic summary of the opinion, called a headnote, that states the points decided.
The earliest English court reports were the Year Books produced from the late 13th to the 16th century. From 1537 until 1865 hundreds of series of English reports were published under the names of the reporters themselves. During both periods reporting was a disorganized private enterprise, the reporters being volunteers who made and circulated notes of court proceedings and decisions. Their work was very uneven, and reports were often overlapping and irreconcilable. The modern report form was standardized in the second half of the 18th century, and in 1865 the Law Reports, though still privately published, were established as semiofficial. In England today a law reporter must be a barrister-at-law who signifies that he has followed the hearing and can vouch for the accuracy of the report. Although all decisions of the highest English appellate court, the House of Lords, are reported, decisions of other courts of appeals are reported only if they reveal a new principle or application of law. Comparatively few decisions of lower courts are reported.
The first state and federal reports in the United States were also privately published under the reporter’s name, although the appointment of an official reporter was an early development. Today reported opinions are almost invariably written by the court and are officially published. Late in the 19th century a private publishing concern began unofficial publication of all state and federal reports in the National Reporter System, a practice that continues today.
Until recently, the decisions of most U.S. appellate courts were reported and published unless they dealt with settled propositions of law. Since most trial courts do not write opinions, their findings are not ordinarily reported. However, in jurisdictions such as New York, Pennsylvania, and the federal district courts, where trial courts prepare opinions in a substantial number of cases, many of them are reported and published. The growing volume of legal precedent has created considerable burdens for legal scholarship and libraries. Consequently, many U.S. courts have begun to report their decisions on a much more selective basis.
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dd376d1a94266240e68d42f6aa7e85a3 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Law-Society | Law Society | Law Society
…organization of solicitors was the Law Society, a voluntary group, incorporated by Parliament. The society’s Regulation Board, which had extensive authority in setting and enforcing standards for solicitors, was replaced by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) in 2007. See also Inns of Court.
…body of barristers) and the Law Society (the governing body of solicitors) both have the power to remove the attorneys within their respective organizations from the rolls.
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1ea3b4b9c7ee0835586d61e059235b5d | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lawrence-of-Arabia-by-Aldington | Lawrence of Arabia | Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia (1955), one of his last books, was an uncompromising attack on T.E. Lawrence. Late in life Aldington became a best-seller in the U.S.S.R., where he celebrated his 70th birthday. A Passionate Pilgrim: Letters to Alan Bird from Richard Aldington, 1949–1962 was published…
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82ed79a23883e4764641c9ca784d295d | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Laws | Laws | Laws
(The Laws, left unfinished at Plato’s death, seems to represent a practical approach to the planning of a city.) If one combines the hints (in the Republic) associating the Good with the One, or Unity; the treatment (in the Parmenides) of the One as the first…
The very lengthy Laws is thought to be Plato’s last composition, since there is generally accepted evidence that it was unrevised at his death. It develops laws to govern a projected state and is apparently meant to be practical in a way that the Republic was not; thus…
…is further attributed, in Plato’s Laws, to the “titanic nature” within its makeup—an element of violence and impiety inherited from the primordial rebellious Titans, sons of the Earth.
…much more explicitly in the Laws, he presented a more rigorous argument, based on the fact that things change and are in motion. Not all change comes from outside; some of it is spontaneous and must be due to “soul” and ultimately to a supreme or perfect soul. Whether God…
…the tenth book of the Laws, by invoking the analogy of a circular motion, which combines change with the retention of a fixed centre, he explained how deity could exemplify both absoluteness and change. Plato thus may be viewed as a quasi-panentheist.
…works, the Statesman and the Laws, Plato tried to show that only a god could be entrusted with the absolute powers of the philosopher-rulers of his republic. Human rulers must be controlled by rigid laws, he held—though all laws are inevitably imperfect because life is too varied to be governed…
In the Laws, purporting to be a discussion of how best to found a polis in Crete, he presents a detailed program in which a state with some 5,000 citizens is ruled by 37 curators of laws and a council of 360. But the keystone of the…
…(in the dialogue on the Laws) the state was the noblest work of art, a representation (mimēsis) of the fairest and best life. He feared the tragedians’ command of the expressive resources of language, which might be used to the detriment of worthwhile institutions. He feared, too, the emotive effect…
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9756eb372b22e6f08bb5534c72b85882 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Laws-Divine-Morall-and-Martial | Laws Divine, Morall and Martial | Laws Divine, Morall and Martial
…carried with him the “Laws Divine, Morall, and Martial,” which were intended to supervise nearly every aspect of the settlers’ lives. Each person in Virginia, including women and children, was given a military rank, with duties spelled out in minute detail. Penalties imposed for violating these rules were severe:…
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03248b141e8b32733d4ecbb27d095735 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Laws-of-Maximum | Laws of Maximum | Laws of Maximum
They introduced the Maximum (government control of prices), taxed the rich, brought national assistance to the poor and to the disabled, declared that education should be free and compulsory, and ordered the confiscation and sale of the property of émigrés. These exceptional measures provoked violent reactions: the Wars…
…wage controls known as the Maximum. The Law of Suspects empowered local revolutionary committees to arrest “those who by their conduct, relations or language spoken or written, have shown themselves partisans of tyranny or federalism and enemies of liberty.” In 1793–94 well over 200,000 citizens were detained under this law;…
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730ce0bd7176eb2ea1eaa2c56261326e | https://www.britannica.com/topic/laws-of-thought | Laws of thought | Laws of thought
Laws of thought, traditionally, the three fundamental laws of logic: (1) the law of contradiction, (2) the law of excluded middle (or third), and (3) the principle of identity. The three laws can be stated symbolically as follows. (1) For all propositions p, it is impossible for both p and not p to be true, or: ∼(p · ∼p), in which ∼ means “not” and · means “and.” (2) Either p or ∼p must be true, there being no third or middle true proposition between them, or: p ∨ ∼p, in which ∨ means “or.” (3) If a propositional function F is true of an individual variable x, then F is true of x, or: F(x) ⊃ F(x), in which ⊃ means “formally implies.” Another formulation of the principle of identity asserts that a thing is identical with itself, or (∀x) (x = x), in which ∀ means “for every”; or simply that x is x.
