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Jim Crow laws

(Encyclopedia)Jim Crow laws, in U.S. history, statutes enacted by Southern states and municipalities, beginning in the 1880s, that legalized segregation between blacks and whites. The name is believed to be derived...

integration

(Encyclopedia)integration, in U.S. history, the goal of an organized movement to break down the barriers of discrimination and segregation separating African Americans from the rest of American society. Racial segr...

Mbeki, Thabo Mvuyelwa

(Encyclopedia)Mbeki, Thabo Mvuyelwa täˈbō mvo͝oyĕlˈə mbĕkˈē [key], 1942–, South African political leader. Mbeki was born into a politically active family; his father, Govan Mbeki, an official with the A...

Dravidian languages

(Encyclopedia)Dravidian languages drəvĭdˈēən [key], family of about 23 languages that appears to be unrelated to any other known language family. The Dravidian languages are spoken by more than 200 million peo...

Wilbur, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Wilbur, Richard, 1921–2017, American poet and translator, b. New York City, B.A. Amherst, 1942, M.A. Harvard, 1947. A virtuoso craftsman who wrote with grace and precision in traditional verse forms...

Habermas, Jürgen

(Encyclopedia)Habermas, Jürgen yûrˈgən häˈbûrmäs [key], 1929–, German philosopher. He is a professor at the Univ. of Frankfurt (emeritus since 1994) and is the best-known contemporary proponent of critica...

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...

Du Bois-Reymond, Emil

(Encyclopedia)Du Bois-Reymond, Emil āˈmēl dü bwä-rāmôNˈ [key], 1818–96, German physiologist of French descent. A pupil and successor (after 1858) of Johannes Müller at the Univ. of Berlin, he is known es...

Bayliss, Sir William Maddock

(Encyclopedia)Bayliss, Sir William Maddock bāˈlĭs [key], 1860–1924, English physiologist. At University College, London, he investigated the mechanism of heart action, circulation, and digestion. With E. H. St...

Tonkin Gulf resolution

(Encyclopedia)Tonkin Gulf resolution, in U.S. history, Congressional resolution passed in 1964 that authorized military action in Southeast Asia. On Aug. 4, 1964, North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonki...