(Translated by https://www.hiragana.jp/)
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  • yolk gland (zoology)
    ...but only one or two ovaries are usually present in these flatworms. The female system is unusual in that it is separated into two structures: the ovaries and the vitellaria, often known as the vitelline glands or yolk glands. In contrast, in most higher animals the yolk is part of the egg. The cells of the vitellaria form yolk and eggshell components. In some groups, particularly those......
  • yolk sac (biology)
    ...embryos hatch in an extremely undeveloped but self-sustaining state as few as eight hours after fertilization. The yolk mass is large in some animals and becomes surrounded by a membrane called the yolk sac, the vessels of which convey yolk to the embryo. In some species, yolk also passes from the yolk sac directly into the fetal intestine....
  • yolk-sac placenta (anatomy)
    ...Chorioallantoic placentas (i.e., a large chorion fused with a large allantois) occur in certain lizards, in marsupials with long gestation periods, and in mammals above marsupials. The yolk-sac placenta does not invade maternal tissues, but intimate interlocking folds may occur between the two. The chorioallantoic membranes of reptiles and mammals exhibit many degrees of intimacy......
  • Yolo City (California, United States)
    city, seat (1862) of Yolo county, central California, U.S. It lies in the Sacramento Valley, 20 miles (30 km) northwest of Sacramento. It was founded in 1853 by Henry Wyckoff and was first known as Yolo City; the present name, suggested by its location in a grove of oak trees, was adopted in 1859 when the first post office was opened....
  • Yom ha-Bikkurim (Judaism)
    (“Festival of the Weeks”), second of the three Pilgrim Festivals of the Jewish religious calendar. It was originally an agricultural festival, marking the beginning of the wheat harvest. During the Temple period, the first fruits of the harvest were brought to the Temple, and two loaves of bread made from the new wheat were offered. This aspect of the holiday is re...
  • Yom ha-kippurim (Judaism)
    most solemn of Jewish religious holidays, observed on the 10th day of the lunar month of Tishri (in the course of September and October), when Jews seek to expiate their sins and achieve a reconciliation with God. Yom Kippur concludes the “10 days of repentance” that begin with Rosh Hashana (New Year’s Day) on the first day of Tishri. The Bible refers to Yom...
  • Yom Ha-Zikkaron (Judaism)
    a major Jewish observance now accepted as inaugurating the religious New Year on Tishri 1 (September or October). Because the New Year ushers in a 10-day period of self-examination and penitence, Rosh Hashana is also called the annual Day of Judgment; during this period each Jew reviews his relationship with God, the Supreme Judge. A distinctive feature of the liturgy is the blowing of the ram...
  • Yom Hashoa (Israeli holiday)
    Since the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948, three other holidays have been added to the Jewish calendar. They are Holocaust Day (Nisan 27), Remembrance Day (Iyyar 4), and Independence Day (Iyyar 5)....
  • Yom Hashoah ve Hagevurah (Israeli holiday)
    Since the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948, three other holidays have been added to the Jewish calendar. They are Holocaust Day (Nisan 27), Remembrance Day (Iyyar 4), and Independence Day (Iyyar 5)....
  • Yom Kippur (Judaism)
    most solemn of Jewish religious holidays, observed on the 10th day of the lunar month of Tishri (in the course of September and October), when Jews seek to expiate their sins and achieve a reconciliation with God. Yom Kippur concludes the “10 days of repentance” that begin with Rosh Hashana (New Year’s Day) on the first day of Tishri. The Bible refers to Yom...
  • Yom Kippur War (Middle East [1973])
    damaging, inconclusive war and the fourth of the Arab-Israeli wars. The war was initiated by Egypt and Syria on Oct. 6, 1973, on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur and during Ramadan, the month of fasting in Islam, and continued until Oct. 26, 1973. The war, which eventually drew both t...
  • Yom River (river, Thailand)
    ...largely by two river systems: the Chao Phraya in the west and the Mekong in the east. Three major rivers in the northern mountains—from west to east, the Ping (and its tributary the Wang), the Yom, and the Nan—flow generally south through narrow valleys to the plains and then merge to form the Chao Phraya, Thailand’s principal river. The delta floodplain of the Chao Phraya ...
