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Zittau

(Encyclopedia)Zittau tsĭtˈou [key], city (1994 pop. 30,874), Saxony, E central Germany, on the Lusatian Neisse River, near the Polish and Czech borders. It is a road and rail hub and a center for the environmenta...

Rand Corporation

(Encyclopedia)Rand Corporation, research institution in Santa Monica, Calif.; founded 1948 and supported by federal, state, and local governments, as well as by foundations and corporations. Its principal fields of...

acquired characteristics

(Encyclopedia)acquired characteristics, modifications produced in an individual plant or animal as a result of mutilation, disease, use and disuse, or any distinctly environmental influence. Some examples are docki...

Simon Fraser University

(Encyclopedia)Simon Fraser University, main campus at Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada; provincially supported; coeducational; chartered 1963, opened 1965. The Harbour Centre campus in downtown Vancouver opened in...

Balaton

(Encyclopedia)Balaton băˈlətŏn, Hung. bŏˈlŏtôn [key], lake, 230 sq mi (596 sq km), W central Hungary, at the foot of the Bakony Forest. The Zala River is its main tributary; the lake is drained by the Sió ...

Peterson, Roger Tory

(Encyclopedia)Peterson, Roger Tory, 1908–96, American ornithologist, writer, and illustrator, b. Jamestown, N.Y. He became famous with his best-selling pocket-sized Field Guide to the Birds (1934) and is known fo...

Fourteenth Amendment

(Encyclopedia)Fourteenth Amendment, addition to the U.S. Constitution, adopted 1868. The amendment comprises five sections. Section 2 provides for apportionment of membership in the House of Representatives on th...

Tappan, Lewis

(Encyclopedia)Tappan, Lewis, 1788–1873, American abolitionist, b. Northampton, Mass. He became a partner in his brother Arthur's New York mercantile house in 1828 and in 1841 founded the first agency for rating c...

Colby, William Egan

(Encyclopedia)Colby, William Egan, 1920–96, American public official, b. St. Paul, Minn., grad. Princeton, 1940. During World War II he served in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and in 1944 was dropped by ...

Mott Foundation

(Encyclopedia)Mott Foundation, philanthropic trust created (1926) by automobile executive Charles Stewart Mott (1875–1973) to support programs dealing with selected urban problems. The foundation originally conce...