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Christmas

(Encyclopedia)Christmas [Christ's Mass], in the Christian calendar, feast of the nativity of Jesus, celebrated in Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches on Dec. 25. In liturgical importance it ranks after Easter, P...

Devoy, John

(Encyclopedia)Devoy, John dĭvoiˈ [key], 1842–1928, Irish-American journalist and Irish revolutionary, b. Ireland. He joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood (see Fenian movement) in 1861. For proselytizing with...

Griffith, Arthur

(Encyclopedia)Griffith, Arthur, 1872–1922, Irish statesman, founder of Sinn Féin. He joined the nationalist movement as a young man. In 1899 he founded the United Irishman, in which he advocated that Irish membe...

Augustine of Canterbury, Saint

(Encyclopedia)Augustine of Canterbury, Saint ôˈgəstēn, –tĭn; ôgŭsˈtĭn [key], d. c.605, Italian missionary, called the Apostle of the English, first archbishop of Canterbury (from 601). A Roman monk, he w...

pogrom

(Encyclopedia)pogrom pōˈgrəm, pōgrŏmˈ [key], Russian term, originally meaning “riot,” that came to be applied to a series of violent attacks on Jews in Russia in the late 19th and early 20th cent. Pogroms...

Casement, Sir Roger David

(Encyclopedia)Casement, Sir Roger David, 1864–1916, Irish revolutionary. While in British consular service, he exposed (1904) the atrocious exploitation of wild-rubber gatherers in the Congo (thus helping to brin...

Whitby, Synod of

(Encyclopedia)Whitby, Synod of, called by King Oswy of Northumbria in 663 at Whitby, England. Its purpose was to choose between the usages of the Celtic and Roman churches, primarily in the matter of reckoning the ...

Irenaeus, Saint

(Encyclopedia)Irenaeus, Saint īrĭnēˈəs [key], c.125–c.202, Greek theologian, bishop of Lyons, and one of the Fathers of the Church. Born in Asia Minor, he was a disciple of St. Polycarp. Irenaeus went to Rom...

Heyerdahl, Thor

(Encyclopedia)Heyerdahl, Thor hāˈərdälˌ, hīˈ– [key], 1914–2002, Norwegian explorer and anthropologist, b. Larvik. He carried out research in the Marquesas Islands in 1937–38 and studied the indigenous ...

Berlin, Irving

(Encyclopedia)Berlin, Irving bərlĭnˈ [key], 1888–1989, American songwriter, b. Russia as Israel Baline; his Jewish family fled a pogrom in 1893 and settled in New York's Lower East Side. Alexander's Ragtime Ba...

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