  • Yŏm Sangsŏp (Korean writer)
    The movement for literary naturalism was launched in the 1920s by a group of young writers who rallied around a new definition of universal reality. Yŏm Sangsŏp, the first to introduce psychological analysis and scientific documentation into his stories, defined naturalism as an expression of awakened individuality. Naturalism’s purpose, Yŏm asserted, was to expose the....
  • Yom Teruah (Judaism)
    a major Jewish observance now accepted as inaugurating the religious New Year on Tishri 1 (September or October). Because the New Year ushers in a 10-day period of self-examination and penitence, Rosh Hashana is also called the annual Day of Judgment; during this period each Jew reviews his relationship with God, the Supreme Judge. A distinctive feature of the liturgy is the blowing of the ram...
  • Yomi no Kuni (Japanese mythology)
    ...in ancient Shintō. One was the three-dimensional view in which the Plain of High Heaven (Takama no Hara, the kami’s world), Middle Land (Nakatsukuni, the present world), and the Hades (Yomi no Kuni, the world after death) were arranged in vertical order. The other view was a two-dimensional one in which this world and the Perpetual Country (Tokoyo, a utopian place far beyon...
  • yomihon (Japanese literature)
    a subgenre of gesaku, a type of popular Japanese literature of the Tokugawa, or Edo, period (1603–1867). Yomihon were distinguished from books, enjoyed mainly for their illustrations, and were noted for their extended plots culled from Chinese and Japanese historical sources. These novels were openly moralistic romances, and their highly schematized characters often included w...
  • Yomiuri Giants (Japanese baseball team)
    ...in 1934, and by 1936 seven professional teams had been organized. A system of two leagues composed of six teams each was instituted in 1950. Each 135-game season culminates in the Japan Series. The Yomiuri (Tokyo) Giants have been the dominant team in the Japan Series, with a total of 19 championships for the years 1950–2000. The next closest team, the Seibu Lions, won 11 championships.....
  • Yomiuri shimbun (Japanese newspaper)
    Japanese national daily newspaper, the largest in circulation and the most sensational in editorial style of Japan’s “big three” dailies....
  • Yomou (Guinea)
    town, southeastern Guinea. It is the chief trading centre (rice, cassava, coffee, and palm oil and kernels) for a densely forested region of the Guinea Highlands mainly inhabited by the Guerze (Kpelle) and Mano (Manon) peoples. The surrounding area borders Liberia on the east, west, and south and the Guinean regions of Macenta on the northwest and Nzérékoré ...
  • Yomud carpet
    floor covering handwoven by the Yomut Turkmen of Turkmenistan, usually of good to excellent quality. In contrast to Tekke carpets, there is considerable variety of design among the larger Yomut carpets. Many have diagonal rows in which a single diamond- or lozenge-shaped motif is repeated with diverse colourings. This motif may be edged with latch hooks; but the most characteris...
  • Yomut (horse)
    ...of all sheep in the republic. There are several prized varieties of Karakul pelts: the glistening black arabi, the golden sur, and the silver-gray shirazi. The Akhal Teke and Yomut breeds of horses deserve their fame as handsome, fleet animals with great endurance. Arabian dromedary (one-humped) camels are indispensable in desert areas for transporting sheepherders, for......
  • Yomut (people)
    ...16th and 17th centuries the Chaudor tribe led a powerful tribal union in the north, while the Salor tribe was dominant in the south. During the 17th and 18th centuries the ascendancy passed to the Yomuts, Tekkes, Ersaris, and Saryks, who began to move out of the desert into the oases of Khorezm and to the Atrek, Tejen, and Morghāb rivers and to adopt a settled way of life. There was......
  • Yomut carpet
    floor covering handwoven by the Yomut Turkmen of Turkmenistan, usually of good to excellent quality. In contrast to Tekke carpets, there is considerable variety of design among the larger Yomut carpets. Many have diagonal rows in which a single diamond- or lozenge-shaped motif is repeated with diverse colourings. This motif may be edged with latch hooks; but the most characteris...
