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national bank

(Encyclopedia)national bank, in the United States, financial institution of a class authorized by Congress in acts of 1863 and 1864. The acts were intended to provide a way of marketing the large bond issues made n...

Mackenzie

(Encyclopedia)Mackenzie, river, c.1,120 mi (1,800 km) long, issuing from Great Slave Lake, Northwest Territories, Canada, and flowing generally NW to the Arctic Ocean through a great delta. Between Great Slave Lake...

Reform party, in the United States

(Encyclopedia)Reform party, in the United States, political party founded in 1995 by H. Ross Perot as an alternative to the Democratic and Republican parties. The Reform party's aims originally included mandating h...

relocation center

(Encyclopedia)relocation center, in U.S. history, camp in which Japanese and Japanese-Americans were interned during World War II. Fearing a Japanese invasion, the military leaders, under authority of an executive ...

Breyer, Stephen Gerald

(Encyclopedia)Breyer, Stephen Gerald brīˈər [key], 1938–, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court ...

European Council

(Encyclopedia)European Council, institution of the European Union (EU) responsible for defining the EU's general political direction and priorities. It is composed of an elected president (who serves a two-and-a-ha...

meatpacking

(Encyclopedia)meatpacking or meat-processing, wholesale business of buying and slaughtering animals and then processing and distributing their carcasses to retailers. The livestock industry is among the largest in ...

Zollverein

(Encyclopedia)Zollverein tsôlˈfərīnˈ [key] [Ger.,=customs union], in German history, a customs union established to eliminate tariff barriers. Friedrich List first popularized the idea of a combination to abol...

Vásquez, Horacio

(Encyclopedia)Vásquez, Horacio ōräˈsyō väˈskās [key], 1860–1936, president of the Dominican Republic (1899–1903, 1903–7, 1924–30). A dominating figure in the nation, even when out of office, Vásque...

Farm Credit Administration

(Encyclopedia)Farm Credit Administration (FCA), an independent agency of the executive branch of the federal government that supervises and regulates the Farm Credit System (FCS) for American agriculture. The Farm ...