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Howard, John Winston, Australian political leader

(Encyclopedia)Howard, John Winston, 1939–, Australian political leader and prime minister (1996–2007), b. Sydney. A graduate of Sydney Univ., a conservative lawyer, and a member of the Liberal party, he was ele...

Carnarvon, Henry Howard Molyneux Herbert, 4th earl of

(Encyclopedia)Carnarvon, Henry Howard Molyneux Herbert, 4th earl of, 1831–90, British statesman. As colonial secretary (1866–67) under the earl of Derby he introduced the British North America Act, which made C...

Douglas, Kirk

(Encyclopedia)Douglas, Kirk, 1916–2020, American film actor, b. Amsterdam, N.Y., as Issur Danielovitch, later Isadore Demsky. A leading man with a muscular physique and handsome cleft-chin face that made him a na...

softball

(Encyclopedia)softball, variant of baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Invented (1888) in Chicago as an indoor game, it was at various times called indoor baseball, mush ball, playground ball, ki...

Overbury, Sir Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Overbury, Sir Thomas, 1581–1613, English author and courtier. He was a friend and adviser to Robert Carr, an Oxford acquaintance. The two quarreled violently when Overbury disapproved of Carr's marr...

Ramadan

(Encyclopedia)Ramadan rämädänˈ, rămˌədänˈ [key], in Islam, the ninth month of the Muslim year, during which all Muslims must fast during the daylight hours. Indulgence of any sort is forbidden during the f...

fasting

(Encyclopedia)fasting, partial or temporary abstinence from food, a widely used form of asceticism. Among the stricter Jews the principal fast is the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur; in Islam the faithful fast all ...

tempo

(Encyclopedia)tempo [Ital.,=time], in music, the speed of a composition. The composer's intentions as to tempo are conventionally indicated by a set of Italian terms, of which the principal ones are presto (very fa...

Hillcrest Heights

(Encyclopedia)Hillcrest Heights, uninc. residential town (2020 pop. 15,793), Prince Georges co., W central Md., a suburb of Washington, D.C. It is located in a fast-g...

Kroc, Ray

(Encyclopedia)Kroc, Ray (Raymond Albert Kroc), 1902–84, American fast-food restauranteur and franchiser, b. Chicago. Kroc held several jobs before becoming (1937) the distributor for a blender that simultaneously...