Aristotle cited the laws of contradiction and of excluded middle as examples of axioms. He partly exempted future contingents, or statements about unsure future events, from the law of excluded middle, holding that it is not (now) either true or false that there will be a naval battle tomorrow but that the complex proposition that either there will be a naval battle tomorrow or that there will not is (now) true. In the epochal Principia Mathematica (1910–13) of Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell, this law occurs as a theorem rather than as an axiom.
That the laws of thought are a sufficient foundation for the whole of logic, or that all other principles of logic are mere elaborations of them, was a doctrine common among traditional logicians. The law of excluded middle and certain related laws were rejected by the Dutch mathematician L.E.J. Brouwer, the originator of mathematical intuitionism, and his school, who did not admit their use in mathematical proofs in which all members of an infinite class are involved. Brouwer would not accept, for example, the disjunction that either there occur 10 successive 7’s somewhere in the decimal expansion of π or else not, since no proof is known of either alternative, but he would accept it if applied, for instance, to the first 10100 digits of the decimal, since these could in principle actually be computed.
In 1920 Jan Łukasiewicz, a leading member of the Polish school of logic, formulated a propositional calculus that had a third truth-value, neither truth nor falsity, for Aristotle’s future contingents, a calculus in which the laws of contradiction and of excluded middle both failed. Other systems have gone beyond three-valued to many-valued logics—e.g., certain probability logics having various degrees of truth-value between truth and falsity.
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4fc11fd1dd1b39d3268782a26e866184 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Laxdaela-saga | Laxdæla saga | Laxdæla saga
Laxdæla saga, (Icelandic: “Saga of [the Men of] Laxárdal”) one of the Icelanders’ sagas. The tale, written about 1245 by an anonymous author (possibly a woman), is the tragic story of several generations of an Icelandic warrior family descended from Ketill Flatnose. One of the best English translations was rendered by Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Pálsson in 1969. It is included with other sagas in the five-volume Complete Sagas of Icelanders (1997).
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13db8adebb4b5aec8611fe7d8dbaee06 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Laxist | Laxist | Laxist
…well as personal poverty; the Laxists, who favoured many mitigations; and the Moderates, or the Community, who wanted a legal structure that would permit some form of communal possessions.
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58c37ac7e6089166e64b61624adfb7a4 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/lay-literacy | Lay literacy | Lay literacy
Environmental literacy or lay literacy is the term used to designate that form of unspecialized competence involved in generally dealing with a literate environment. Such literacy need never be taught. It is a type of literacy that is acquired through participating in a literate environment in which written…
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c8c90ff7442f7fc0e66a990895730fda | https://www.britannica.com/topic/lay-magistrates | Lay magistrates | Lay magistrates
Long ago, magistrates had the power to investigate crimes, but their function is now wholly concerned with the adjudicatory phase. Most magistrates are laypeople chosen for their experience and knowledge of society and are appointed by the central government on the advice of a committee, known as…
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9c5bd9e405219372a5e4827c27ec7769 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lay-Osborn-flotilla | Lay-Osborn flotilla | Lay-Osborn flotilla
Lay-Osborn flotilla, fleet of ships bought for China in the mid-19th century by a British consular official, Horatio Nelson Lay, which created a tremendous controversy when Lay falsely assumed that the Chinese government would transmit all orders to the fleet through him. This controversy prompted a decision by the Chinese government to discontinue leasing or purchasing vessels from abroad and instead to manufacture vessels in China.
In 1862 the Chinese government decided to buy a fleet of gunboats to aid in suppressing the great Taiping Rebellion (1850–64), which was sweeping the southern provinces. Lay, who had undertaken to contract the vessels for the Chinese government, procured the gunboats and hired Captain Sherard Osborn and a British crew to run them. After the flotilla arrived in Chinese waters in 1863, Lay and Osborn refused to comply with the wishes of the Chinese that they surrender command of the ships and continue to serve only as technical advisers. Lay revealed much about Western attitudes toward the Chinese when he stated that “the notion of a gentleman acting under an Asiatic barbarian is preposterous.” The Chinese government revoked the purchase and dismissed Lay from its service.
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1d4784c8a39667c134be9736b54599ee | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lay-Preacher-essays | Lay Preacher essays | Lay Preacher essays
…the series of graceful, moralizing “Lay Preacher” essays that established his literary reputation. He served as editor of the Farmer’s Weekly from 1796 to 1798.
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9253a9d13d18b9b9cf74dbb0f40affe9 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/laya-yoga | Laya-yoga | Laya-yoga
Some Tantrists employ laya-yoga (“reintegration by mergence”), in which the female nature-energy (representing the shakti), which is said to remain dormant and coiled in the form of a serpent (kundalini) representing the uncreated, is awakened and made to rise through the six centres (chakras) of the body, which…
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5278b4c139fd0f45383aca45a044889f | https://www.britannica.com/topic/laying-house | Laying house | Laying house
Laying house, in animal husbandry, a building or enclosure for maintaining laying flocks of domestic fowl, usually chickens, containing nests, lighting, roosting space, waterers, and feed troughs. Feeders and waterers may be automatic. In the largest houses, feed storage, egg room, and utility space may be in a centre section, with laying-house wings in both directions. Construction ranges from relatively open shelters to fully enclosed and insulated buildings, depending on the climate.
In the cage system, birds are confined in individual wire mesh cages arranged in rows in a stairstep alignment with service aisles between rows. Feed and water troughs are attached to the front of the cages; eggs roll down the sloping cage floors into a collection area.
