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Narragansett

(Encyclopedia)Narragansett nărˌəgănˈsət [key], Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Algonquian branch of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). Part of the E...

Strafford, Thomas Wentworth, 1st earl of

(Encyclopedia)Strafford, Thomas Wentworth, 1st earl of, 1593–1641, English statesman. Regularly elected to Parliament from 1614 on, he became one of the critics of George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham, and of ...

Westphalia, Peace of

(Encyclopedia)Westphalia, Peace of, 1648, general settlement ending the Thirty Years War. It marked the end of the Holy Roman Empire as an effective institution and inaugurated the modern European state system. The...

Peirce, Charles Sanders

(Encyclopedia)Peirce, Charles Sanders pûrs [key], 1839–1914, American philosopher and polymath, b. Cambridge, Mass., grad. Harvard, 1859; son of Benjamin Peirce. Except for occasional lectures he renounced the r...

Old Testament

(Encyclopedia)Old Testament, Christian name for the Hebrew Bible, which serves as the first division of the Christian Bible (see New Testament). The designations “Old” and “New” seem to have been adopted af...

Monitor and Merrimack

(Encyclopedia)Monitor and Merrimack, two American warships that fought the first engagement between ironclad ships. When, at the beginning of the Civil War, the Union forces abandoned the Norfolk Navy Yard at Ports...

Richelieu, Armand Jean du Plessis, duc de

(Encyclopedia)Richelieu, Armand Jean du Plessis, duc de (Cardinal Richelieu) plĕsēˈ dük də rēshəlyöˈ [key], 1585–1642, French prelate and statesman, chief minister of King Louis XIII, cardinal of the Ro...

communistic settlements

(Encyclopedia)communistic settlements, communities practicing common ownership of goods. Communistic settlements were known in ancient and medieval times, but the flowering of such groups occurred in the 19th cent....

English art and architecture

(Encyclopedia)English art and architecture, the distinctive national art and architecture that art may be said to have evolved in the 12th cent. with the Norman style. Building before that time was in what is commo...

William the Silent

(Encyclopedia)William the Silent or William of Orange (William I, prince of Orange), 1533–84, Dutch statesman, principal founder of Dutch independence. William married four times. His first wife was Anne of Egm...

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