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Veterans' Day

(Encyclopedia)Veterans' Day, holiday formerly observed in the United States as Armistice Day in commemoration of the signing of the Armistice ending World War I. Nov. 11 officially became Veterans' Day on May 24, 1...

Cwmbrân

(Encyclopedia)Cwmbrân ko͝ombränˈ [key], city, Torfaen, SE Wales. Cwmbrân was created under the New Tow...

Westminster Conference

(Encyclopedia)Westminster Conference, 1866–67, held in London to settle the plan for confederation of the Canadian provinces. The resolutions on confederation that had been framed at the Quebec Conference (1864) ...

sedative

(Encyclopedia)sedative, any of a variety of drugs that relieve anxiety. Most sedatives act as mild depressants of the nervous system, lessening general nervous activity or reducing the irritability or activity of a...

Costello, John Aloysius

(Encyclopedia)Costello, John Aloysius, 1891–1976, Irish political leader. A barrister, he joined the attorney general's office of the newly founded Irish Free State in 1922. In 1926 he became attorney general und...

Hull, Cordell

(Encyclopedia)Hull, Cordell kôrdĕlˈ [key], 1871–1955, American statesman, b. Overton co. (now Pickett co.), Tenn. Admitted to the bar in 1891, he sat (1893–97) in the Tennessee legislature and, after service...

embezzlement

(Encyclopedia)embezzlement, wrongful use, for one's own selfish ends, of the property of another when that property has been legally entrusted to one. Such an act was not larceny at common law because larceny was c...

Bland, Richard Parks

(Encyclopedia)Bland, Richard Parks, 1835–99, American statesman, b. near Hartford, Ky. He taught in rural schools in Kentucky and Missouri before he went to the gold fields of California in 1855. He was a prospec...

Malé

(Encyclopedia)Malé mäˈlā [key], small island and town (1995 pop. 62,937) of Malé Atoll, capital of the Maldives, in the Indian Ocean. A ship anchorage, Malé is a center of interisland trade with diverse manuf...

saprophyte

(Encyclopedia)saprophyte săpˈrəfītˌ [key], any plant that depends on dead plant or animal tissue for a source of nutrition and metabolic energy, e.g., most fungi (molds) and a few flowering plants, such as Ind...