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8336db59c6289a6e9f0e7e2f764e435a | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lays-of-the-Scottish-Cavaliers | Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers | Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers
Shortly afterward he published Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers (1849), a set of Jacobite ballads that achieved wide popularity. In 1854, reverting to light verse, he published Firmilian, or the Student of Badajoz, a Spasmodic Tragedy, in which the writings of the spasmodic school were brilliantly ridiculed.
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baeaf5d07f8ece8806cb037abc54b1e0 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Laz-language | Laz language | Laz language
Laz language, Laz lazuri nena, Georgian čanuri ena, also called Chan language, unwritten language spoken along the coast of the Black Sea in Georgia and in the adjacent areas of Turkey. Some scholars believe Laz and the closely related Mingrelian language to be dialects of the Svan language rather than independent languages.
Both Laz and Mingrelian have made a number of linguistic changes in comparison to Georgian and Svan, which are relatively conservative in both their grammatical and phonological characteristics. The Laz, Mingrelian, Georgian, and Svan languages constitute the Kartvelian, or South Caucasian, language family. See also Kartvelian languages.
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1f607dbfc9e0811524b0790d0580dab6 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lazarillo-de-Tormes-Spanish-novel | Lazarillo de Tormes | Lazarillo de Tormes
Thus, the hidalgo in the Lazarillo de Tormes (published 1554; doubtfully attributed to Diego Hurtado de Mendoza), the first of the picaresque novels, is down and out but would rather starve than work, and he expects his servant, the boy Lazarillo, to scrounge for them both. In Don Quixote (published…
…in the anonymous picaresque novel Lazarillo de Tormes and in Cervantes’ Don Quixote.
…novel originated in Spain with Lazarillo de Tormes (1554; doubtfully attributed to Diego Hurtado de Mendoza), in which the poor boy Lázaro describes his services under seven successive lay and clerical masters, each of whose dubious character is hidden under a mask of hypocrisy. The irreverent wit of Lazarillo helped…
…genre initiated with the anonymous Lazarillo de Tormes (1554). This native Spanish genre, widely imitated elsewhere, featured as its protagonist a pícaro (“rogue”), essentially an antihero, living by his wits and concerned only with staying alive. Passing from master to master, he depicted life from underneath. Significant for guiding fiction…
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ffeb300541d73a2d3d98c5c59b688f8b | https://www.britannica.com/topic/lazzaroni | Lazzaroni | Lazzaroni
…while the Neapolitan poor, the lazzaroni, abandoned by their sovereign, remained vigorously if incomprehensibly monarchist. The nobly conceived Parthenopean Republic collapsed in a welter of blood. A punitive return by the Bourbons and the execution or exile of the republicans make the year 1799 a tragic epoch in the Neapolitan…
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3024a563f269f343ac5ea84c7bdb6cc9 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Le-Boeuf-sur-le-toit | Le Boeuf sur le toit | Le Boeuf sur le toit
…music by Erik Satie, and Le Boeuf sur le toit (1920; “The Ox on the Roof”), with music by Darius Milhaud, but also in his other works; and it is sometimes quoted in his plays and films.
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db77ecddcb9691ba6bd0a689b33b1c80 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Le-Bon-Bock | Le Bon Bock | Le Bon Bock
As a result Manet painted Le Bon Bock (1873; The Good Point), which achieved considerable success at the Salon exhibition of 1873.
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b3954e75468eff68e98176fd919ee20d | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Le-Cercle-Constitutionnel | Le Cercle Constitutionnel | Le Cercle Constitutionnel
…he became actively involved with Le Cercle Constitutionnel, a group of antiroyalist liberals that included Talleyrand, Joseph Fouché, Benjamin Constant, and Madame de Staël, who supported the less republican and more authoritarian structure of the Directory. His lavish lifestyle made him a symbol of the regime’s corruption.
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3f4665991b0fa0e7f335fe4e29be3efa | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Le-Desespere | Le Désespéré | Le Désespéré
His autobiographical novels, Le Désespéré (1886; “Despairing”) and La Femme pauvre (1897; The Woman Who Was Poor), express his mystical conception of woman as the Holy Spirit and of love as a devouring fire. The eight volumes of his Journal (written 1892–1917; complete edition published 1939) reveal him…
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6985542a8cbbda2905526e08c7db4a3d | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Le-Diable-Marin | Le Diable-Marin | Le Diable-Marin
…built the 52-foot iron submarine Le Diable-Marin (“The Marine Devil”), carrying a crew of 11, 4 of whom worked a treadmill that drove a screw propeller. Through windows in this submarine Bauer made what were probably the first underwater photographs. He also experimented with underwater sound for signaling and with…
…boats, Le Plongeur-Marin (1851) and Le Diable-Marin (1855). The first boat sank in Kiel harbour on Feb. 1, 1851, but Bauer and his two assistants escaped from a depth of 60 feet after the craft had been on the bottom for five hours. His second craft, built for the Russian…
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82de9e81eb0dc962a17003b608460807 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Le-droit-des-gens | Le droit des gens | Le droit des gens
…Neuchâtel), Swiss jurist who, in Le Droit des gens (1758; “The Law of Nations”), applied a theory of natural law to international relations. His treatise was especially influential in the United States because his principles of liberty and equality coincided with the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence. In…
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3b2d1dc04da22e33bab2e40e2cd30e42 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Le-Duo | Le Duo | Le Duo
…of figure paintings—first-rate examples are Le Duo and The Painter and His Model—and in 1937 he won the Carnegie Prize. During World War II he produced a collection of small, generally flat, decorative pieces of sculpture in a style recalling again ancient Greece and centring on vaguely mythological themes.