  • Yon-tan-rgya-mtsho (Dalai Lama)
    The fourth Dalai Lama, Yon-tan-rgya-mtsho (1589–1617), was a great-grandson of Altan Khan and the only non-Tibetan Dalai Lama....
  • Yonago (Japan)
    city, western Tottori ken (prefecture), western Honshu, Japan. It is located on the delta of the Hino River, which forms the Yonago Plain. The city occupies the base of a sandspit called Yumiga Beach, which extends from the mouth of the river northwest into the Sea of Japan (East Sea). Yonago was originally a fishing village called Kano. With the constructi...
  • Yonezawa (Japan)
    city, southern Yamagata ken (prefecture), north-central Honshu, Japan. From the Muromachi period (1338–1573) to the Meiji Restoration (1868) it was a castle town of the Uesugi daimyo family. The ruling family initiated agrarian reforms by constructing irrigation systems and allowing samurai (warriors) to cultivate the fields and ma...
  • Yong (prince of Tang dynasty)
    ...the capital and most of Hebei and Henan. In the last days of his reign, Xuanzong had divided the empire into five areas, each of which was to be the fief of one of the imperial princes. Prince Yong, who was given control of the southeast, was the only one to take up his command; during 757 he attempted to set himself up as the independent ruler of the crucially important economic heart of......
  • yong (Chinese philosophy)
    ...problems: the quest for a permanent substratum (called ti, “substance”) behind the world of change (called yong, “function”). It started from the assumption that all temporally and spatially limited phenomena—anything “nameable”; all movement, change, and......
  • Yong River (river, China)
    city and capital of the Zhuang Autonomous Region of Guangxi, China. The city is located in the south-central part of Guangxi on the north bank of the Yong River (the chief southern tributary of the Xi River system) and lies some 19 miles (30 km) below the confluence of the You and the Zuo rivers. The Yong River (which later becomes the Yu River) affords a good route to Guangzhou (Canton) and is......
  • “Yŏng singun ka” (Korean song)
    Three songs are handed down in Chinese translation: “Kuji ka” (or “Yŏng singun ka”; “Song for Welcoming the Gods,” in the Samguk yusa), “Hwangjo ka” (17 bc; “Song of Orioles,” in the Samguk sagi), and “Kong mudoha ka” (or “Konghuin”; “A Medley for the Harp,...
  • Yong’an (China)
    city, west-central Fujian sheng (province), southeastern China. It is situated on the Sha River, a southern tributary of the Min River....
  • “Yongbi ŏch’ŏn ka” (Korean poem)
    ...15th centuries, and the akchang (“words for songs”) in the 15th century. The most representative akchang is Yongbi ŏch’ŏn ka (1445–47; Songs of Flying Dragons), a cycle compiled in praise of the founding of the Yi dynasty. Korean poetry originally was meant to be sung, and its forms and styles reflect its melodic origi...
  • Yongding He (river, China)
    The principal tributaries are the Chao River, rising in the mountains north and northeast of Beijing; the Yongding River, flowing southeastward from the Guanting Reservoir through Beijing to Tianjin; the Daqing River, flowing eastward from the Taihang Mountains to join the Hai at Tianjin; and the Ziya River, flowing northeastward from southwestern Hebei toward Tianjin, along with its important......
  • Yongding River (river, China)
    The principal tributaries are the Chao River, rising in the mountains north and northeast of Beijing; the Yongding River, flowing southeastward from the Guanting Reservoir through Beijing to Tianjin; the Daqing River, flowing eastward from the Taihang Mountains to join the Hai at Tianjin; and the Ziya River, flowing northeastward from southwestern Hebei toward Tianjin, along with its important......
  • Yonge, Charlotte M. (British author)
    English novelist who dedicated her talents as a writer to the service of the church. Her books helped to spread the influence of the Oxford Movement, which sought to bring about a return of the Church of England to the High Church ideals of the late 17th century....
