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Salic law, rule of succession

(Encyclopedia)Salic law sāˈlĭk [key], rule of succession in certain royal and noble families of Europe, forbidding females and those descended in the female line to succeed to the titles or offices in the family...

Devolution, War of

(Encyclopedia)Devolution, War of, 1667–68, undertaken by Louis XIV for the conquest of the Spanish Netherlands. On her marriage to Louis, Marie Thérèse, daughter of Philip IV of Spain, had renounced her rights ...

Amadis of Gaul

(Encyclopedia)Amadis of Gaul ämädēsˈ də gōl [key], famous prose romance of chivalry, first composed in Spain or Portugal and probably based on French sources. Entirely fictional, it dates from the 13th or 14t...

Epaminondas

(Encyclopedia)Epaminondas ĭpămĭnŏnˈdəs [key], d. 362 b.c., Greek general of Thebes. He was a pupil of Lysias the Pythagorean, but his early life is otherwise obscure. As the Theban delegate to the peace confe...

Family Compact, in French and Spanish history

(Encyclopedia)Family Compact, several alliances between France and Spain in the form of agreements between the French and Spanish branches of the Bourbon family. The first of the three compacts, the Treaty of the E...

International style, in architecture

(Encyclopedia)International style, in architecture, the phase of the modern movement that emerged in Europe and the United States during the 1920s. The term was first used by Philip Johnson in connection with a 193...

Fontainebleau

(Encyclopedia)Fontainebleau fôNtĕnblōˈ [key], town, Seine-et-Marne dept., N France, SE of Paris. It is a favorite ...

Juvarra, Filippo

(Encyclopedia)Juvarra, Filippo fēlēpˈpō yo͞ovärˈrä [key], 1678–1736, Italian architect of the late baroque and early rococo periods. Trained in the studio of Carlo Fontana in Rome, he entered (1714) the s...

João Pessoa

(Encyclopedia)João Pessoa zhwouN pəsôˈə [key], city (1991 pop. 497,600), capital of Paraíba state, NE Brazil, at the confluence of the Sanhauá and Paraíba do Norte rivers. Cotton, sugar, and minerals are ex...

Montgomery, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Montgomery, Richard, 1738?–1775, American Revolutionary general, b. Swords, Co. Dublin, Ireland. After entering the British army, he was sent (1757) to Canada in the French and Indian Wars and saw a...