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488f4154839c8fa980364c918d5e6e88 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Le-Figaro | Le Figaro | Le Figaro
Le Figaro, morning daily newspaper published in Paris, one of the great newspapers of France and of the world.
Founded in 1826 as a sardonic and witty gossip sheet on the arts—named for Figaro, the barber of Seville—by 1866 Le Figaro was a daily that engaged some of the finest writers in France and filled its pages with political discourse. The paper was a pioneer in dividing the coverage and presentation of news into departments and in publishing interviews with celebrated personages. Le Figaro was purchased in 1922 by François Coty, the cosmetics manufacturer, and soon its reputation suffered as it became little more than a promotional sheet for Coty’s political ambitions. Coty died in 1934, and under the editorship of Pierre Brisson Le Figaro quickly moved back into a position of leadership among French newspapers.
At the start of World War II, Le Figaro was France’s leading daily newspaper. When the Nazis occupied Paris the paper moved to the town of Vichy but shortly suspended publication rather than submit to censorship by the Pétain government. It returned to Paris and resumed publication in 1944 before the Germans had departed. After World War II the paper became the voice of the French upper middle class while maintaining an independent editorial stance.
In the postwar years the paper has increasingly covered medicine and other scientific fields, the entertainment and artistic worlds, and literary developments while maintaining its outstanding international coverage. In the 1960s and ’70s the staff of Le Figaro was rent by tensions and conflicts over management and ownership as the paper—after Brisson’s death—was headed by a succession of individuals accused of wartime collaboration with the Nazis or the Vichy government.
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595bea4b20b93f8e2cdb29a462069073 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Le-Jardinier-de-la-Pompadour | Le Jardinier de la Pompadour | Le Jardinier de la Pompadour
His other important novel, Le Jardinier de la Pompadour (1904; “Madame de Pompadour’s Gardener”), is set in France; in this evocation of an elegant period, Demolder’s style and subject are in perfect harmony. His L’Espagne en auto (1906; “Spain by Auto”) is one of the earliest narratives of automobile…
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b2ede5105cd3ec904e2c1e6cc0438df3 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Le-Journal-des-Debats | Le Journal des Débats | Le Journal des Débats
Le Journal des Débats, (French: “The Journal of Debates”), former Parisian daily newspaper that was one of the most influential organs of the French press in the 19th century. Founded in 1789 by Gaultier de Biauzat to report the debates of the National Assembly, the Journal des Débats was acquired in 1799 by the Bertin family, which retained control of it until 1871.
Moderately liberal in its viewpoint, Débats was critical of the Restoration monarchy and the Second Empire but favourable to Louis-Philippe. Its contributors included such literary figures as François-René de Chateaubriand, Ernest Renan, and Hippolyte Taine. Débats continued to be published until August 1944.
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fdbd5f5f9e7a749f1b381c34bb4e0082 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Le-lettere-a-Maria | Le lettere a Maria | Le lettere a Maria
His love lyrics, Le lettere a Maria (1846; “The Letters to Maria”), were eagerly read; but back in Verona and prevented by the Austrian government from practicing law, he wrote a series of bitterly anti-Austrian poems, notably Le città italiane marinare e commercianti (1856; “The Maritime and Commercial…
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90b103b58dd7d67574e73d29622707a8 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Le-Libre-Echange | Le Libre-Échange | Le Libre-Échange
…Trade and used its journal, Le Libre-Échange (“Free Trade”), to advance his antiprotectionist views. In a well-known satiric parable that appeared in his Sophismes économiques (1845; Sophisms of Protection), Bastiat concocted a petition brought by candlemakers who asked for protection against the Sun, suggesting that candlemaking and related industries would…
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930267f348d558aa035e6a49fb894867 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Le-Monde-reel | Le Monde réel | Le Monde réel
…of his long novel series, Le Monde réel (1933–44; “The Real World”), describe in historical perspective the class struggle of the proletariat toward social revolution. Aragon continued to employ Socialist Realism in another long novel, Les Communistes (6 vol., 1949–51), a bleak chronicle of the party from 1939 to 1940.…
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7599b24228ffcd309e71060ccf0898df | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Le-Morte-Darthur | Le Morte Darthur | Le Morte Darthur
Le Morte Darthur, the first English-language prose version of the Arthurian legend, completed by Sir Thomas Malory about 1470 and printed by William Caxton in 1485. The only extant manuscript that predates Caxton’s edition is in the British Library, London. It retells the adventures of the knights of the Round Table in chronological sequence from the birth of Arthur. Based on French romances, Malory’s account differs from his models in its emphasis on the brotherhood of the knights rather than on courtly love, and on the conflicts of loyalty (brought about by the adultery of Lancelot and Guinevere) that finally destroy the fellowship.
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57c3679bef835ea8556815f65edfd30d | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Le-Parisien | Le Parisien | Le Parisien
Le Parisien, (French: “The Parisian”) morning daily newspaper published in Paris, one of the largest and most influential in France. Formerly called Le Parisien Libéré (“The Free Parisian”), it was established in Paris in 1944 as an organ of the French underground during the latter part of the German occupation in World War II. The paper used a sensational makeup style with numerous headlines and photos on its front page and with the text of news articles often confined to inside pages.
After the war Le Parisien Libéré successfully competed with the welter of new dailies, and by the 1960s it had the second largest circulation in France. Faced with union difficulties and mounting costs, the paper’s owner, Emilien Amaury, in 1975 moved the printing operations of Le Parisien Libéré to Saint-Ouen and Chartres. The union problems were settled in 1977, but the readership of Le Parisien Libéré had dropped somewhat. By the mid-1980s it had regained popularity, and, in the early 21st century, Le Parisien (the word Libéré was dropped in 1986) was one of the most widely read newspapers in France, reaching more than 350,000. The newspaper’s national edition, Aujourd’hui, was launched in 1994.
