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Sikh Wars

(Encyclopedia)Sikh Wars (1845–49), two conflicts preceding the British annexation of the Punjab. By a treaty with the British in 1809, the Sikh ruler of the Punjab, Ranjit Singh, had accepted the Sutlej River as ...

Dutch and Flemish literature

(Encyclopedia)Dutch and Flemish literature, literary works written in the standard language of the Low Countries since the Middle Ages. It is conventional to use the term Dutch when referring to the language spoken...

Punic Wars

(Encyclopedia)Punic Wars, three distinct conflicts between Carthage and Rome. When they began, Rome had nearly completed the conquest of Italy, while Carthage controlled NW Africa and the islands and the commerce o...

Religion, Wars of

(Encyclopedia)Religion, Wars of, 1562–98, series of civil wars in France, also known as the Huguenot Wars. The immediate issue was the French Protestants' struggle for freedom of worship and the right of establis...

Veterans of Foreign Wars

(Encyclopedia)Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), organization created (1899) at Columbus, Ohio, by veterans of the Spanish-American War. It received a charter from Congress in 1936. The organization later admitted vet...

Roses, Wars of the

(Encyclopedia)Roses, Wars of the, traditional name given to the intermittent struggle (1455–85) for the throne of England between the noble houses of York (whose badge was a white rose) and Lancaster (later assoc...

French Revolutionary Wars

(Encyclopedia)French Revolutionary Wars, wars occurring in the era of the French Revolution and the beginning of the Napoleonic era, the decade of 1792–1802. The wars began as an effort to defend the Revolution a...

Russo-Turkish Wars

(Encyclopedia)Russo-Turkish Wars. The great eastward expansion of Russia in the 16th and 17th cent., during the decline of the Ottoman Empire, nevertheless left the shores of the Black Sea in the hands of the Ottom...

French and Indian Wars

(Encyclopedia)French and Indian Wars, 1689–1763, the name given by American historians to the North American colonial wars between Great Britain and France in the late 17th and the 18th cent. They were really cam...

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