Skip this Advertisement

A-Z Browse

  • captain (naval rank)
    On the sea a captain is usually the commander of a large warship—a cruiser, battleship, or aircraft carrier in the navy and any sizable ship in the mercantile marine service. In the British and U.S. navies the rank corresponds to the army rank of colonel, as does group captain in the Royal Air Force. An officer of lower rank is customarily given the courtesy title of captain when he is in.....
  • Captain Beefheart (American musician)
    innovative American avant-garde rock and blues singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist. Performing with the shifting lineup of musicians known as His Magic Band, Captain Beefheart produced a series of albums from the 1960s to the ’80s that had limited commercial appeal but were a major influence on punk and experimental rock....
  • Captain Blood (American film)
    The next wave of movies to feature fencing came in 1935, spurred on by Errol Flynn’s Captain Blood. In Captain Blood the fencing was more intricate and expertly staged than in earlier, silent films. Some of the most popular swashbuckling films of this era—and the actors who starred in them—include Ronald Colman in ......
  • Captain Brassbound’s Conversion (play by Shaw)
    ...rests upon its treatment of Caesar as a credible study in magnanimity and “original morality” rather than as a superhuman hero on a stage pedestal. The third play, Captain Brassbound’s Conversion (performed 1900), is a sermon against various kinds of folly masquerading as duty and justice....
  • Captain Carey, USA (film by Leisen [19450])
    ...a Dramatic or Comedy Picture: Franz Waxman for Sunset BoulevardScoring of a Musical Picture: Adolph Deutsch and Roger Edens for Annie Get Your GunSong: “Mona Lisa” from Captain Carey, USA; music and lyrics by Ray Evans and Jay LivingstonHonorary Award: Louis B. Mayer and George Murphy (actor), The Walls of Malapaga...
  • Captain Comeback (American athlete)
    American collegiate and professional gridiron football quarterback who was an important factor in the establishment of the National Football League (NFL) Dallas Cowboys as a dominant team in the 1970s....
  • Captain Fury (work by Skinner)
    Skinner made her first professional stage appearance with her father, the tragedian Otis Skinner, in Blood and Sand (1921) and collaborated with him in writing her first play, Captain Fury (1925). During the 1930s she wrote and staged her own monodramas, including The Loves of Charles II, The Empress Eugénie, The Mansions on the Hudson, and The Wives of......
  • captain general (Spanish history)
    in colonial Spanish America, the governor of a captaincy general, a division of a viceroyalty. Captaincies general were established districts that were under serious pressures from foreign invasion or Indian attack. Although under the nominal jurisdiction of their viceroys, captains general, because of their special military responsibilities and the considerable distance of their territories from ...
  • Captain Jack (Modoc subchief)
    ...U.S. government, moreover, failed in its treaty obligations to supply rations to the Modoc. Hence, in 1870 an insurgent band of Modocs under Kintpuash, a subchief known to the American military as Captain Jack, left the reservation. Federal efforts to induce this group’s return precipitated the Modoc War of 1872–73, in which about 80 warriors and their families retreated to the......
  • Captain Jan: A Story of Ocean Tugboats (work by Hartog)
    ...Later that year he fled to England and eventually settled in the United States. His first major novel, Hollands glorie: roman van de zeesleepvaart (1947; Captain Jan: A Story of Ocean Tugboats), relates with humour the tale of a young boy’s career in the merchant navy. De Hartog’s later novels, written in English, are of mainly ent...
  • Captain Kangaroo (American television producer and entertainer)
    American television producer and entertainer best known for his role as Captain Kangaroo on the children’s program of the same name (1955–84)....
  • Captain Kangaroo (American television program)
    Captain Kangaroo—given that name because in the show’s early years Keeshan wore an oversize coat with large pockets reminiscent of kangaroo pouches—began on Oct. 3, 1955. The walrus-mustached Captain—with such friends as Mr. Green Jeans, Bunny Rabbit, Dancing Bear, and Mr. Moose—brought education disguised as entertainment to his audie...
  • Captain Kidd (British pirate)
    17th-century British privateer and semilegendary pirate who became celebrated in English literature as one of the most colourful outlaws of all time. Fortune seekers have hunted his buried treasure in vain through succeeding centuries....