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79d56661bc0dd9f142015c5057e0ff48 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Le-Parnasse-contemporain | Le Parnasse contemporain | Le Parnasse contemporain
…anthology to which they contributed: Le Parnasse Contemporain (3 vol., 1866, 1871, 1876), edited by Louis-Xavier de Ricard and Catulle Mendès and published by Alphonse Lemerre. Their principles, though, had been formulated earlier in Théophile Gautier’s preface to Mademoiselle de Maupin (1835), which expounded the theory of art for art’s…
Mendès edited Le Parnasse contemporain (1866, 1871, 1876; “The Contemporary Parnassians”), which named their movement, and he became their historian in La Légende du Parnasse contemporain. He also encouraged members of a younger generation of poets who were to found the Symbolist movement.
…later the first series of Le Parnasse contemporain, a collection of pieces by contemporary poets (hence the term Parnassian), contained eight contributions by Verlaine.
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4f7437c76c064647a95886934ce7fb90 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Le-Pere-Goriot | Le Père Goriot | Le Père Goriot
Le Père Goriot, (French: “Father Goriot”) novel by Honoré de Balzac, originally published in French in the Revue de Paris in 1834 and published in book form in 1835. The novel is considered one of the best works of Balzac’s panoramic series La Comédie humaine (“The Human Comedy”), and it was the first to feature characters that would reappear in later novels. This pessimistic case study of bourgeois society’s ills after the French Revolution tells the intertwined stories of Eugène de Rastignac, an ambitious but penniless young man, and old Goriot, a father who sacrifices everything for his children.
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252e418cd99f69a16fc12791330300a5 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Le-period | Le period | Le period
…art, at least during the Le period (15th–18th centuries), seems to have been in architectural planning, incorporating Confucian, Daoist, or Buddhist temples into the landscape environment. The plans themselves include halls for a multitude of images in the South Chinese vein and provision for a variety of rituals. There are…
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2d8a45bb3de5f3329df26952b9a2a22f | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Le-Roman-maghrebin | Le Roman maghrébin | Le Roman maghrébin
His doctoral dissertation, Le Roman maghrébin (“The Maghribian Novel”), was published in 1968. His study on the novel raised the question of how the committed writer can avoid becoming a propagandist, especially in a postrevolutionary society. Khatibi argued for the need to create on the cultural level of…
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35562762c03dbb80d4521db1baeb0e36 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Le-Rubicon | Le Rubicon | Le Rubicon
Bourdet’s first plays, Le Rubicon (1910) and L’Homme enchaîné (1923; “The Man Enchained”), were not successful. His reputation was secured, however, by La Prisonnière (1926; The Captive), a psychological study of the sufferings of a troubled woman. With Vient de paraître (1928; “Just Appeared”), a satire on the…
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fa8aeb42c8f80be9be41aceeef07063a | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Le-Testament | Le Testament | Le Testament
Le Testament, also called Le Grand Testament, long poem by François Villon, written in 1461 and published in 1489. It consists of 2,023 octosyllabic lines arranged in 185 huitains (eight-line stanzas). These huitains are interspersed with a number of fixed-form poems, chiefly ballades and chansons, including the well-known “Ballade des dames du temps jadis” (“Ballad of the Ladies of Bygone Times”). While it is full of cruel humour, it is less overtly comic and much more complex than his earlier Le Petit Testament.
In the poem, Villon bitterly reviews his life and expresses his horror of prison (the poem itself was written after he was released from prison), sickness, and old age with its attendant misery and his fear of death. It is notable for the poignant note of regret for his wasted youth and squandered talent. As in Le Petit Testament, he makes bequests to those he is leaving behind, but his tone in this work is much more scathing than that in his earlier work, and he writes with greater ironic detachment.
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da1520fb1d0589c2e6f076e7d3028f96 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/leaching-field | Leaching field | Leaching field
…sewage flows out into the absorption field, through which it percolates downward into the ground. As it flows slowly through layers of soil, the settled wastewater is further treated and purified by both physical and biological processes before it reaches the water table.
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957d2963f01f5567eb91c9186f25d6a9 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Leaders-of-Muscovy-Russia-the-Russian-Empire-and-the-Soviet-Union-1832695 | Leaders of Muscovy, Russia, the Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union | Leaders of Muscovy, Russia, the Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union
Russia is a federal multiparty republic with a bicameral legislative body; its head of state is the president, and the head of government is the prime minister. What is now the territory of Russia has been inhabited from ancient times by various peoples, and as such the country has gone through many systems of rule.
The table provides a chronological list of leaders of Russia since 1276.
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8a618869b7a93890bcfb00446bcd5cec | https://www.britannica.com/topic/leadership | Leadership | Leadership
…creates an urgent demand for leadership. People turn first to established community leaders, and, when they are equal to the demands, such figures as police and fire officials, school principals, and mass-media personages are quickly accepted as leaders. Frequently these public figures are as bewildered and distracted as everyone else…
One of the most apparent changes is a shift in leadership. In its earliest stages the strongest influence on a movement is likely to be the charismatic leader who personally symbolizes its values. At some point intellectuals play a leadership role by…
…desire to possess a beloved leader. Because the leader is unattainable, and because his attentions must be shared among many followers, a relation of identification is expressed in the demand for uniformity that the followers insistently impose on each other, according to the example of the leader.
