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tank, military

(Encyclopedia)tank, military, armored vehicle having caterpillar traction and armed with machine guns, cannon, rockets, or flame throwers. The tank, together with the airplane, opened up modern warfare, which had b...

Normandy campaign

(Encyclopedia)Normandy campaign, June to Aug., 1944, in World War II. The Allied invasion of the European continent through Normandy began about 12:15 a.m. on June 6, 1944 (D-day). The plan, known as Operation Over...

suicide

(Encyclopedia)suicide [Lat.,=self-killing], the deliberate taking of one's own life. Suicide may be compulsory, prescribed by custom or enjoined by the authorities, usually as an alternative to death at the hands o...

epic theater

(Encyclopedia)epic theater: see Brecht, Bertolt; Piscator, Erwin. ...

Mason, James

(Encyclopedia)Mason, James, 1909–84, British stage and film actor. Mason, trained at Cambridge as an architect, became a leading man in British films in the 1940s and thereafter an international star. With a velv...

Liddell Hart, Sir Basil Henry

(Encyclopedia)Liddell Hart, Sir Basil Henry lĭˈdəl härt [key], 1895–1970, English author and military strategist, b. Paris. His education at Cambridge was interrupted by World War I, in which he served (1914...

commando

(Encyclopedia)commando, small, elite military raiding and assault unit or soldier. Although the word was coined in the Boer War (1899–1902), the role is as old as battles themselves. In 1940, when the British org...

art history

(Encyclopedia)art history, the study of works of art and architecture. In the mid-19th cent., art history was raised to the status of an academic discipline by the Swiss Jacob Burckhardt, who related art to its cul...

Dirac, Paul Adrien Maurice

(Encyclopedia)Dirac, Paul Adrien Maurice dĭrăkˈ [key], 1902–84, English physicist. He was educated at the Univ. of Bristol and St. John's College, Cambridge, and became professor of mathematics at Cambridge in...

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