  • Captain of Köpenick, The (work by Zuckmayer)
    ...fröhliche Weinberg (1925; “The Happy Vineyard”), for which he received the Kleist Prize. Der Hauptmann von Köpenick (1931; The Captain of Köpenick), one of his most highly regarded works, is a satire on Prussian militarism. In 1933 political pressure forced him to immigrate to Austria, where he wro...
  • Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (work by Vargas Llosa)
    ...deals with Manuel Odría’s regime (1948–56). The novel Pantaleón y las visitadoras (1973; “Pantaleón and the Visitors”; Eng. trans. Captain Pantoja and the Special Service, filmed 2000) is a satire of the Peruvian military and religious fanaticism. His semiautobiographical novel La tía Julia y el......
  • Captain Quiros (work by McAuley)
    His first volume of poetry, Under Aldebaran (1946), was followed by A Vision of Ceremony (1956); Captain Quiros (1964), a verse narrative of the settlement and Christianization of Australia; Surprises of the Sun (1969); Collected Poems, 1936–70 (1971); Music Late at Night: Poems, 1970–1973 (1976); and A World of Its Own (1977).......
  • captain regent (Sammarinese official)
    ...The Great and General Council (Parliament) has 60 members, elected every five years by all adult citizens. It has legislative and administrative powers and every six months nominates the two captains regent (capitani reggenti), who hold office for that period and may not be elected again until three years have elapsed. The Great and General Council......
  • Captain Stormalong (folk character)
    ...backwoods Tennessee marksman. Other tall tales recount the superhuman exploits of western cowboy heroes such as William F. Cody and Annie Oakley. Native to the New England region are the tales of Captain Stormalong, whose ship was driven by a hurricane across the Isthmus of Panama, digging the Panama Canal, and Johnny Appleseed, who planted apple orchards from the east coast to the western......
  • Captain the Honourable John Hamilton (work by Reynolds)
    ...in 1744, he began to acquire a knowledge of the old masters and an independent style marked by bold brushwork and the use of impasto, a thick surface texture of paint, such as in his portrait of “Captain the Honourable John Hamilton” (1746)....
  • Captains Courageous (novel by Kipling)
    ...in the 1890s and immediately thereafter. His novel The Light That Failed (1890) is the story of a painter going blind and spurned by the woman he loves. Captains Courageous (1897), in spite of its sense of adventure, is often considered a poor novel because of the excessive descriptive writing. Kim (1901), although......
  • Captains Courageous (film by Fleming [1937])
    Other Nominees...
  • Captains General, Palace of the (museum, Havana, Cuba)
    The Museum of the City of Havana, formerly the Palace of the Captains General in Old Havana, contains many pieces of old furniture, pottery, jewelry, and other examples of colonial workmanship, as well as models of what Havana looked like in earlier centuries. The museum also houses material relating to the era of U.S. occupation and influence in Cuba. Other important museums are the National......
  • captive balloon (military aircraft)
    Unpowered, captive balloons also were used extensively for observation and artillery spotting in World War I, but by World War II they had become so vulnerable that they were used only as unmanned antiaircraft barrage balloons. Anchored to the ground or ships by cables, they compelled attacking enemy aircraft to fly high to avoid the cables; they also brought down many German pilotless V-1......
  • captive fleet (transport)
    A third scheme of organization is the captive fleet, a shipping company that is a subsidiary of a larger entity that moves its own cargo in a continuous stream. Prominent examples are the fleets owned by many major petroleum companies to bring crude oil to their refineries and to distribute their products from refinery to distribution centres....
  • Captive, The (work by Bourdet)
    ...(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 sexually maladjusted woman. With Vient de paraître (1928; “Just Appeared”), a satire on the literary world,...
  • “Captive Woman, The” (work by Echeverría)
    ...the cultivated young protagonist at the Buenos Aires slaughterhouse. Rosas and his henchmen stand for barbarism, the slain young man for civilization. Echeverría’s La cautiva (“The Captive Woman”), a long narrative poem about a white woman abducted by the Indians, is also among the better-known works of 19th-century Latin American......