Fascists defended the Führerprinzip (“leadership principle”), the belief that the party and the state should have a single leader with absolute power. Hitler was the Führer and Mussolini the Duce, both words for the “leader” who gave the orders that everyone else had…
…most successfully by a collective leadership—a team of broadly educated and skilled people who have had both practical experience in public affairs and extensive training in history, psychology, and the social sciences. The detachment, skepticism, and secularism of such persons may, however, cause them to be viewed with great suspicion…
Opinion leaders play a major role in defining popular issues and in influencing individual opinions regarding them. Political leaders in particular can turn a relatively unknown problem into a national issue if they decide to call attention to it in the media. One of…
…effects of democratic and authoritarian leadership in groups and have greatly extended this work in industrial settings. In research on how people respond to group norms (e.g., of morality or of behaviour), most conformity has been found to the norms of reference groups (e.g., to such groups as families or…
…a major qualification for political leadership in primitive societies; the search for military glory as well as for the spoils of victory seems to have been one of the major motivations for war. Once the military function became differentiated and separated from civilian ones, a tension between the two became…
…of guerrilla warfare that outstanding leadership is necessary at all levels if a guerrilla force is to survive and prosper. A leader must not only be endowed with intelligence and courage but must be buttressed by an almost fanatical belief in himself and his cause. Lawrence, Tito, Mao, Ho, Castro,…
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51be9a7e6900b249e3551fcd7192ca08 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/leading-indicator | Leading indicator | Leading indicator
A “leading indicator” is one of a statistical series that fairly reliably turn up or down before the general economy does. Common leading indicators are building permits (suggesting the future volume of new construction), common stock prices, business inventories, consumer installment debt, unemployment claims, and corporate…
…which are known as “leading indicators.” Other statistical series normally move in line with overall activity (“coincident indicators”), and a third group changes direction after the economy does (“lagging indicators”). Although careful study of these groupings of statistics can be helpful, unfortunately there is no fixed relation between the…
…with cyclical turning points consistently leading or lagging behind the turns in general business activity. Researchers using these methods have identified a number of series, each of which reaches its turning point 2 to 10 months before the turns in general business activity, as well as another group of series,…
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35ca1f53b465a30827d0c8057eb9ff46 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/League-of-Cambrai | League of Cambrai | League of Cambrai
League of Cambrai, formed Dec. 10, 1508, an alliance of Pope Julius II, the Holy Roman emperor Maximilian I, Louis XII of France, and Ferdinand II of Aragon, ostensibly against the Turks but actually to attack the Republic of Venice and divide its possessions among the allies. Mantua and Ferrara, both of which had lost possessions to Venice, were included in the league and were promised that their territories would be restored. Despite pledges to the contrary, the four allies were unable to act together because of their individual ambitions. The only significant military operation was the French victory over Venice on May 14, 1509, at Agnadello, east of Milan, on territory ceded to Venice by France a few years earlier. Pope Julius, who had not joined the league until March, recovered the cities in the Romagna that Venice had seized after the death of Pope Alexander VI; Maximilian took Verona, Vicenza, and Padua in Lombardy; and Ferdinand received back territory in Apulia, in southern Italy, including the port of Brindisi. The league collapsed in 1510, when the pope switched sides and joined with Venice, while Ferdinand, satisfied with his gains, became neutral. By October 1511 Pope Julius had succeeded in bringing Ferdinand into alliance with Venice in the Holy League directed against French power in Italy. Venice subsequently fell into decline in international affairs, despite the failure of the other powers to dismember its small empire.
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918272db0a92c398250f0f9451129a5e | https://www.britannica.com/topic/League-of-Left-Wing-Writers | League of Left-Wing Writers | League of Left-Wing Writers
…the Zuoyi Zuojia Lianmeng (“League of Left-Wing Writers”), whose membership included many influential writers. Lu Xun, the prime organizer and titular head throughout the league’s half decade of activities, had stopped writing fiction in late 1925 and, after moving from Beijing to Shanghai in 1927, directed most of his…
…Shanghai, where he joined the League of Left-Wing Writers and became Lu Xun’s assistant. During this period he published several collections of essays, including Wenyi bitan (1936; “Essays on Literature and Art”). In 1936 he called for a “popular literature for the national revolutionary war,” a stance that sparked a…
…attention to politics, joining the League of Left-Wing Writers. Ding Ling, however, devoted herself to writing, and by 1930 she had completed three collections of short stories and a novelette. Later that year she gave birth to a son and joined the League of Left-Wing Writers. Hu Yepin joined the…
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98ef530be6d5d5d89e1ea9668e7f1020 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/League-of-Women-Voters | League of Women Voters | League of Women Voters
League of Women Voters, nonpartisan American political organization that has pursued its mission of promoting active and unhampered participation in government since its establishment in 1920.
First proposed by Carrie Chapman Catt at a convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) in 1917, the League was organized at a national convention on March 24–29, 1919, in St. Louis, Missouri, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first suffrage grant. Following the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, Catt suggested the reorganization of the two million-strong NAWSA into the League of Women Voters, an organization that would work for progressive legislation on a national and local level. The League was conceived as a nonpartisan, nonsectarian organization with representation from every state. Its chief aims were to provide international support for woman suffrage, to watch over state legislatures and prevent any legal discrimination on the basis of sex, and to strive to make American democratic institutions safe for all those governed by them. The first convention of the League of Women Voters was held in Chicago in 1920.
Continuing and broadening this mission, the League functions today as a multi-issue grassroots action group open to both men and women that promotes active participation in government and works to “influence public policy through education and advocacy.” With a focus on registering people to vote, providing funding for education about political issues, and defending voting rights, the League is one of the largest nonpartisan political organizations in the United States and one of the only such organizations that successfully provides broad, comprehensive information on a wide variety of political issues.
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774d09272943a458c96a055d74b8771c | https://www.britannica.com/topic/leap-of-faith | Leap of faith | Leap of faith
…in his idea of the leap of faith. He believed that without risk there is no faith, and that the greater the risk the greater the faith. Faith is thus a passionate commitment, not based upon reason but inwardly necessitated, to that which can be grasped in no other way.