  • Yonge, Charlotte Mary (British author)
    English novelist who dedicated her talents as a writer to the service of the church. Her books helped to spread the influence of the Oxford Movement, which sought to bring about a return of the Church of England to the High Church ideals of the late 17th century....
  • Yonge, Nicholas (composer)
    Although the madrigal was popular outside Italy, the only country to develop a strong native tradition was England. In 1588 Nicholas Yonge published Musica Transalpina, a large collection of Italian madrigals in English translation. Thomas Morley, the most popular and Italianate of the Elizabethan madrigalists, assimilated the Italian style and adapted it to English taste, which......
  • Yonge Reef (reef, Queensland, Australia)
    A characteristic form in a barrier reef system is the wall, or ribbon, reef, emergent at low tide, such as Yonge Reef, Queens., Australia. A ribbon reef flat is commonly only 300 to 450 metres wide from the seaward wall to its lagoonward edge. Its ends may curve leeward and border the passages between it and the next reefs in line. Rarely, there may be an unvegetated sand cay. A wall reef may......
  • Yonge, Sir Maurice (British zoologist)
    Even with these restrictions, the diversity of feeding patterns is bewildering. A useful classification has been put forward by British zoologists Sir Maurice Yonge and J.A.C. Nicol, based on the structural mechanisms utilized, although, as Nicol observed, “many animals make use of a variety of feeding mechanisms, conjointly, or separately as occasion demands”: I. Mechanisms for......
  • Yonge Street (street, Ontario, Canada)
    ...Iroquois. Streets are laid out in a grid, although the pattern is modified to some extent by diagonal roads roughly following the shoreline. The central business areas are located around Bloor and Yonge streets and Yonge and Queen streets. The central financial district, with its numerous insurance and banking offices and the Toronto Stock Exchange, is in the vicinity of King and Bay streets,.....
  • Yongji Canal (canal, China)
    ...southeast of the present city. The area became important in the late part of the Sui dynasty (581–618) and in the early part of the Tang dynasty (618–907), after the completion of the Yongji canal linking the area of Tianjin with the Huang He (Yellow River) and Luoyang in Henan province. Because the city was in an area of poor natural drainage traversed by several large rivers, in...
  • Yongjia (China)
    city and port, southeastern Zhejiang sheng (province), southeastern China. It is situated on the south bank of the Ou River, some 19 miles (30 km) from its mouth. The estuary of the Ou River is much obstructed by small islands and mudbanks, but the port is accessible by ships of up to about 1,000 tons. The Ou long provided the main transpo...
  • Yongle (emperor of Ming dynasty)
    reign name (nianhao) of the third emperor (1402–24) of China’s Ming dynasty (1368–1644), which he raised to its greatest power. He moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing, which was rebuilt with the Forbidden City....
  • Yongle dadian (Chinese encyclopaedia)
    Chinese compilation that was the world’s largest known encyclopaedia. Compiled during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) by thousands of Chinese scholars under the direction of the Yongle emperor (reigned 1402–24), it was completed in 1408. The work contained 22,937 manuscript rolls, or chapters (including the index), in 11,095 volumes and was d...
  • Yongli (emperor of Nan Ming dynasty)
    claimant to the Ming throne after the Manchu forces of Manchuria had captured the Ming capital at Beijing and established the Qing dynasty (1644–1911/12)....
  • Yonglo (emperor of Ming dynasty)
    reign name (nianhao) of the third emperor (1402–24) of China’s Ming dynasty (1368–1644), which he raised to its greatest power. He moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing, which was rebuilt with the Forbidden City....
  • “Yongluo Dadien” (Chinese encyclopaedia)
    Chinese compilation that was the world’s largest known encyclopaedia. Compiled during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) by thousands of Chinese scholars under the direction of the Yongle emperor (reigned 1402–24), it was completed in 1408. The work contained 22,937 manuscript rolls, or chapters (including the index), in 11,095 volumes and was d...