  • Captorhinidae (reptile family)
    ...contact usually absent; supratemporal small. All taxa except for the captorhinids have diapsid skulls characterized by upper and lower temporal fenestrae.†Family Captorhinidae (captorhinids)Lower through Upper Permian. One family and about 12 genera. Prefrontal-palatine contact present; dermal sculpturi...
  • captorhinomorph (fossil)
    ...in Carboniferous deposits, Permian reptile fossils are common in certain locations and include the protorosaurs, aquatic reptiles ancestral to archosaurs (dinosaurs, crocodiles, and birds); the captorhinomorphs, “stem reptiles” from which most other reptiles are thought to have evolved; eosuchians, early ancestors of the snakes and lizards; early anapsids, ancestors of turtles;......
  • Captorhinus (fossil reptile)
    genus of extinct reptiles found as fossils in Permian rocks of North America (the Permian Period lasted from 299 million to 251 million years ago). Captorhinus was small with slender limbs; its full length was about 30 cm (12 inches), and its skull was only about 7 cm (2.75 inches) long. It bore some resemblance to a modern lizard. Captorhinus was one of the earliest and most primiti...
  • capture (nuclear physics)
    in nuclear physics, process in which an atomic nucleus absorbs a smaller particle. See beta decay; neutron capture....
  • capture (celestial mechanics)
    ...having orbits with high eccentricity, high inclination, or both, and sometimes even retrograde motion—must represent objects formerly in orbit around the Sun that were gravitationally captured by their respective planets. Neptune’s moon Triton and Saturn’s Phoebe are prominent examples of captured moons in retrograde orbits, but every giant planet has one or more retinues o...
  • capture, marriage by (ritual)
    ...that require complex formalities of transfer and exchange of goods, which are often regarded as compensation to the bride’s kin group for their loss of the bride. Ceremonies of dramatic, sham “capture” of the bride by the groom and his relatives and friends have been common in both preliterate and literate societies. Marriage in these societies is seen by social analysts as...
  • Capture of Miletus, The (play by Phrynichus)
    ...been the first to introduce female masks (i.e., female characters) into tragedy. After the Persians captured Athens’s former ally Miletus in 494, Phrynichus produced the tragedy The Capture of Miletus, which so harrowed Athenian feelings that he was fined. In 476, with the financial backing of the important Athenian democratic politician Themistocles, he won firs...
  • Captured and Abandoned Property Acts (United States [1863, 1864])
    On March 12, 1863, and July 2, 1864, the federal government passed additional measures (“Captured and Abandoned Property Acts”) that defined property subject to seizure as that owned by absent individuals who supported the South. The Confederate Congress also passed property confiscation acts to apply to Union adherents. But the amount of land actually confiscated during or after......
  • capturing game
    Capturing games. The aim is to collect or capture cards by methods other than trick taking (casino, slap jack, gops, snap, beggar-my-neighbour, battle). Many—but by no means all—are children’s games.Adding-up games. A running total is kept of the face values of cards played to the table, and the aim is to make or avoid making certain totals. Cribbage, the most sophisticated.....
  • Capua (Italy)
    town and episcopal see, Campania region, southern Italy, on the Volturno River and the ancient Appian Way, north of Naples. Casilinum was a strategic road junction and was contended for by the Carthaginian general Hannibal and the Romans from 216 to 211 bc, during the Second Punic War; it lost its importance to ancient Capua (now Santa Maria Capua Vetere), 3 miles ...
  • Capua (ancient city, Italy)
    in ancient times, the chief city of the Campania region of Italy; it was located 16 miles (26 km) north of Neapolis (Naples) on the site of modern Santa Maria Capua Vetere. The nearby modern city of Capua was called Casilinum in antiquity. Ancient Capua was founded in c. 600 bc, probably by the Etruscans, and came to dominate many of the surrounding communities (e.g., C...
  • Capua, Assizes of (Italy [1220])
    ...Frederick promulgated imperial laws against heresy, based on the decrees of the fourth Lateran Council. Following his coronation, he began to restore royal authority in the kingdom of Sicily. His Assizes of Capua (1220) set forth a program to regain control of royal rights alienated since the reign of Henry VI. He also began to establish a more effective central administration. He worked to......
