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redbud

(Encyclopedia)redbud or Judas tree, name for trees and shrubs of the genus Cercis, handsome plants of the family Leguminosae (pulse family), covered along the branches in the early spring with deep rose or (rarely)...

pyrotechnics

(Encyclopedia)pyrotechnics pīˌrōtĕkˈnĭks, pīˌrə– [key], technology of making and using fireworks. Gunpowder was used in fireworks by the Chinese as early as the 9th cent., and it was they who brought fir...

willow-pattern ware

(Encyclopedia)willow-pattern ware, sometimes porcelain but frequently opaque pottery, originated in Staffordshire, England, c.1780. Thomas Minton (see Minton, family), then an apprentice potter, developed and engra...

Songjiang

(Encyclopedia)Songjiang or Sungkiang both: so͞ongˈjyängˈ [key], former province (c.32,000 sq mi/82,880 sq km), NE China. Mudanjiang was the capital. It was one of nine provinces created in Manchuria by the Chin...

Taichung

(Encyclopedia)Taichung or T'ai-chung both: tīˈjo͞ongˈ [key], special municipality (2010 pop. 2,731,056), 855 sq mi (2,214 sq km), W central Taiwan. It was created in 2010 by merging the city of Taichung with Ta...

Captains' Revolution

(Encyclopedia)Captains' Revolution, coup staged (Apr. 25, 1974) by military officers who opposed Portugal's policy toward its African territories. By early 1974 dissatisfaction with the debilitating, seemingly endl...

Blücher, Vasily Konstantinovich

(Encyclopedia)Blücher, Vasily Konstantinovich blüˈkhər [key], 1889–1937?, Russian general. An enlisted man in the czarist army, Blücher joined the Bolshevik party in 1916. He rose to high command in the civ...

zinc oxide

(Encyclopedia)zinc oxide, chemical compound, ZnO, that is nearly insoluble in water but soluble in acids or alkalies. It occurs as white hexagonal crystals or a white powder commonly known as zinc white. Zinc white...

Melaka

(Encyclopedia)Melaka or Malacca both: məlăkˈə [key], state (1991 pop. 504,502), 640 sq mi (1,658 sq km), Malaysia, S Malay Peninsula, on the Strait of Malacca. Formerly one of the Straits Settlements, it was co...

Cultural Revolution

(Encyclopedia)Cultural Revolution, 1966–76, mass mobilization of urban Chinese youth inaugurated by Mao Zedong in an attempt to prevent the development of a bureaucratized Soviet style of Communism. Mao closed sc...