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Native American languages

(Encyclopedia)Native American languages, languages of the native peoples of the Western Hemisphere and their descendants. A number of the Native American languages that were spoken at the time of the European arriv...

American Fur Company

(Encyclopedia)American Fur Company, chartered by John Jacob Astor (1763–1848) in 1808 to compete with the great fur-trading companies in Canada—the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company. Astor's most ...

Pan-American Highway

(Encyclopedia)Pan-American Highway, system of roads, c.16,000 mi (25,750 km) long, linking the nations of the Western Hemisphere. It was suggested at the Fifth International Conference of American States (1923) and...

Peace

(Encyclopedia)Peace, river, 945 mi (1,521 km) long, formed by the junction of the Finlay and Parsnip rivers at Williston Lake, N central British Columbia, Canada. It flows east through the Rocky Mts., then generall...

American Kennel Club

(Encyclopedia)American Kennel Club (AKC), national organization in the United States devoted to the advancement and welfare of pure-bred dogs. It is comprised of approximately 500 autonomous clubs. A delegate repre...

American Ballet Theatre

(Encyclopedia)American Ballet Theatre (ABT), one of the foremost international dance companies of the 20th and 21st cents. It was founded in 1937 as the Mordkin Ballet and reorganized as the Ballet Theatre in 1940 ...

American Philosophical Society

(Encyclopedia)American Philosophical Society, first scientific society in America, founded (1743) in Philadelphia. It was an outgrowth of the Junto formed (1727) by Benjamin Franklin. Franklin was the first secreta...

Thompson, David

(Encyclopedia)Thompson, David, 1770–1857, Canadian geographer, fur trader, and explorer, b. London, England. In 1784 he came to Fort Churchill, Canada, as an apprentice of the Hudson's Bay Company, and until 1797...

Inter-American Highway

(Encyclopedia)Inter-American Highway, c.3,400 mi (5,470 km) long, section of the Pan-American Highway system from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, to Panama City, Panama. Much of the highway prior to 1941 had been built by th...

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