  • Capuana, Luigi (Italian writer)
    Italian critic and writer who was one of the earliest Italian advocates of realism. Capuana influenced many writers, including the novelist Giovanni Verga and the playwright Luigi Pirandello, who were his friends....
  • capuchin monkey (monkey genus)
    common Central and South American primate found in tropical forests from Nicaragua to Paraguay. Capuchins, considered among the most intelligent of the New World monkeys, are named for their “caps” of hair, which resemble the cowls of Capuchin monks. These monkeys are round-headed and stockily built, with ful...
  • Capuchin Sister (religious order)
    ...and reasserting the strict principle of poverty; her followers came to be called the Colettine Poor Clares, or Poor Clares of St. Colette (P.C.C.), and today are located mostly in France. The Capuchin Sisters, originating in Naples in 1538, and the Alcantarines, of 1631, are also Poor Clares of the strict observance....
  • Capuchins (Franciscan order)
    an autonomous branch of the Franciscan order of religious men, begun as a reform movement in 1525 by Matteo da Bascio, who wanted to return to a literal observance of the rule of St. Francis of Assisi and to introduce elements of the solitary life of hermits. Matteo was concerned that the habit, or religious uniform, worn by the Franciscans was not one that St. Francis had worn;...
  • Capuleti ed i Montecchi, I (work by Bellini)
    ...reputation. He was fortunate in having as librettist the best Italian theatre poet of the day, Felice Romani, with whom he collaborated in his next six operas. The most important of these were I Capuleti ed i Montecchi (1830), based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet; La sonnambula (1831; The Sleepwalker); and Norma (1831). La sonnambula, an opera...
  • Capulidae (gastropod family)
    ...conchs (Strombidae) of tropical oceans and the pelican’s foot shells (Aporrhaidae) of near Arctic waters.Superfamily CalyptraeaceaCap shells (Capulidae) and slipper shells (Calyptraeidae) are limpets with irregularly shaped shells with a small internal cup or shelf; many species show sex reversal, becoming males ea...
  • Capulin Mountain National Monument (monument, New Mexico, United States)
    extinct volcano in northeastern New Mexico, U.S., about 25 miles (40 km) southeast of Raton. It was established in 1916 as Capulin Mountain National Monument, its boundary changed in 1962, and it was renamed in 1987. The monument, which covers 1.2 square miles (3.1 square km), contains the cinder cone of Capulin Mountain....
  • Capulin Volcano National Monument (monument, New Mexico, United States)
    extinct volcano in northeastern New Mexico, U.S., about 25 miles (40 km) southeast of Raton. It was established in 1916 as Capulin Mountain National Monument, its boundary changed in 1962, and it was renamed in 1987. The monument, which covers 1.2 square miles (3.1 square km), contains the cinder cone of Capulin Mountain....
  • Capurro, Alfred (American actor)
    American actor who breathed new life into musical theatre as the star of Broadway’s Oklahoma! (1943), which featured his rich baritone voice in renditions of “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning,” “People Will Say We’re in Love,” and “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top.”...
  • capybara (rodent)
    the largest living rodent, a semiaquatic mammal of Central and South America. The capybara is the sole member of the family Hydrochoeridae, but it resembles the cavy and guinea pig of the family Caviidae....
  • Caquetá (department, Colombia)
    departamento, southern Colombia, bounded south by the Caquetá River and northeast by the Apaporis River. Given commissary status in 1910 and raised to intendency level in 1950 and to department status in the late 1970s, the territory consists of forested lowlands except in the west, where it rises abruptly into the Andean Cordillera (mountains) Oriental. The region...
  • Caquetá River (river, South America)
    river that rises as the Caquetá River east of Pasto, Colombia, in the Colombian Cordillera Central. It meanders generally east-southeastward through the tropical rain forest of southeastern Colombia. After receiving the Apaporis River at the Brazilian border, it takes the name Japurá and flows eastward to join the stretch of the Amazon known as the Solimões River, above Tef...
  • Caquetío (people)
    Indians of northwestern Venezuela living along the shores of Lake Maracaibo at the time of the Spanish conquest. They moved inland to avoid enslavement by the Spaniards but were eventually destroyed as were their neighbours, the Quiriquire and the Jirajara....
