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Australian Ballet

(Encyclopedia)Australian Ballet, national ballet company of Australia, founded in Melbourne in 1962; its school was established in 1964. The company drew on the tradition established (1940) by Edouard Borovansky of...

Cretaceous period

(Encyclopedia)Cretaceous period krĭtāˈshəs [key], third and last period of the Mesozoic era of geologic time (see Geologic Timescale, tablegeologic timescale, table), lasting from approximately 144 to 65 millio...

Kongo, kingdom of

(Encyclopedia)Kongo, kingdom of kôngˈgō, kŏngˈ– [key], former state of W central Africa, founded in the 14th cent. In the 15th cent. the kingdom stretched from the Congo River in the north to the Loje River ...

scarab beetle

(Encyclopedia)scarab beetle or scarab, name for members of a large family of heavy-bodied, oval beetles (the Scarabaeidae), with about 30,000 species distributed throughout most of the world and over 1,200 in North...

alder

(Encyclopedia)alder ôlˈdər [key], name for deciduous trees and shrubs of the genus Alnus of the family Betulaceae (birch family), widely distributed, especially in mountainous and moist areas of the north temper...

Florida, Straits of

(Encyclopedia)Florida, Straits of, passage, c.90 mi (145 km) wide, between the Florida Keys in the north and Cuba in the south. It connects the Gulf of Mexico with the Atlantic Ocean. ...

holly

(Encyclopedia)holly, common name for members of the Aquifoliaceae, a family of widely distributed trees and shrubs, most numerous in Central and South America. The evergreen English holly (Ilex aquifolium), the com...

Lutheranism

(Encyclopedia)Lutheranism, branch of Protestantism that arose as a result of the Reformation, whose religious faith is based on the principles of Martin Luther, although he opposed such a designation. When Luther r...

Church of the Nazarene

(Encyclopedia)Church of the Nazarene năzˌərēnˈ [key], U.S. Protestant denomination established in 1908 through the union of the Church of the Nazarene, based in California; the Association of Pentecostal Churc...

Garnier, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Garnier, Charles (Saint Charles Garnier) shärl gärnyāˈ [key], 1606–49, French missionary in North America, one of the Jesuit Martyrs of North America. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1624 and...