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Muggleton, Lodowicke

(Encyclopedia)Muggleton, Lodowicke, 1609–98, English religious leader, a journeyman tailor. With his cousin John Reeve, also a tailor, he founded a new sect, whose adherents were known as Muggletonians. In 1652, ...

acknowledgment

(Encyclopedia)acknowledgment, in law, formal declaration or admission by a person who executed an instrument (e.g., a will or a deed) that the instrument is his. The acknowledgment is made before a court, a notary ...

demiurge

(Encyclopedia)demiurge dĕmˈēûrjˌ [key] [Gr.,=workman, craftsman], name given by Plato in a mythological passage in the Timaeus to the creator God. In Gnosticism the Demiurge, creator of the material world, was...

evidence

(Encyclopedia)evidence, in law, material submitted to a judge or a judicial body to resolve disputed questions of fact. The rules discussed in this article were developed in England for use in jury trials. Today, t...

Kurapaty

(Encyclopedia)Kurapaty, wooded area, northern outskirts of Minsk, Belarus, site of the execution of thousands of Belarussians and others by Soviet secret police between 1937 and 1941. The official count of those ex...

Madoc

(Encyclopedia)Madoc or Madog (Madoc ap Owain Gwynedd) mădˈək, mäˈ– [key], fl. 1170?, quasi-historical Welsh prince. According to Welsh legend, Madoc, said to be a son of Owain Gwynedd, discovered America 300...

Holocaust

(Encyclopedia)Holocaust hŏlˈəkôstˌ, hōˈlə– [key], name given to the period of persecution and extermination of European Jews by Nazi Germany. Romani (Gypsies), homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, the disabl...

grand jury

(Encyclopedia)grand jury, in law, body of persons selected to inquire into crimes committed within a certain jurisdiction. It usually comprises a greater number than the trial, or petit (also, petty) jury, having s...

inquest

(Encyclopedia)inquest, in law, a body of men appointed by law to inquire into certain matters. The term also refers to the inquiry itself as well as to the findings of the inquiry. The most usual form of inquest to...

Gardiner, Sir Christopher

(Encyclopedia)Gardiner, Sir Christopher, fl. 1630–32, figure in the early history of the Massachusetts Bay colony. When the Puritans arrived in Massachusetts Bay in 1630, they found that Gardiner had preceded the...

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