  • caquetoire (chair)
    ...design; the back became narrower, the panelled sides and base were replaced by carved and turned arms and supports, and legs were joined by stretchers at their base. A specialized chair known as a caquetoire, or conversation chair, supposedly designed for ladies to sit and gossip in, had a high, narrow back and curved arms....
  • car (railroad vehicle)
    After the first crude beginnings, railroad-car design took divergent courses in North America and Europe, because of differing economic conditions and technological developments. Early cars on both continents were largely of two-axle design, but passenger-car builders soon began constructing cars with three and then four axles, the latter arranged in two four-wheel swivel trucks, or bogies. The......
  • car
    a usually four-wheeled vehicle designed primarily for passenger transportation and commonly propelled by an internal-combustion engine using a volatile fuel....
  • car insurance
    a contract by which the insurer assumes the risk of any loss the owner or operator of a car may incur through damage to property or persons as the result of an accident. There are many specific forms of motor vehicle insurance, varying not only in the kinds of risk that they cover but also in the legal principles underlying them....
  • Car Nicobar (island, India)
    ...The islands, along with the Andaman Islands to the north, constitute the boundary between the southeastern Bay of Bengal (west) and the Andaman Sea (east). The Nicobar group includes the islands of Car Nicobar (north), Camorta (Kamorta) and Nancowry (central group), and Great Nicobar (south)....
  • car pool
    ...a variety of forms of individualized ride sharing that put 2, 4, or even 10 people in a single vehicle. Some agencies provide rider matching services and better parking arrangements to encourage carpooling, the sharing of auto rides by people who make similar or identical work trips. Car-pool vehicles are privately owned, the guideways (roads) are in place, drivers do not have to be......
  • car sickness
    sickness induced by motion and characterized by nausea. The term motion sickness was proposed by J.A. Irwin in 1881 to provide a general designation for such similar syndromes as seasickness, train sickness, car sickness, and airsickness. This term, though imprecise for scientific purposes, has gained wide acceptance....
  • Cara, Irene (American actress and singer-songwriter)
    ...Adaptation Score: Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman, Michel Legrand for YentlOriginal Song: “Flashdance...What a Feeling” from Flashdance; music by Giorgio Moroder, lyrics by Irene Cara and Keith ForseyHonorary Award: Hal Roach...
  • Cara, Marchetto (Italian composer)
    ...Italy, particularly at Ferrara and Urbino. Serafino dall’Aquila (d. 1500) was an important frottola poet. The most important composers of frottola were Bartolomeo Tromboncino (d. c. 1535) and Marchetto Cara (d. c. 1530). At times the same person wrote both text and music....
  • Caraballo Mountains (mountains, Philippines)
    mountains in central Luzon, Philippines. The range reaches an elevation of about 5,500 feet (1,680 metres). It joins the Cordillera Central to the north and the Sierra Madre to the east. Drained by the headwaters of the northward-flowing Cagayan River, the mountains are heavily forested....
  • Carabaya, Cordillera de (mountains, Peru)
    ...Real from Bolivia ends in the rough mountain mass of the Vilcanota Knot at latitude 15° S. From this knot (nudo), two lofty and narrow chains emerge northward, the Cordilleras de Carabaya and Vilcanota, separated by a deep gorge; a third range, the Cordillera de Vilcabamba, appears to the west of these and northwest of the city of Cuzco. The three ranges are products of......
  • Carabias Lillo, Julia (Mexican scientist)
    In January 2001 the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) awarded its 23rd annual J. Paul Getty Wildlife Conservation Prize to Mexican environmental scientist Julia Carabias Lillo. The WWF commended Carabias for her efforts to promote public participation in the development of environmental policy. During her term as Mexico’s secretary of the environment, natural resources, and fisheries, she doubled t...
  • carabid beetle (insect)
    any member of over 30,000 insect species in one of the largest families in the insect order Coleoptera. They can be found in almost any terrestrial habitat on Earth. Ground beetles are recognized by their long legs and shiny black or brown elytra (wing covers), which are decorated with ridges and may be fused together along the midline. In many species the hind wings are reduced or absent. Ground ...
