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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...

Pinter, Harold

(Encyclopedia)Pinter, Harold, 1930–2008, English dramatist. Born in Hackney in London's East End, the son of an English tailor of Eastern European Jewish ancestry, he studied at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic...

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....

Priestley, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Priestley, Joseph, 1733–1804, English theologian and scientist. He prepared for the Presbyterian ministry and served several churches in England as pastor but gradually rejected orthodox Calvinism a...

Darwin, Charles Robert

(Encyclopedia)Darwin, Charles Robert, 1809–82, English naturalist, b. Shrewsbury; grandson of Erasmus Darwin and of Josiah Wedgwood. He firmly established the theory of organic evolution known as Darwinism. He st...

anarchism

(Encyclopedia)anarchism ănˈərkĭzəm [key] [Gr.,=having no government], theory that equality and justice are to be sought through the abolition of the state and the substitution of free agreements between indivi...

mechanics

(Encyclopedia)mechanics, branch of physics concerned with motion and the forces that tend to cause it; it includes study of the mechanical properties of matter, such as density, elasticity, and viscosity. Mechanics...

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...

ethics

(Encyclopedia)ethics, in philosophy, the study and evaluation of human conduct in the light of moral principles. Moral principles may be viewed either as the standard of conduct that individuals have constructed fo...

Declaration of Independence

(Encyclopedia)Declaration of Independence, full and formal declaration adopted July 4, 1776, by representatives of the Thirteen Colonies in North America announcing the separation of those colonies from Great Brita...