  • Yongning (China)
    city and capital of the Zhuang Autonomous Region of Guangxi, China. The city is located in the south-central part of Guangxi on the north bank of the Yong River (the chief southern tributary of the Xi River system) and lies some 19 miles (30 km) below the confluence of the You and the Zuo rivers. The Yong River (which later becomes the Yu River) affords a good...
  • Yŏngsan hoesang (Korean suite)
    ...yang ch’in, or, in Korean, yang-gŭm). The most famous suite of movements in this and in orchestral traditions is the Yŏngsan hoesang, which consists of 9 to 11 pieces taking some 30 minutes to play. The title is based on a former religious chant about the Buddha preaching on......
  • Yŏngsan River (river, South Korea)
    river, southwestern South Korea. Rising in extreme northern Chŏlla-namdo (North Chŏlla Province), the Yŏngsan River flows southwest into the Yellow Sea near Mokp’o. The drainage basin is South Korea’s most important rice growing area and was the scene in the mid-1970s of the construction of four multipurpose dams for both flood control and water storage....
  • Yŏngsan-gang (river, South Korea)
    river, southwestern South Korea. Rising in extreme northern Chŏlla-namdo (North Chŏlla Province), the Yŏngsan River flows southwest into the Yellow Sea near Mokp’o. The drainage basin is South Korea’s most important rice growing area and was the scene in the mid-1970s of the construction of four multipurpose dams for both flood control and water storage....
  • Yongyan (emperor of Qing dynasty)
    reign name (nianhao) of the fifth emperor of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911/12), during whose reign (1796–1820) a partial attempt was made to restore the flagging state of the empire....
  • Yongzheng (emperor of Qing dynasty)
    reign name (nianhao) of the third emperor (reigned 1722–35) of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911/12), during whose rule the administration was consolidated and power became concentrated in the emperor’s hands....
  • yongzhong (Chinese bell)
    The suspended bells fall into two main categories: those with a straight handle plus a lug at the top, which are suspended slantwise on a wooden frame, are called yongzhong; those having a ring that allows for vertical suspension are called niuzhong. The earliest known ......
  • yoni (Hinduism)
    in Hinduism, aniconic representation of the female sexual organ and the symbol of the goddess Shakti, the feminine generative power and, as a goddess, the consort of Shiva. The yoni is often associated in the iconography of Shaivism with the phallic linga, Shiva’s symbol. The linga is depicted in ...
  • Yonju (China)
    city, southwest-central Jiangsu province (sheng), eastern China. It lies to the north of the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) at the southern terminus of the section of the Grand Canal that joins the Huai River to the Yangtze. Pop. (2002 est.) 548,204....
  • Yonkers (New York, United States)
    city, Westchester county, southeastern New York, U.S., on the east shore of the Hudson River, in a hilly region north of the Bronx, New York City. The site, once a major village, Nappeckamack, of the Manhattan Indians, was acquired by the Dutch West India Company in 1639. Adriaen van d...
  • Yonne (department, France)
    ...région of France encompassing the central départements of Côte-d’Or, Saône-et-Loire, Nièvre, and Yonne. Burgundy is bounded by the régions of Île-de-France and Champagne-Ardenne to the north, Franche-Comté to the east, Rhône-Alp...
  • Yonne River (river, France)
    river, north central France, a left-bank tributary of the Seine River. From its source in the Nièvre département at the foot of Mont Preneley, located in the Morvan heights west of Autun, to its confluence with the Seine at Montereau, the Yonne is 182 mi (293 km) long. It speeds north-northwest through deep, wooded gorges to Pannessières–Chaumard, where its turbu...
  • Yono (Japan)
    ...highway between Ōsaka and Edo (Tokyo) during the Tokugawa period (1603–1867), and both grew rapidly in the 20th century, especially after World War II. Between them was the much smaller Yono, which did not become urbanized until after the war and whose area was restricted by its two expanding neighbours. Merger discussions among the three were initiated before the war but did not....
  • Yonsama (Korean actor)
    South Korean actor, who achieved fame as the romantic lead in a number of globally syndicated televised drama series....