  • Carabidae (insect)
    any member of over 30,000 insect species in one of the largest families in the insect order Coleoptera. They can be found in almost any terrestrial habitat on Earth. Ground beetles are recognized by their long legs and shiny black or brown elytra (wing covers), which are decorated with ridges and may be fused together along the midline. In many species the hind wings are reduced or absent. Ground ...
  • Carabina, Harry Christopher (American sportscaster)
    American sportscaster who gained national prominence for his telecasts of Chicago Cubs baseball games on Chicago-based superstation WGN during the 1980s and 1990s....
  • carabine à tige (weaponry)
    ...the chamber so that, when fired, the bullet fit the rifling tightly. In 1844 another French officer, Louis-Étienne de Thouvenin, introduced yet a better method for expanding bullets. His carabine à tige embodied a post or pillar (tige) at the breech against which the bullet was expanded....
  • carabiner (metal ring)
    ...often learned on local cliffs, where the teamwork of mountaineering, the use of the rope, and the coordinated prerequisites of control and rhythm are mastered. The rope, the artificial anchor, and carabiner (or snap link, a metal loop or ring that can be snapped into an anchor and through which the rope may be passed) are used primarily as safety factors. An exception occurs in tension......
  • Carabiniere (Italian police)
    one of the three national police forces of Italy. Originally an elite military organization in the Savoyard states, the corps became part of the Italian armed forces at the time of national unification (1861) and is still considered part of the army. Members of the corps wear military-style uniforms (with a Napoleonic-type hat) and are housed in barracks, and the corps has a variety of military du...
  • Carabinieri (Italian police)
    one of the three national police forces of Italy. Originally an elite military organization in the Savoyard states, the corps became part of the Italian armed forces at the time of national unification (1861) and is still considered part of the army. Members of the corps wear military-style uniforms (with a Napoleonic-type hat) and are housed in barracks, and the corps has a variety of military du...
  • Carabobo (state, Venezuela)
    estado (state), northwestern Venezuela, bounded north by the Caribbean Sea, and by the states of Aragua (east), Guárico and Cojedes (south), and Yaracuy (west). It has an area of 1,795 sq mi (4,650 sq km) and was named in commemoration of the battle that proved decisive in the Venezuelan independence movement. At the time the Spaniards conquered Ven...
  • Carabobo, Battle of (South American history)
    (June 24, 1821), during the Latin American wars of independence, a victory won by South American patriots over Spanish royalists on the plains to the west of Caracas; it virtually freed Venezuela from Spanish control. Following the instructions of the recently installed liberal government in Spain, Gen. Pablo Morillo had signed an armistice with Simón Bolívar, comm...
  • caracal (mammal)
    (Felis caracal), short-tailed cat (family Felidae) found in hills, deserts, and plains of Africa, the Middle East, and central and southwestern Asia. The caracal is a sleek, short-haired cat with a reddish brown-coat and long tufts of black hairs on the tips of its pointed ears. Long legged and short tailed, it stands 40–45 centimetres (16–18 inches) at the shoulder and varie...
  • Caracalla (Roman emperor)
    Roman emperor, ruling jointly with his father, Septimius Severus, from 198 to 211 and then alone from 211 until his assassination in 217. His principal achievements were his colossal baths in Rome and his edict of 212, giving Roman citizenship to all free inhabitants of the empire. Caracalla, whose reign contributed to the decay of the empire, has often been regarded as one of the most bloodthirst...
  • Caracalla, Baths of (building, Rome, Italy)
    public baths in ancient Rome begun by the emperor Septimius Severus in ad 206 and completed by his son the emperor Caracalla in 216. Among Rome’s most beautiful and luxurious baths, designed to accommodate about 1,600 bathers, the Baths of Caracalla continued in use until the 6th century. The extant ruins, together with modern excavations ...
  • Caracalla, Edict of (ancient Rome)
    ...of Roman citizenship declined in the empire, however, because military service was no longer compulsory, and suffrage was invalidated by the abolition of republican government. In ad 212 the Edict of Caracalla granted citizenship to all free inhabitants of the empire....
