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Tokugawa

(Encyclopedia)Tokugawa tōˌko͞ogäˈwä [key], family that held the shogunate (see shogun) and controlled Japan from 1603 to 1867. Founded by Ieyasu, the Tokugawa regime was a centralized feudalism. The Tokugawa ...

Wałęsa, Lech

(Encyclopedia)Wałęsa, Lech lĕkh väwĕnˈzə [key], 1943–, Polish labor and political leader. He worked as an electrician at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk but was dismissed in 1976 for his antigovernment prote...

Warren Commission

(Encyclopedia)Warren Commission, popular name given to the U.S. Commission to Report upon the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, established (Nov. 29, 1963) by executive order of President Lyndon B. Johnso...

Scotland Yard

(Encyclopedia)Scotland Yard, headquarters of the London Metropolitan Police. The term is often used, popularly, to refer to one branch, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). Named after a short street in Lon...

Müller, Herta

(Encyclopedia)Müller, Herta, 1953–, Romanian-born German author, grad. Timişoara Univ. (1976). A member of Romania's German-speaking minority, she was active in a group of dissident writers who opposed Ceauşes...

Hoover, J. Edgar

(Encyclopedia)Hoover, J. Edgar (John Edgar Hoover), 1895–1972, American administrator, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), b. Washington, D.C. Shortly after he was admitted to the bar, he enter...

Gómez, Juan Vicente

(Encyclopedia)Gómez, Juan Vicente gōˈmĕs [key], 1857–1935, caudillo of Venezuela (1908–35). Of indigenous and white parentage, Gómez was born on a ranch in the Western Andes and grew up a nearly illiterat...

Fonseca, Rubem

(Encyclopedia)Fonseca, Rubem, 1925–2020, Brazilian short-story writer and novelist. Fonseca, who studied law and worked for a time as a police officer, is known for urban crime tales, many informed by his police ...

Triad Society

(Encyclopedia)Triad Society, name given to a number of Chinese antidynastic secret societies by 19th-century Western observers. Most of these groups claimed descent from the Heaven and Earth Society (Taendi hui) or...

Fouché, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Fouché, Joseph zhôzĕfˈ fo͞oshāˈ [key], b. 1759 or 1763, d. 1820, French revolutionary and minister of police. A teacher in the schools of the Oratorian order, he joined the French Revolution an...