  • Yopal (Colombia)
    town and capital of Casanare departamento, eastern Colombia. The original settlement (caserío) of Yopal was founded in 1935 by Pedro Pablo González, and it has been the seat of Casanare intendency (now departamento) since the creation of Casanare in 1974. Located at the western edge of the Llanos (plains), Yopal has road connections to Sagamosa...
  • yopo (drug)
    hallucinogenic snuff made from the seeds of a tropical American tree (Piptadenia peregrina) and used by Indians of the Caribbean and South America at the time of early Spanish explorations. DMT (N,N-dimethyltryptamine) and bufotenine are thought to have been the active principles. Cohoba was inhaled deeply by means of special b...
  • Yoram (king of Israel)
    one of two contemporary Old Testament kings....
  • Yorba Linda (California, United States)
    city, Orange county, southern California, U.S. The area was explored by a Spanish expedition in 1769, and in 1801 Juan Pablo Grijalva received a Spanish land grant known as Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana; Grijalva’s sons-in-law, the Peraltas and the Yorbas, inherited the land, and the Yorba family retained ownership until the mid-19th century. In 1907 part of the former Yor...
  • Yorck (German film)
    Ucicky’s first nationalistic film, Yorck (1931), was panned in the United States as being no more than an overglorified depiction of an episode of German history. Though similarly criticized in Austria, the movie launched a string of films that were approved for the German public by Joseph Goebbels, Nazi minister of propaganda. Morgenrot (19...
  • Yorck von Wartenburg, Johann David Ludwig, Graf (Prussian field marshal)
    Prussian field marshal, reformer, and successful commander during the Wars of Liberation (1813–15) against France. His initiative in signing a separate neutrality agreement with Russia during the Napoleonic invasion of that country (Convention of Tauroggen, 1812) opened the way for Prussia to join the Allied powers against Napoleon....
  • Yordan, Philip (American screenwriter and producer)
    Screenplay: George Seaton for The Country GirlMotion Picture Story: Philip Yordan for Broken LanceStory and Screenplay: Budd Schulberg for On the WaterfrontCinematography, Black-and-White: Boris Kaufman for On the WaterfrontCinematography, Color: Milton Krasner for Three Coins in the FountainArt......
  • yorde merkava (Judaism)
    ...advent of God’s kingdom) and documents of certain sects (Dead Sea Scrolls) and the writings, preserved in Hebrew, of the “explorers of the supernatural world” (yorde merkava). The latter comprise ecstatic hymns, descriptions of the “dwellings” (hekhalot) located between the visible w...
  • Yore deʿa (Jewish law)
    ...(“Master of the Rows”). His four divisions are: (1) Oraḥ ḥayyim (“Path of Life”), dealing with laws governing prayer and ritual; (2) Yore deʿa (“Teacher of Knowledge”), setting forth the laws concerning things that are permitted or forbidden, such as dietary laws; (3) Even ha-ʿezer (“Stone of......
  • Yorghan Tepe (ancient city, Iraq)
    ancient Mesopotamian city, located southwest of Kirkūk, Iraq. Excavations undertaken there by American archaeologists in 1925–31 revealed material extending from the prehistoric period to Roman, Parthian, and Sāsānian periods. In Akkadian times (2334–2154 bc) the site was called Gasur; but early in the 2nd millennium bc the Hurrians, o...
  • Yorick Club (literary club)
    ...convicted of a crime, who falls into the degradation of the convict world. It was written melodramatically in a style of almost garish realism. Clarke enjoyed good company and helped to found the Yorick Club, which numbered among its members many of the literary lights of his day....
  • Yorimitsu (Japanese mythology)
    one of the most popular of the legendary Japanese warrior heroes and a member of the martial Minamoto clan. In his exploits he is always accompanied by four trusty lieutenants. One adventure concerns his vanquishing the boy-faced giant Shuten-dōji (“Drunkard Boy”), who lived on human blood and who together with his repulsive retainers terrorized the countryside around his stro...
  • York (Ontario, Canada)
    former city (1983–98), southeastern Ontario, Canada. In 1998 it amalgamated with the cities of Toronto, Etobicoke, Scarborough, and North York and the borough of East York to form the City of Toronto. York was established as a borough in 1967, through the amal...
