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Lafayette, Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, marquis de

(Encyclopedia)Lafayette, or La Fayette, Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, marquis de märēˈ zhôzĕfˈ pôl ēv rôk zhēlbĕrˈ dü môtyāˈ märkēˈ də läfāĕtˈ [key], 1757–1834, French gen...

Rakovsky, Christian Georgyevich

(Encyclopedia)Rakovsky, Christian Georgyevich khrĭstyänˈ gēyŏrˈgyĭvĭch rəkôfˈskē [key], 1873–1938, Soviet Communist diplomat. His early revolutionary activities extended from his native Bulgaria throu...

Rowell, Newton Wesley

(Encyclopedia)Rowell, Newton Wesley rouˈəl [key], 1867–1941, Canadian jurist and statesman, b. Ontario. He was elected (1911) to the Ontario legislature and then served in the Canadian House of Commons (1917–...

Black Hand

(Encyclopedia)Black Hand, symbol and name for a criminal and terroristic secret society, and especially associated with the Mafia and the Camorra. The Black Hand flourished in Sicily in the late 19th cent., and in ...

barbed wire

(Encyclopedia)barbed wire, wire composed of two zinc-coated steel strands twisted together and having barbs spaced regularly along them. The need for barbed wire arose in the 19th cent. as the American frontier mov...

entrepreneur

(Encyclopedia)entrepreneur änˌtrəprənûrˈ [key] [Fr.,=one who undertakes], person who assumes the organization, management, and risks of a business enterprise. It was first used as a technical economic term by...

Timoshenko, Semyon Konstantinovich

(Encyclopedia)Timoshenko, Semyon Konstantinovich sĭmyônˈ kənstəntyēˈnəvĭch tyēməshĕnˈkə [key], 1895–1970, Soviet marshal. He served in the civil war of 1918–20 as a cavalry commander and subsequen...

Howard, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Howard, Richard (Richard Joseph Howard), 1929–, American poet, translator, and essayist, b. Cleveland, studied Columbia (B.A. 1951), the Sorbonne, Paris. Beginning with Quantities (1962), he has wri...

primitivism

(Encyclopedia)primitivism, in art, the style of works of self-trained artists who develop their talents in a fanciful and fresh manner, as in the paintings of Henri Rousseau and Grandma Moses. The term primitive ha...

Chattanooga campaign

(Encyclopedia)Chattanooga campaign, Aug.-Nov., 1863, military encounter in the American Civil War. Chattanooga, Tenn., which commanded Confederate communications between the East and the Mississippi River and was a...