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Vienna State Opera

(Encyclopedia)Vienna State Opera, opera house and company in Vienna, Austria, founded in 1869 as an expansion of the Vienna Court Opera (Hofoper). Destroyed by wartime bombing in 1945, the elegant building's recons...

Akhmatova, Anna

(Encyclopedia)Akhmatova, Anna əndrāˈəvnə gôryĕngˈkô [key], 1888–1966, Russian poet of the Acmeist school. Her brief lyrics, simply and musically written in the tradition of Pushkin, attained great popula...

Bay of Pigs Invasion

(Encyclopedia)Bay of Pigs Invasion, 1961, an unsuccessful invasion of Cuba by Cuban exiles, supported by the U.S. government. On Apr. 17, 1961, an armed force of about 1,500 Cuban exiles landed in the Bahía de Coc...

Neurath, Constantin, Baron von

(Encyclopedia)Neurath, Constantin, Baron von kônˈstäntēn bärônˈ fən noiˈrätˌ [key], 1873–1956, German diplomat. After holding numerous diplomatic posts, he was (1932–38) foreign minister under chance...

Lothian, Philip Henry Kerr, 11th marquess of

(Encyclopedia)Lothian, Philip Henry Kerr, 11th marquess of kär, lōˈᵺēən [key], 1882–1940, British statesman. He served (1905–10) on various government commissions in South Africa and was a member of Miln...

Roehm, Ernst

(Encyclopedia)Roehm or Röhm, Ernst both: ĕrnst röm [key], 1887–1934, German National Socialist leader. An army officer in World War I, he met (1919) Adolf Hitler, whose political career he helped to launch. Ro...

Schaumburg-Lippe

(Encyclopedia)Schaumburg-Lippe shoumˈbo͝orkh-lĭpˈə [key], former state, N Germany, E of the Weser River. In 1946 it was placed in Lower Saxony. Bückeburg was the capital. It was situated in a fertile agricult...

pogrom

(Encyclopedia)pogrom pōˈgrəm, pōgrŏmˈ [key], Russian term, originally meaning “riot,” that came to be applied to a series of violent attacks on Jews in Russia in the late 19th and early 20th cent. Pogroms...

Staunton, Howard

(Encyclopedia)Staunton, Howard, 1810–74, English chess player, writer, and editor, b. Westmoreland. Settling (1836) in London, he edited (1841–54) England's first major chess magazine and wrote (1845–74) a ch...

Houdini, Harry

(Encyclopedia)Houdini, Harry ho͞odēˈnē [key], 1874–1926, American magician and writer, b. Budapest, Hungary, as Erik Weisz, later modified to Ehrich Weiss; his stage name honors the French magician Houdin. By...