British North America Act (1867) Act of the British Parliament by which three British colonies—Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada—were united as “one Dominion under the name of Canada.” The act also divided the province of Canada into the provinces of Quebec and Ontario. It served as Canada’s “constitution” until 1982, when it became the basis of the Canada Act.
British Somaliland Former British protectorate, southern shore of the Gulf of Aden, eastern Africa. In the Middle Ages it was a powerful Arab sultanate; it was broken up in the 17th century. Its coast came under Brit¬ ish influence in the early 19th century, but formal control was not acquired until it was taken from Egypt in 1884. It fell under Italian control in World War II. In 1960 it was united with the former Italian Somaliland to form Somalia. In 1991 a government opposition group declared the region comprising the former British Somaliland to be an independent state; however, it was not internationally recognized. See also Somaliland.
British Virgin Islands See British Virgin Islands
Brittany French Bretagne Vbro-'tanA Peninsula that forms a histori¬ cal and governmental region, northwestern France. Known in ancient times as Armorica, it comprised the coastal area between the Seine and Loire rivers. Inhabited by Celts, it was conquered by Julius Caesar and organized as a Roman province. Invaded in the 5th century ad by Brit¬ ons (Celtic people from Britain), the extreme northwestern part was there¬ after called Brittany. Subdued by Clovis I, it was never effectively part of the Merovingian or Carolingian kingdom. France claimed Brittany in the 13th century, but it remained a separate state until the 15th century. It was formally incorporated into France in 1532 and had province status until the French Revolution. Roughly coextensive with but smaller than the his¬ torical region, the current administrative region of Brittany (pop., 2004 est.: 3,011,000) covers 10,505 sq mi (27,209 sq km). Its capital is Rennes. It is an important agricultural region.
Britten of Aldeburgh, (Edward) Benjamin Britten, Baron (b.
Nov. 22, 1913, Lowestoft, Suffolk,
Eng.—d. Dec. 4, 1976, Aldeburgh,
Suffolk) British composer. He stud¬ ied at the Royal College of Music, where he met the tenor Peter Pears (1910-86), who would become his lifelong companion. His auspicious Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge (1937), for string orchestra, won him international acclaim. In 1945 his opera Peter Grimes estab¬ lished him as a leading opera com¬ poser. In 1948 he cofounded the Aldeburgh Festival, which became one of the most important English music festivals and the centre of Britten’s musical activities. His operas include The Rape of Lucretia (1946), The Turn of the Screw (1954), and Death in Venice (1973); they are admired for their skillful set¬ ting of English words and their orchestral interludes, as well as for their dramatic aptness and depth of psychological characterization. His large
choral work War Requiem (1961) was greatly acclaimed. His best-known orchestral piece is The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra (1946). In 1976 he became the first British composer in history to be ennobled.
Brno Vbsr-noX German Brunn VbruinX City (pop., 2001 prelim.: 379,185), southeastern Czech Republic. Located southeast of Prague, it lies in an area that shows evidence of prehistoric inhabitance and traces of Celtic and Slavic settlements in the 5th-6th centuries ad. German colo¬ nization in the 13th century stimulated its growth; it received city status in 1243. In various wars in the 15th—19th centuries, it was besieged by the Swedes, Prussians, and French. Before World War I it was the capital of the Austrian crown land of Moravia. The inhabitants, predominantly German before World War II, are now mainly Czech. Gregor Mendel worked on his theory of heredity (1865) in the monastery at Brno.
broaching machine Machine tool, usually hydraulically operated, for finishing surfaces by drawing or pushing a cutter called a broach entirely over and past the surface. A broach has a series of cutting teeth arranged in a row or rows, graduated in height from the teeth that cut first to those that cut last. Each tooth removes only a few thousandths of an inch, and the total depth of cut is distributed over all the teeth. Broaching is par¬ ticularly suitable for internal surfaces such as holes and internal gears, but it can also shape external gears and flat surfaces.
broad jump See long jump
broadband Term describing the radiation from a source that produces a broad, continuous spectrum of frequencies (contrasted with a laser, which produces a single frequency or very narrow range of frequencies). A typi¬ cal broadband-light source that can be used for either emission or absorp¬ tion spectroscopy is a metal filament heated to a high temperature, such as a tungsten lightbulb. Sunlight is also broadband radiation. See also BROADBAND TECHNOLOGY.
broadband technology Telecommunications devices, lines, or tech¬ nologies that allow communication over a wide band of frequencies, and especially over a range of frequencies divided into multiple independent channels for the simultaneous transmission of different signals. Broad¬ band systems allow voice, data, and video to be broadcast over the same medium at the same time. They may also allow multiple data channels to be broadcast simultaneously.
broadcasting Transmission of sound or images by radio or television. After Guglielmo Marconi’s discovery of wireless broadcasting in 1901, radio broadcasting was undertaken by amateurs. The first U.S. commer¬ cial radio station, KDKA of Pittsburgh, began operation in 1920. The number of stations increased rapidly, as did the formation of national radio networks. To avoid radio monopolies, Congress passed the Radio Act of 1927, which created the Federal Communications Commission to over¬ see broadcast operations. In the 1930s and ’40s, the “golden age of radio,” innovations in broadcast techniques and programming made radio the most popular entertainment medium. Television broadcasting began in Germany and Britain in the 1930s. After World War II, the U.S. took the lead, and television stations soon overshadowed radio networks. Color television broadcasts began in 1954 and became widespread in the 1960s. By the 1980s, satellite transmission of live television further expanded the field of broadcasting. See also ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, NBC, PBS.
Broadway Theatre district in New York City. It is named for the avenue that runs through the Times Square area in central Manhattan, where most of the larger theatres are located. Broadway attracted theatre producers and impresarios from the mid-19th century. The number and size of the theatres grew with New York’s increasing prosperity, and by the 1890s the brightly lit street was called “the Great White Way.” By 1925, the height of theatrical activity in New York, about 80 theatres were located on or near Broadway; by 1980 only about 40 remained. In the 1990s the revitalization of the seedy Times Square neighbourhood attracted larger audiences, though high production costs limited the viability of serious plays in Broadway theatres, which often chose to mount big musicals and other crowd-pleasing commercial ventures. See also Off- Broadway.
Broca Vbro-koV Paul (b. June 28, 1824, Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, Fr.—d. July 9, 1880, Paris) French surgeon. His study of brain lesions contrib¬ uted significantly to understanding of the origins of aphasia. Much of Broca’s research concerned the comparative study of the skulls of the races of humankind, work that aided the development of modern physi¬ cal anthropology. He originated methods to study the brain’s form, struc¬ ture, and surface features and sections of prehistoric skulls. His discovery