  • York (American explorer)
    ...modifying the keelboat they were to use, engaging the participation of several Kentuckians, and drilling the men during their winter camp. The Corps of Discovery (which included Clark’s slave York) departed on May 14, 1804, with Clark operating as the expedition’s principal waterman and cartographer. His monumental maps of the West (1810–14) represented the best available u...
  • York (city and unitary authority, England, United Kingdom)
    city and unitary authority, geographic county of North Yorkshire, historic county of Yorkshire, northern England. It lies at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss, about midway between London and Edinburgh. It is the cathedral city of the archbishop of York and was historically the ecclesiastical capital of northern England. York is also the traditional c...
  • York (county, Maine, United States)
    county, extreme southwestern Maine, U.S. It is located in a coastal region bordered by New Hampshire to the west and southwest (that border largely defined by the Salmon Falls and Piscataqua rivers), the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Ossipee and Saco rivers to the north. Maine and New Hampshire share the Isles of Shoals, a group of islands about 7 miles (11 km) offshore th...
  • York (Pennsylvania, United States)
    city, seat (1749) of York county, southeastern Pennsylvania, U.S., on Codorus Creek, 28 miles (45 km) southeast of Harrisburg. It is the focus of a metropolitan district that includes the boroughs of North York and West York and a number of townships....
  • York (county, South Carolina, United States)
    county, northern South Carolina, U.S. North Carolina forms the northern border, the Catawba River part of the eastern border, and the Broad River part of the western border. On the northern border is Lake Wylie, created by one of the state’s first hydroelectric projects, the Catawba Dam on the Catawba River. York co...
  • York (Maine, United States)
    town, York county, southwestern Maine, U.S., situated at the mouth of the York River on the Atlantic Ocean, 43 miles (69 km) southwest of Portland. York includes the communities of York Village, Cape Neddick, York Beach, and York Harbor. Settled in 1624 on a site called Agamenticus by Captain John Smith, who had explored the area in 1614, it...
  • York (county, Pennsylvania, United States)
    county, southern Pennsylvania, U.S., bordered to the northeast and east by the Susquehanna River, to the south by Maryland, and to the northwest by Yellow Breeches Creek. It consists of a hilly piedmont region that rises to the Blue Ridge Mountains in the northwest. The county waterways include Lakes Marburg, Redman, and Williams, as well as...
  • York, Alvin Cullum (United States military hero)
    celebrated American hero of World War I, immortalized by the film version of his life story, Sergeant York (1941)....
  • York and Albany, Frederick Augustus, duke of (English nobleman)
    second son of King George III of Great Britain, younger brother of George IV, and British field commander in two unsuccessful campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars....
  • York, Cape (point, Queensland, Australia)
    northernmost point of the Australian continent, comprising the northern tip of Cape York Peninsula, in the state of Queensland. The cape juts north-northeast from the peninsula into Torres Strait, which separates it from the island of New Guinea. The cape is about 15 miles (25 km) long and 12 miles (19 km) wide. It was named in 1770 by Captain James Cook for the Duke of York, brother of King Georg...
  • York, Convocations of (religious meeting)
    in the Church of England, ecclesiastical assemblies of the provinces of Canterbury and of York that meet two or three times a year and, since the mid-19th century, have been concerned particularly with the reform of the canons of ecclesiastical law....
  • York, Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of (English noble)
    fourth surviving legitimate son of King Edward III of England and founder of the House of York as a branch of the Plantagenet dynasty....
  • York, Edward of Norwich, 2nd duke of (English noble)
    Yorkist who led a checkered career in the reigns of Richard II of England and the usurper Henry IV....
  • York, Elizabeth, Duchess of (queen consort of United Kingdom)
    queen consort of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1936–52), wife of King George VI. She was credited with sustaining the monarchy through numerous crises, including the abdication of Edward VIII and the death of Princess Diana....