  • Caracallus (Roman emperor)
    Roman emperor, ruling jointly with his father, Septimius Severus, from 198 to 211 and then alone from 211 until his assassination in 217. His principal achievements were his colossal baths in Rome and his edict of 212, giving Roman citizenship to all free inhabitants of the empire. Caracalla, whose reign contributed to the decay of the empire, has often been regarded as one of the most bloodthirst...
  • caracara (bird)
    any of about 10 species of birds of prey of the New World subfamily Polyborinae (or Daptriinae) of the family Falconidae. Caracaras feed largely on carrion, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. They are gregarious and aggressive. In spite of their smaller size, they dominate vultures when feeding. Caracaras are recognized by their long legs and by the reddish naked skin of the cheeks and throat. They ...
  • Caracas (Venezuela)
    city, capital of Venezuela, and one of the principal cities of South America. It is Venezuela’s largest urban agglomeration and the country’s primary centre of industry, commerce, education, and culture. Founded in 1567 as Santiago de León de Caracas, the city grew slowly until the 1940s, after which it expanded by monumental proportions and its influence ca...
  • Caracas Company (Spanish trading company)
    trading concern chartered by the Spanish crown in 1728, with a monopoly on trade between Spain and Venezuela. It was one of a number of companies for colonial trade established under the 18th-century Bourbon kings, and it was the only one that was financially successful. The company was given extensive commercial privileges to promote officially sanctioned trade and thus to prevent smuggling. It a...
  • Caracas, Poliedro de (building, Caracas, Venezuela)
    ...115.3 metres (384 feet) in diameter using steel tube members. These are used as workshops for the Union Tank Car Company in Wood River, Ill., and Baton Rouge, La. The largest geodesic dome is the Poliedro de Caracas, in Venezuela, built of aluminum tubes spanning 143 metres (469 feet)....
  • Caracas, Universidad de (university, Caracas, Venezuela)
    state-supported tropical garden occupying a 65-hectare (160-acre) site in Caracas, Venez. The garden has excellent collections of palms, cacti, aroids, bromeliads, pandanuses, and other groups of tropical plants of considerable botanical interest; also important is a large, untouched tract of the original mountainside vegetation. The herbarium maintained by the research centre comprises about......
  • Caracciola, Rudolf (German race–car driver)
    German automobile-racing driver who was one of the most successful and versatile of modern times. He participated in hill climbs and speed trials as well as races....
  • Caraccioli Altarpiece (work by Ordónez and de Siloé)
    ...Ordóñez apparently studied under Andrea Sansovino in Florence, though not much is known of his early years. It is known that he collaborated with Diego de Siloé on the “Caraccioli Altarpiece” (1514–15; San Giovanni a Carbonara) and worked on the marble tomb of Andrea Bonifacio (c. 1518; SS. Severino e Sosia), both in Naples. He probably......
  • Caracciolo, Domenico (Habsburg viceroy)
    ...which called for equal justice for all, state intervention in economic affairs, and broad educational reforms, ranks among the most important works of the European Enlightenment. At the same time, Domenico Caracciolo, the viceroy to Sicily from 1781 to 1785, implemented a reform program that abolished the Inquisition and challenged the fabric of the feudal system, but again without concrete......
  • Caracciolo, Francesco, duca di Brienza (Italian admiral)
    Neapolitan admiral who was executed on the orders of the British admiral Horatio Nelson for supporting the republican revolution at Naples in 1799. Considered a traitor by some Italians, he at first supported King Ferdinand IV of Naples but later accepted command of the navy of the Parthenopean Republic, which was declared January 23, 1799, when the French too...
  • Caracciolo, Giovanni (Italian courtier)
    Joan appointed her next lover, Giovanni Caracciolo (called Sergianni), as grand seneschal; he made peace with Sforza and appointed him grand constable. Nevertheless, Sforza supported Louis III of Anjou’s claim to the Neapolitan throne. Joan thereupon called on Alfonso V the Magnanimous of Aragon for aid, adopting him as her heir. Alfonso arrived in Naples in July 1421 and began to......
  • Caracol (archaeological site, Belize)
    major prehistoric Mayan city, now an archaeological site in west-central Belize, 47 miles (76 km) southeast of the Guatemalan Mayan city of Tikal. The name is Spanish (meaning “snail”); the original Mayan name is unknown....
