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Cartwright, Alexander Joy

(Encyclopedia)Cartwright, Alexander Joy, 1820–92, American baseball player, b. New York City. He worked as a bank teller and a bookseller, and was a volunteer firefighter with the Knickerbocker Fire Engine Compan...

Rezanov, Nikolai Petrovich

(Encyclopedia)Rezanov, Nikolai Petrovich nyĭkəlīˈ pētrôˈvîch ryĕzäˈnəf [key], 1764–1807, Russian trader, an official of the Russian American Company. In 1803 he headed an expedition that aimed to go a...

Pinnacles National Park

(Encyclopedia)Pinnacles National Park, c.26,000 acres (10,500 hectares), in the Gabilan Mts. of the Coast Ranges, W central Calif.; est. as a national monument 1980, designated a national park 2013. Pinnacles featu...

Rice, Charles Moen

(Encyclopedia)Rice, Charles Moen, 1952–, American virologist, b. Sacramento, Calif., Ph.D. California Institute of Technology, 1981. Rice was a researcher at the Washington Univ. School of Medicine from 1986 to 2...

hunger strike

(Encyclopedia)hunger strike, refusal to eat as a protest against existing conditions. Although most often used by prisoners, others have also employed it. For example, Mohandas Gandhi in India and César Chávez in...

affirmative action

(Encyclopedia)affirmative action, in the United States, programs to overcome the effects of past societal discrimination by allocating jobs and resources to members of specific groups, such as minorities and women....

Steinbeck, John

(Encyclopedia)Steinbeck, John, 1902–68, American writer, b. Salinas, Calif., studied at Stanford. He is probably best remembered for his strong sociological novel The Grapes of Wrath, considered one of the great ...

Southern Pacific Company

(Encyclopedia)Southern Pacific Company, transportation system chartered (1865) in California and later reincorporated in Kentucky (1885) and Delaware (1947). Small railroads—known collectively as the Southern Pac...

Eisenhower, Milton Stover

(Encyclopedia)Eisenhower, Milton Stover, 1899–1985, American educator and public official, b. Abilene, Kans., grad. Kansas State College of Agriculture and Applied Science (now Kansas State Univ.), 1924; brother ...

Croix, Carlos Francisco de Croix, marqués de

(Encyclopedia)Croix, Carlos Francisco de Croix, marqués de kärˈlōs fränthēsˈkō dā krəwäˈ märkāsˈ dā krəwäˈ [key], 1699–1786, Spanish colonial administrator, b. Lille, France. As viceroy of New ...