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8b58072e5833530f1b677d1392e41bfc | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lear-fictional-character | Lear | Lear
…moving of Shakespeare’s tragic figures, Lear grows in self-awareness as he diminishes in authority and loses his illusions. Lear at the outset presents the very picture of foolish egotism and is tricked out of what he has expected to be a carefree retirement by his own need for flattery. Believing…
The aging King Lear decides to divide his kingdom among his three daughters, allotting each a portion in proportion to the eloquence of her declaration of love. The hypocritical Goneril and Regan make grand pronouncements and are rewarded; Cordelia, the youngest daughter, who truly loves Lear, refuses to…
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428ca01698ed5bfb91217fabfd3f6ca9 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Learning-from-Las-Vegas | Learning from Las Vegas | Learning from Las Vegas
…work, with coauthor Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas (1972). The authors took the thesis of Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture several steps further and analyzed with wry appreciation the neon-lit urban sprawl and the automobile-oriented commercial architecture of Las Vegas. They questioned the Modernist rejection of the use of…
…building of these skyscrapers, Venturi’s Learning from Las Vegas (with Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour) was published in 1972. In seeking to rehumanize architecture by ridding it of the restricting purism of Modernism, the authors pointed to the playful commercial architecture and billboards of the Las Vegas highways for…
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6f1d9c715ed48b4162fcdf184032c159 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/least-squares-approximation | Least squares method | Least squares method
Least squares method, also called least squares approximation, in statistics, a method for estimating the true value of some quantity based on a consideration of errors in observations or measurements. In particular, the line (the function yi = a + bxi, where xi are the values at which yi is measured and i denotes an individual observation) that minimizes the sum of the squared distances (deviations) from the line to each observation is used to approximate a relationship that is assumed to be linear. That is, the sum over all i of (yi − a − bxi)2 is minimized by setting the partial derivatives of the sum with respect to a and b equal to 0. The method can also be generalized for use with nonlinear relationships.
One of the first applications of the method of least squares was to settle a controversy involving Earth’s shape. The English mathematician Isaac Newton asserted in the Principia (1687) that Earth has an oblate (grapefruit) shape due to its spin—causing the equatorial diameter to exceed the polar diameter by about 1 part in 230. In 1718 the director of the Paris Observatory, Jacques Cassini, asserted on the basis of his own measurements that Earth has a prolate (lemon) shape.
To settle the dispute, in 1736 the French Academy of Sciences sent surveying expeditions to Ecuador and Lapland. However, distances cannot be measured perfectly, and the measurement errors at the time were large enough to create substantial uncertainty. Several methods were proposed for fitting a line through this data—that is, to obtain the function (line) that best fit the data relating the measured arc length to the latitude. It was generally agreed that the method ought to minimize deviations in the y-direction (the arc length), but many options were available, including minimizing the largest such deviation and minimizing the sum of their absolute sizes (as depicted in the figure). The measurements seemed to support Newton’s theory, but the relatively large error estimates for the measurements left too much uncertainty for a definitive conclusion—although this was not immediately recognized. In fact, while Newton was essentially right, later observations showed that his prediction for excess equatorial diameter was about 30 percent too large.
In 1805 the French mathematician Adrien-Marie Legendre published the first known recommendation to use the line that minimizes the sum of the squares of these deviations—i.e., the modern least squares method. The German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss, who may have used the same method previously, contributed important computational and theoretical advances. The method of least squares is now widely used for fitting lines and curves to scatterplots (discrete sets of data).
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97abdf8104e71cf739df4833f0829f7b | https://www.britannica.com/topic/leatherneck | Leatherneck | Leatherneck
…nickname for Marines of “leathernecks.” The forest-green service uniform was introduced in 1912. In naval formations, Marines have the privilege of forming on the right of line or at the head of column, the traditional places of honour and seniority.
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eac0952ecc455048b637d37a1debab4e | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Leave-Her-to-Heaven | Leave Her to Heaven | Leave Her to Heaven
Leave Her to Heaven (1945) was based on Ben Ames Williams’s best seller about pathological jealousy. Gene Tierney starred as an unstable woman whose obsession with her husband (Cornel Wilde) results in murder and suicide; the supporting cast included Vincent Price and Jeanne Crain. Although…
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6741ac1f55bfaaeea9b15bfddcca72a8 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/leavening | Leavening | Leavening
Many bakery products depend on the evolution of gas from added chemical reactants as their leavening source. Items produced by this system include layer cakes, cookies, muffins, biscuits, corn bread, and some doughnuts.
Leavening may result from yeast or bacterial fermentation, from chemical reactions, or from the distribution in the batter of atmospheric or injected gases.
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ea9fd300fd328e1e041b65d752ff994c | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Leaving-Las-Vegas | Leaving Las Vegas | Leaving Las Vegas
…a self-destructive alcoholic writer in Leaving Las Vegas. He went on to star in a series of large-budget explosive-laden films that were hits at the box office. In The Rock (1996), Con Air (1997), and Face/Off (1997), he appeared opposite such actors as Sean Connery, John Cusack, and John Travolta,…
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52566676c47a1d2abc8df2df14c60dbf | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lebediny-stan | Lebediny stan | Lebediny stan
…these is the remarkable cycle Lebediny stan (“The Swans’ Camp,” composed 1917–21, but not published until 1957 in Munich), a moving lyrical chronicle of the Civil War viewed through the eyes and emotions of the wife of a White officer.
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0fd541f434575cfd633b064d72e523e0 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lebensphilosophie | Lebensphilosophie | Lebensphilosophie
…the corresponding school, known as Lebensphilosophie (“philosophy of life”), began to take on aspects of a political ideology in the years immediately preceding World War I. The work of Hans Driesch and Ludwig Klages, for example, openly condemned the superficial intellectualism of Western civilization. In associating “reason” with the shortcomings…
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222303a1c3ae74ae829a8ce74bf0b7a6 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lebensraum | Lebensraum | Lebensraum
…for additional living space (Lebensraum) in the east. First, however, there was the continued need to break the chains of the hated Treaty of Versailles.
