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divination

(Encyclopedia)divination, practice of foreseeing future events or obtaining secret knowledge through communication with divine sources and through omens, oracles, signs, and portents. It is based on the belief in r...

Ernst, Max

(Encyclopedia)Ernst, Max mäks ĕrnst [key] 1891–1976, German painter. After World War I, Ernst joined the Dada movement in Paris and then became a founder of surrealism. Apart from the medium of collage, for whi...

Pugin, Augustus Charles

(Encyclopedia)Pugin, Augustus Charles pyo͞oˈjĭn [key], 1762–1832, English writer on medieval architecture, b. France. His writings and drawings furnished a mass of working material for the architects of the Go...

Fredericksburg, battle of

(Encyclopedia)Fredericksburg, battle of, in the Civil War, fought Dec. 13, 1862, at Fredericksburg, Va. In Nov., 1862, the Union general Ambrose Burnside moved his three “grand divisions” under W. B. Franklin, ...

Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn (Stevenson)

(Encyclopedia)Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn (Stevenson) găsˈkəl [key], 1810–65, English novelist. When she was still an infant her mother died, and she was brought up by an aunt in Knutsford, Cheshire, the backg...

Henry, Patrick

(Encyclopedia)Henry, Patrick, 1736–99, political leader in the American Revolution, b. Hanover co., Va. Largely self-educated, he became a prominent trial lawyer. Henry bitterly denounced (1765) the Stamp Act and...

Hitchens, Christopher Eric

(Encyclopedia)Hitchens, Christopher Eric, 1949–2011, Anglo-American journalist and critic, b. Portsmouth, England, grad. Bailliol College, Oxford (1970). He wrote for the New Statesman, London Times, Daily Expres...

Sloan, John

(Encyclopedia)Sloan, John, 1871–1951, American painter and etcher, b. Lock Haven, Pa. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and worked for 12 years as an illustrator on the Philadelphia Inquirer...

business cycles

(Encyclopedia)business cycles, fluctuations in economic activity characterized by periods of rising and falling fiscal health. During a business cycle, an economy grows, reaches a peak, and then begins a downturn f...

Cassirer, Ernst

(Encyclopedia)Cassirer, Ernst ĕrnst käsērˈər [key], 1874–1945, German philosopher. He was a professor at the Univ. of Hamburg from 1919 until 1933, when he went to Oxford; he later taught at Yale and Columbi...