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Cherokee, indigenous people of North America

(Encyclopedia)Cherokee chĕrˈəkē [key], largest Native American group in the United States. Formerly the largest and most important tribe in the Southeast, they occupied mountain areas of North and South Carolin...

Neutrality Act

(Encyclopedia)Neutrality Act, law passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Aug., 1935. It was designed to keep the United States out of a possible European war by banning shi...

novena

(Encyclopedia)novena nōvēˈnə [key] [Lat.,=a group of nine], in the Roman Catholic Church, primarily a series of public or private prayers extending over nine consecutive days, especially nine days preceding a f...

cytomegalovirus

(Encyclopedia)cytomegalovirus sīˌtəmĕgˌəlōvīˈrəs [key], member of the herpesvirus family that can cause serious complications in persons with weakened immune systems and infants. A common virus, it is est...

Tunstall, Cuthbert

(Encyclopedia)Tunstall or Tonstall, Cuthbert both: tŭnˈstəl [key], 1474–1559, English bishop. After studying at Oxford, Cambridge, and Padua, he entered the church and was rapidly advanced. A friend of Thomas ...

passive resistance

(Encyclopedia)passive resistance a method of nonviolent protest against laws or policies in order to force a change or secure concessions; it is also known as nonviolent resistance and is the main tactic of civil d...

fuse, electric

(Encyclopedia)fuse, electric, safety device used to protect an electric circuit against an excessive current. A fuse consists essentially of a strip of low-melting alloy enclosed in a suitable housing. It is connec...

Gulf Stream

(Encyclopedia)Gulf Stream, warm ocean current of the N Atlantic Ocean, off E North America. It was first described (1513) by Spanish explorer Ponce de León. The Gulf Stream originates in the Gulf of Mexico and, as...

Tanizaki, Junichiro

(Encyclopedia)Tanizaki, Junichiro jo͝onēˈchērō tänēˈzäkē [key], 1886–1965, Japanese writer. A witness to the devastating Tokyo earthquake of 1923, he moved to the Kansai region (the greater Kyoto-Osaka ...

Norton, Charles Eliot

(Encyclopedia)Norton, Charles Eliot, 1827–1908, American scholar and teacher, b. Cambridge, Mass., grad. Harvard, 1846. As professor of the history of art at Harvard (1875–98) and as a man of letters he had a s...