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New Madrid

(Encyclopedia)New Madrid măˈdrĭd [key], city (2000 pop. 3,334), seat of New Madrid co., extreme SE Mo., on Mississippi River at the sweeping New Madrid Bend; inc. 1808. A river port, the city is protected by hig...

MacLeod, Alistair

(Encyclopedia)MacLeod, Alistair məkloudˈ [key], 1936–2014, Canadian fiction writer, b. John Alexander Joseph MacLeod, Ph.D. Notre Dame, 1968. He taught at the Univ. of Windsor from the late 1960s until his reti...

Seton, Saint Elizabeth Ann

(Encyclopedia)Seton, Saint Elizabeth Ann, 1774–1821, American Roman Catholic leader, usually called Mother Seton, b. Elizabeth Ann Bayley, New York City. She was the daughter of a prominent physician. Her husband...

Eskimo

(Encyclopedia)Eskimo ĕsˈkəmō [key], a general term used to refer to a number of groups inhabiting the coastline from the Bering Sea to Greenland and the Chukchi Peninsula in NE Siberia. A number of distinct gro...

Pacific Rim

(Encyclopedia)Pacific Rim, term used to describe the nations bordering the Pacific Ocean and the island countries situated in it. In the post–World War II era, the Pacific Rim has become an increasingly important...

Caroline Affair

(Encyclopedia)Caroline Affair. In 1837 a group of men led by William Lyon Mackenzie rebelled in Upper Canada (now Ontario), demanding a more democratic government. There was much sympathy for their cause in the Uni...

boat people

(Encyclopedia)boat people, term used to describe the Indochinese refugees who fled Communist rule after the Vietnam War (1975) in small boats and the many ethnic Chinese who left Vietnam similarly after China's inv...

Sewell, Jonathan

(Encyclopedia)Sewell, Jonathan, 1766–1839, Canadian jurist, b. Cambridge, Mass. He was educated in England and emigrated to Canada in 1785. A lawyer, he became attorney general of Lower Canada (Quebec) in 1795 an...

Huron, Lake

(Encyclopedia)Huron, Lake hyo͝orˈänˌ [key], 23,010 sq mi (59,596 sq km), 206 mi (332 km) long and 183 mi (295 km) at its greatest width, between Ont., Canada, and Mich.; second largest of the Great Lakes. It ha...

La Salle, Robert Cavelier, sieur de

(Encyclopedia)La Salle, Robert Cavelier, sieur de rōbĕrˈ kävəlyāˈ syör də lä sälˈ [key], 1643–87, French explorer in North America, one of the most celebrated explorers and builders of New France. He ...