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directing

(Encyclopedia)directing, the art of leading dramatic performances on the stage or in films. The modern theatrical director is in complete charge of all the artistic aspects of a dramatic presentation. It is the dir...

shark

(Encyclopedia)shark, member of a group of almost exclusively marine and predaceous fishes. There are about 250 species of sharks, ranging from the 2-ft (60-cm) pygmy shark to 50-ft (15-m) giants. They are found in ...

Johnson, Lyndon Baines

(Encyclopedia)Johnson, Lyndon Baines, 1908–73, 36th President of the United States (1963–69), b. near Stonewall, Tex. Johnson lost the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination to John F. Kennedy, but accepte...

agricultural subsidies

(Encyclopedia)agricultural subsidies, financial assistance to farmers through government-sponsored price-support programs. Beginning in the 1930s most industrialized countries developed agricultural price-support p...

Reconstruction

(Encyclopedia)Reconstruction, 1865–77, in U.S. history, the period of readjustment following the Civil War. At the end of the Civil War, the defeated South was a ruined land. The physical destruction wrought by t...

locomotive

(Encyclopedia)locomotive, vehicle used to pull a train of unpowered railroad cars. Richard Trevithick, a British engineer and inventor, built and operated (1803–4) the first successful steam engine locomotive f...

mountain

(Encyclopedia)mountain, high land mass projecting conspicuously above its surroundings and usually of limited width at its summit. Although isolated mountains are not unusual, mountains commonly form ranges, compri...

Reagan, Ronald Wilson

(Encyclopedia)Reagan, Ronald Wilson rāˈgən [key], 1911–2004, 40th president of the United States (1981–89), b. Tampico, Ill. In 1932, after graduation from Eureka College, he became a radio announcer and spo...

rodent

(Encyclopedia)rodent, member of the mammalian order Rodentia, characterized by front teeth adapted for gnawing and cheek teeth adapted for chewing. The Rodentia is by far the largest mammalian order; nearly half of...

acting

(Encyclopedia)acting, the representation of a usually fictional character on stage or in films. At its highest levels of accomplishment acting involves the employment of technique and/or an imaginative ...