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Sandwich, John Montagu, 4th earl of

(Encyclopedia)Sandwich, John Montagu, 4th earl of, 1718–92, British politician. He served variously as secretary of state (1763–65, 1770–71) and first lord of the admiralty (1748–51, 1763, 1771–82). He ea...

bunting

(Encyclopedia)bunting, common name for small, plump birds of the family Fringillidae (finch family). Among the American buntings are the indigo bunting, in which the summer plumage of the male reflects sunlight as ...

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

(Encyclopedia)Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Rus. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, former republic. It was established in 1922 and dissolved in 1991. The Soviet Union was the first state...

Basel, Council of

(Encyclopedia)Basel, Council of, 1431–49, first part of the 17th ecumenical council in the Roman Catholic Church. It is generally considered to have been ecumenical until it fell into heresy in 1437; after that i...

McEnroe, John Patrick, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)McEnroe, John Patrick, Jr. măkˈənrōˌ [key], 1959–, American tennis player, b. Weisbaden, West Germany. He grew up in Douglaston, Queens, N.Y. After winning the National Collegiate Athletic Asso...

daimyo

(Encyclopedia)daimyo dīˈmyô [key] [Jap.,=great name], the great feudal landholders of Japan, the territorial barons as distinguished from the kuge, or court nobles. Great tax-free estates were built up from the ...

purslane

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Purslane, Portulaca oleraceae purslane, common name for some plants of the Portulaceae, a family of herbs and a few small shrubs, chiefly of the Americas. The portulacas or purslanes (genus Po...

Rougemont, Denis de

(Encyclopedia)Rougemont, Denis de dənēˈ də ro͞ozhmôNˈ [key], 1906–85, French philosopher and critic, b. Switzerland. He moved to Paris in 1936 and published numerous articles on existentialism, some of whi...

Dawes Commission

(Encyclopedia)Dawes Commission, commission to the Five Civilized Tribes, created by the U.S. Congress in 1893 under the Dawes Act with H. L. Dawes as chairman. Its aim was the reorganization of the Indian Territory...

Federer, Roger

(Encyclopedia)Federer, Roger, 1981–, Swiss tennis player, b. Basel. He was an outstanding junior player, ranking number one in 1998, the year he turned pro. Federer won his first Association of Tennis Professiona...