  • York Factory (historical settlement, Manitoba, Canada)
    historical settlement in northeastern Manitoba, Canada. It lies at the mouth of the Hayes River, on Hudson Bay. It was the site of a Hudson’s Bay Company post (Fort Nelson) built in 1683 and destroyed in 1684 by the French; a new fort, named for the duke of York (later King James II), was quickly erected. The fort changed hands several times until by the Treaty of Utrecht...
  • York, Henry Stuart, cardinal duke of (British pretender)
    last legitimate descendant of the deposed (1688) Stuart monarch James II of Great Britain. To the Jacobites—supporters of Stuart claims to the British throne—he was known as King Henry IX of Great Britain for the last 19 years of his life....
  • York, house of (English family)
    younger branch of the house of Plantagenet of England. In the 15th century, having usurped the throne from the house of Lancaster, it provided three kings of England—Edward IV, Edward V, and Richard III—and, in turn defeated, passed on its claims to the Tudor dynasty....
  • York Island (island, Galápagos Islands, Ecuador)
    one of the Galapagos Islands, in the eastern Pacific Ocean about 600 miles (965 km) west of mainland Ecuador. Its relief is dominated by two volcanoes, the larger rising to 1,700 feet (520 m), that form the mass of the island’s area of 203 square miles (526 square km). Originally named for England’s King James II, who was previously the duke of Y...
  • York, James, Duke of (king of Great Britain)
    king of Great Britain from 1685 to 1688, and the last Stuart monarch in the direct male line. He was deposed in the Glorious Revolution (1688–89) and replaced by William III and Mary II. That revolution, engendered by James’s Roman Catholicism, permanently established Parliament as the ruling power of England...
  • York Minster (cathedral, York, England, United Kingdom)
    England has only fragmentary remains of 12th-century glass. The nave clerestory windows in York Minster contain some reused panels from a series of narrative windows, one of which depicted the life of St. Benedict (c. 1140–60). Another panel, a single figure of a king from a Jesse tree, shows some affinity in style with the glass at Saint-Denis and Chartres but is probably later in.....
  • York plays (medieval cycle)
    a cycle of 48 plays, dating from the 14th century, of unknown authorship, which were performed during the Middle Ages by craft guilds in the city of York, in the north of England, on the summer feast day of Corpus Christi. Some of the York plays are almost identical with corresponding plays in the Wakefield cycle, and it has been suggested that there was an original (now lost) ...
  • York Realist (playwright)
    ...of the York plays, about 14 plays (mainly those concerning Christ’s Passion) were redacted into alliterative verse. These are powerful and the work of a dramatic genius, often referred to as the York Realist....
  • York Retreat (asylum, York, England, United Kingdom)
    ...and dungeons were replaced by sunny rooms; patients were also permitted to exercise on the hospital grounds. Among other reformers were the British Quaker layman William Tuke, who established the York Retreat for the humane care of the mentally ill in 1796, and the physician Vincenzo Chiarugi, who published a humanitarian regime for his hospital in Florence in 1788. In the mid-19th century......
  • York, Richard, 3rd duke of (English noble)
    claimant to the English throne whose attempts to gain power helped precipitate the Wars of the Roses (1455–85) between the houses of Lancaster and York; he controlled the government for brief periods during the first five years of this struggle. He was the father of two English kings, Edward IV and Richard III....
  • York, Richard, Duke of (son of Edward IV)
    ...the Roses and arranged a temporary reconciliation between the two sides in 1458. Nevertheless, after the defeat of the Lancastrians in 1461, Bourchier became a loyal supporter of the newly crowned Yorkist monarch Edward IV, who made him a cardinal in 1467. In 1483 he persuaded Edward’s widow to hand over her youngest son, Richard, Duke of York—a potential claimant to the throne...
  • York, Richard Plantagenet, duke of (fictional character)
    ...1 covers the early part of King Henry’s reign and ends with events immediately preceding the opening of Part 2. It contains the entirely nonhistorical scene in which Richard Plantagenet, later duke of York, chooses a white rose and John Beaufort, earl (later duke) of Somerset, a red rose as emblems of their respective houses of York and Lancaster. It...
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