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Westminster

(Encyclopedia)Westminster. 1 Residential city (1990 pop. 78,118), Orange co., S Calif.; founded 1870 as a temperance colony for Presbyterians, inc. 1957. It has several industrial parks. Naval Weapons Station Seal ...

Schreiner, Olive

(Encyclopedia)Schreiner, Olive shrīˈnər [key], pseud. Ralph Iron, 1855–1920, South African author and feminist, b. Wittebergen Reserve, Cape Colony. After several years as a governess, she went to England in 1...

Bardsey Island

(Encyclopedia)Bardsey Island bärdˈsē [key], Welsh Ynys Enlli, 0.7 sq mi (1.8 sq km), Gwynedd, Wales, off the SW tip of the Lleyn Peninsula. The small island, which rises to 548 ft (167 m), is separated from the ...

Robbins, Frederick Chapman

(Encyclopedia)Robbins, Frederick Chapman, 1916–2003, American physician, b. Auburn, Ala., grad. Univ. of Missouri, 1938, M.D. Harvard, 1940. He served on the staff of Children's Hospital, Boston, and at Harvard, ...

War Department, United States

(Encyclopedia)War Department, United States, federal executive department organized (1789) to administer the military establishment. It was reconstituted (1947) as the Dept. of the Army when the military administra...

Resolution Trust Corporation

(Encyclopedia)Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC), in U.S. history, government-owned company formed in 1989 to liquidate the assets of insolvent savings and loan associations (S&Ls). Essentially a huge property-...

National Archives

(Encyclopedia)National Archives, official depository for records of the U.S. federal government, established in 1934 by an act of Congress. Although displeasure concerning the method of keeping national records was...

safety movement

(Encyclopedia)safety movement, widespread effort to prevent accidents that followed the increasing number of casualties in industry, traffic and transportation, and homes arising out of the Industrial Revolution an...

Dred Scott Case

(Encyclopedia)Dred Scott Case, argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1856–57. It involved the then bitterly contested issue of the status of slavery in the federal territories. In 1834, Dred Scott, a black slav...

fugitive slave laws

(Encyclopedia)fugitive slave laws, in U.S. history, the federal acts of 1793 and 1850 providing for the return between states of escaped black slaves. Similar laws existing in both North and South in colonial days ...