…Hitler’s unbending determination to conquer Lebensraum from the Soviets for almost two years. On September 1, 1939, Hitler launched his invasion of Poland. Two days later Britain and France declared war on Germany.
…never achieve their destiny without Lebensraum (“living space”) to support a vastly increased German population and form the basis for world power. Lebensraum, wrote Hitler in Mein Kampf, was to be found in the Ukraine and intermediate lands of eastern Europe. This “heartland” of the Eurasian continent (so named by…
He originated the concept of Lebensraum, or “living space,” which relates human groups to the spatial units where they develop. Though Ratzel pointed out the propensity of a state to expand or contract its boundaries according to rational capabilities, the subsequent misuse of the Lebensraum concept by the Nazi regime…
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a94dcfa76fa5f21222a586107c971b70 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lecciones-de-literatura-espanola | Lecciones de literatura española | Lecciones de literatura española
…“Literary and Critical Essays”); and Lecciones de literatura española (1836; “Lessons in Spanish Literature”), lectures given at the University of Madrid in 1822.
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5f789a3a2745acb7ccb3763e07736368 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lech | Lech | Lech
Legend attributes Gniezno’s origin to Lech, mythological founder of Poland, who supposedly made it his capital. Archaeological evidence indicates that a stronghold of the Polanie tribe existed there in the 8th century ce. In 1000 Gniezno became capital of the first Roman Catholic archdiocese of Poland; it received town privileges…
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a8875c8da5364b089fe5ef06ecbb12f9 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lecons-de-tenebres | Leçons de ténèbres | Leçons de ténèbres
…and greatest liturgical work, the Leçons de ténèbres (c. 1715), brings to the linear subtlety of the French vocal style and the pathos of Italian harmony a quality of mysticism that has no parallel in the French or Italian music of the period. Johann Sebastian Bach knew Couperin’s work and…
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153c1be537d9a27cf00b45196610e92a | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lecons-sur-la-theorie-generale-des-surfaces-et-les-applications-geometriques-du-calcul-infinitesimal | Leçons sur la théorie générale des surfaces et les applications géométriques du calcul infinitésimal | Leçons sur la théorie générale des surfaces et les applications géométriques du calcul infinitésimal
Leçons sur la théorie générale des surfaces et les applications géométriques du calcul infinitésimal, 4 vol. (1887–96; “Lessons on the General Theory of Surfaces and the Geometric Applications of Infinitesimal Calculus”), one of his most important works, deals with infinitesimal geometry and embodies most of…
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1c68c574fb504129f731ece5822c19c1 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lecons-sur-le-calcul-des-variations | Leçons sur le calcul des variations | Leçons sur le calcul des variations
Hadamard’s Leçons sur le calcul des variations (1910; “Lessons on the Calculus of Variations”) helped to lay the foundations of the modern theory of functional analysis, in connection with which he introduced the term functional. Part of his work in determinants is important in the theory…
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82187a9a07a1284a3aee021413f78ff5 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/lectern | Lectern | Lectern
Lectern, originally a pedestal-based reading desk with a slanted top used for supporting liturgical books—such as Bibles, missals, and breviaries at religious services; later, a stand that supports a speaker’s books and notes. In early Christian times, lecterns, then known as ambos, were incorporated into the structure of the sanctuary—one on the north side of the choir for reading the Epistle, the other at the south for reading the Gospel.
The rise of monasticism, with its more elaborate rituals and heavier prayer books, stimulated the demand for a mobile lectern that could be moved about the sanctuary according to need. Usually made of wood, though occasionally of metal, the lectern lent itself to elaborate decorative treatment. The desklike structure was largely superseded in the later Middle Ages by an eagle, the back of whose outstretched wings provided support for a book; this type of lectern has maintained its popularity in ecclesiastical circles ever since. As the Reformation tended to favour congregation-orientated services, the lectern was moved into the body of the church. The Gothic Revival stimulated the production of lecterns in the 19th century, when they were often used to embellish the domestic interior. The modern secular lectern is usually a tall, narrow desk with a sloping top and a ledge to hold a dictionary, book, or other papers while its user reads or lectures from a standing position.
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c3b056056021522203450357c734fb44 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/lectionary | Lectionary | Lectionary
Lectionary, in Christianity, a book containing portions of the Bible appointed to be read on particular days of the year. The word is also used for the list of such Scripture lessons. The early Christians adopted the Jewish custom of reading extracts from the Old Testament on the sabbath. They soon added extracts from the writings of the Apostles and Evangelists. During the 3rd and 4th centuries, several systems of lessons were devised for churches of various localities. One of the first attempts for a diocese to fix definite readings for special seasons during the year was made by Musaeus of Marseille in the mid-5th century.
At first, the lessons were marked off in the margins of manuscripts of the Scriptures. Later, special lectionary manuscripts were prepared, containing in proper sequence the appointed passages. The Greek Church developed two forms of lectionaries, one (Synaxarion) arranged in accord with the ecclesiastical year and beginning with Easter, the other (Mēnologion) arranged according to the civil year (beginning September 1) and commemorating the festivals of various saints and churches. Other national churches produced similar volumes. Among the Western churches during the medieval period the ancient usage at Rome prevailed, with its emphasis on Advent.
During the 16th-century Reformation the Lutherans and Anglicans made changes in the Roman Catholic lectionaries. Luther was dissatisfied with the choice of many of the lessons from the letters in the Roman system, and he included a greater proportion of doctrinal passages. In the Anglican Church, the first edition of The Book of Common Prayer assigned for each day a passage of the Old Testament and the New Testament to be read at both the morning and evening services. Nearly all the saints’ days were dropped, and the new system assigned chapters of the Bible to be read consecutively. Present-day liturgists in many denominations have been active in revising traditional lectionary systems.
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