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Ramaphosa, Cyril

(Encyclopedia)Ramaphosa, Cyril (Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa), 1952–, South African political leader, b. Johannesburg. A lawyer, he became involved in the antiapartheid Black Consciousness Movement while a university...

Ashton, Catherine Margaret, Baroness Ashton of Upholland

(Encyclopedia)Ashton, Catherine Margaret, Baroness Ashton of Upholland, 1956– British government official. She was an administrator for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (1977–83), director of Business in th...

Homeland Security, United States Department of

(Encyclopedia)Homeland Security, United States Department of (DHS), executive department of the federal government charged with protecting the security of the American homeland as its main responsibility. Its prima...

Freedom Riders

(Encyclopedia)Freedom Riders, American civil-rights demonstrators who engaged (1961) in nonviolent protests against segregation of public interstate buses and terminals in the South. From the 1940s several federal ...

Aldrich, Nelson Wilmarth

(Encyclopedia)Aldrich, Nelson Wilmarth, 1841–1915, U.S. Senator from Rhode Island, b. Foster, R.I. He rose in local politics as state assemblyman (1875–76) and U.S. Representative (1879–81) before he served a...

Walsh, Lawrence Edward

(Encyclopedia)Walsh, Lawrence Edward, 1912–2014, Canadian-born American lawyer, grad. Columbia (1932), Columbia law school (1935). Walsh's family moved to the Unite States while he was an infant. A Republican, he...

McKenna, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)McKenna, Joseph, 1843–1926, American jurist, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1898–1925), b. Philadelphia. Admitted to the bar in 1865, he practiced law in California and served in the...

Black Monday

(Encyclopedia)Black Monday, Oct. 19, 1987, in U.S. history, day of financial panic. The Dow Jones Average fell 508.32 points, a drop of 22.6%, the largest since 1914. The point decline as well as the volume, 604.33...

African Union

(Encyclopedia)African Union (AU), international organization established in 2002 by the nations of the former Organization of African Unity (OAU). The AU is the successor organization to the OAU, with greater power...

clearing

(Encyclopedia)clearing, in banking, the periodic settling of bankers' claims against each other, for which local banks establish clearinghouse associations. Clearinghouses are said to have existed in Florence by a....