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Sunday school

(Encyclopedia)Sunday school, institution for instruction in religion and morals, usually conducted in churches as part of the church organization but sometimes maintained by other religious or philanthropic bodies....

Wilkes, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Wilkes, Charles, 1798–1877, American naval officer and explorer, b. New York City, educated by his father. In 1815 he entered the merchant service and received (1818) an appointment as a midshipman....

Douglas, Stephen Arnold

(Encyclopedia)Douglas, Stephen Arnold, 1813–61, American statesman, b. Brandon, Vt. The Democratic national convention at Charleston, S.C., in 1860 adopted Douglas's recommendations in a platform advocating non...

Deep Sea Drilling Project

(Encyclopedia)Deep Sea Drilling Project, U.S. program designed to investigate the evolution of ocean basins by core drilling of ocean sediments and underlying oceanic crust. Funded by the National Science Foundatio...

e-commerce

(Encyclopedia)e-commerce, commerce conducted over the Internet, most often via the World Wide Web. E-commerce can apply to purchases made through the Web or to business-to-business activities such as inventory tran...

Eliot, Charles William

(Encyclopedia)Eliot, Charles William, 1834–1926, American educator and president of Harvard, b. Boston, grad. Harvard, 1853. In 1854 he was appointed tutor in mathematics at Harvard and in 1858 became assistant p...

Butler, Nicholas Murray

(Encyclopedia)Butler, Nicholas Murray, 1862–1947, American educator, president of Columbia Univ. (1902–45), b. Elizabeth, N.J., grad. Columbia (B.A., 1882; Ph.D., 1884). Holding a Columbia fellowship, he studie...

museums of art

(Encyclopedia)museums of art, institutions or buildings where works of art are kept for display or safekeeping. The word museum derives from the Greek mouseion, meaning temple to the works of the Muses. This articl...

Saramago, José

(Encyclopedia)Saramago, José zho͞ozĕˈ särˌämäˈgo͞o [key], 1922–2010, Portuguese novelist and short-story writer. He became a member of the Communist party in 1969 and was a staunch atheist and a strong ...

ballot

(Encyclopedia)ballot, means of voting for candidates for office. The choice may be indicated on or by the ballot forms themselves—e.g., colored balls (hence the term ballot, which is derived from the Italian ball...