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panama-hat palm

(Encyclopedia)panama-hat palm, perennial herb (Carludovica palmata) growing wild from Central America south to Bolivia. Despite its frondlike leaves it is not a true palm. The leaves are used to weave Panama hats, ...

Clayton-Bulwer Treaty

(Encyclopedia)Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, concluded (Apr. 19, 1850) at Washington, D.C., between the United States, represented by Secretary of State John M. Clayton, and Great Britain, represented by the British plenip...

Chagas' disease

(Encyclopedia)Chagas' disease, disease of South and Central America caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi. It usually affects children and young adults and is transmitted by the feces of infected insects, typica...

banjo

(Encyclopedia)banjo, stringed musical instrument, with a body resembling a tambourine. The banjo consists of a hoop over which a skin membrane is stretched; it has a long, often fretted neck and four to nine string...

Seventh-Day Baptists

(Encyclopedia)Seventh-Day Baptists, Protestant church holding the same doctrines as other Calvinistic Baptists but observing the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath. In the Reformation in England the observance ...

Dablon, Claude

(Encyclopedia)Dablon, Claude klōd däblôNˈ [key], 1619?–1697, French Jesuit missionary in North America. He went from France to Canada in 1655 and worked first among the Onondaga Indians in New York, then (166...

Gibault, Pierre

(Encyclopedia)Gibault, Pierre pyĕr zhēbōˈ [key], 1737–1804, Roman Catholic missionary priest in America, patriot in the American Revolution, b. Montreal. He was sent (1768) to the Illinois country. When Kaska...

Buell, Abel

(Encyclopedia)Buell, Abel byo͞oˈəl [key], 1742–1822, American silversmith, engraver, and type founder, b. Killingworth, Conn. He engraved a number of maps, including maps of the Florida coast and a large wall ...

Katanga

(Encyclopedia)Katanga kätăngˈgə, kə– [key], former province, c.200,000 sq mi (518,000 sq km), SE Congo (Kinshasa); called Shaba from 1971 to 1997. Katanga bordered Angola on the southwest, Zambia on the sout...

Avellaneda

(Encyclopedia)Avellaneda ävāyänāˈᵺä [key], city, Buenos Aires prov., E central Argentina, across the Riachuelo River from the Buenos Aires federal district. It is one of the mos...