  • Caracol, El (observatory, Mexico)
    ...and planets from atop their terraced towers known as ziggurats. No astronomical instruments appear to have been used. The Indians of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico carried out the same practice at El Caracol, a dome-shaped structure somewhat resembling a modern optical observatory. There is again no evidence of any scientific instrumentation, even of a rudimentary nature....
  • caracole (military tactic)
    ...infantry formations by approaching them in serried ranks, firing at point-blank range, and withdrawing in turn—a maneuver resembling the orderly moves of a ballroom dance and known as the caracole. Insofar as they sacrificed the cavalry’s greatest advantages—namely, its mobility and sheer mass—such methods were never very effective. A much better system was to rely o...
  • Caractacus (king of Trinovantes)
    king of the British tribe of Trinovantes, and the son of Cunobelinus....
  • “Caracteres de Theophraste traduits du grec avec Les Caracteres ou les moeurs de ce siecle, Les” (work by La Bruyère)
    ...satiric moralist who is best known for one work, Les Caractères de Théophraste traduits du grec avec Les Caractères ou les moeurs de ce siècle (1688; The Characters, or the Manners of the Age, with The Characters of Theophrastus), which is considered to be one of the masterpieces of French literature....
  • “Caractères originaux de l’histoire rurale française, Les” (work by Bloch)
    ...production and dissemination of a long-lived, powerful political myth of monarchical healing power. The second, Les Caractères originaux de l’histoire rurale française (1931; French Rural History: An Essay on Its Basic Characteristics), is a rich, evocative study of France’s diverse field patterns and its forms of agrarian civilization from the Middle A...
  • Caradeuc de la Chalotais, Louis-René de (French magistrate)
    French magistrate who led the Breton Parlement (high court of justice) in a protracted legal battle against the authority of the government of King Louis XV. The struggle resulted in the purging and suspensions (1771–74) of the Parlements....
  • Caradoc (king of Trinovantes)
    king of the British tribe of Trinovantes, and the son of Cunobelinus....
  • Caradon (district, England, United Kingdom)
    district, administrative and historic county of Cornwall, England. It lies between Bodmin Moor and the English Channel in southeastern Cornwall; the River Tamar forms the boundary with Devon to the east. The district depends on Plymouth in Devon for many services and is linked to that city by road and rail bridges across the Tamar at Saltash, car ferry at Torp...
  • Caradon of St. Cleer, Hugh Mackintosh Foot, Baron (British diplomat)
    British diplomat who led British colonies to their independence....
  • Carafa, Gian Pietro (pope)
    Italian Counter-Reformation pope from 1555 to 1559, whose anti-Spanish policy renewed the war between France and the Habsburgs....
  • Carafa, Oliviero (Italian cardinal)
    ...his activity as a designer and was devoting himself to the study of the ancient monuments in and around Rome, even ranging as far south as Naples. In the meantime, he had come in contact with Oliviero Carafa, the wealthy and politically influential cardinal of Naples, who had a deep interest in letters, the arts, and antiquity. Carafa commissioned the first work in Rome known to be by......
  • carageenan extract (biology)
    ...a greenish yellow to a dark purple; when sun-dried and bleached it has a yellowish, translucent, hornlike aspect and consistency. The principal constituent of Irish moss is a gelatinous substance, carrageenan, which can be extracted by boiling. Carrageenan is used for curing leather and as an emulsifying and suspending agent in pharmaceuticals, food products, cosmetics, and shoe polishes. In......
Skip this Advertisement

Link to this article and share the full text with the readers of your Web site or blog-post.

If you think a reference to this article on "" will enhance your Web site, blog-post, or any other web-content, then feel free to link to this article, and your readers will gain full access to the full article, even if they do not subscribe to our service.

You may want to use the HTML code fragment provided below.

copy link

We welcome your comments. Any revisions or updates suggested for this article will be reviewed by our editorial staff. Contact us here.

Regular users of Britannica may notice that this comments feature is less robust than in the past. This is only temporary, while we make the transition to a dramatically new and richer site. The functionality of the system will be restored soon.

The Britannica Store
A-Z Browse

Image preview