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Westminster Palace

(Encyclopedia)Westminster Palace or Houses of Parliament, in Westminster, London. The present enormous structure, of Neo-Gothic design, was built (1840–60) by Sir Charles Barry to replace an aggregation of ancien...

Roses, Wars of the

(Encyclopedia)Roses, Wars of the, traditional name given to the intermittent struggle (1455–85) for the throne of England between the noble houses of York (whose badge was a white rose) and Lancaster (later assoc...

factory

(Encyclopedia)factory, place of production characterized by wage labor, the use of machinery, and the division of labor. The large-scale use of machinery differentiates factory production from simple manufacture, a...

selective service

(Encyclopedia)selective service, in U.S. history, term for conscription. Conscription was established (1863) in the U.S. Civil War, but proved unpopular (see draft riots). The law authorized release from service to...

Churchill, Winston, American novelist

(Encyclopedia)Churchill, Winston, 1871–1947, American novelist, b. St. Louis, grad. Annapolis, 1894. He wrote several popular historical novels including Richard Carvel (1899), The Crisis (1901), and The Crossing...

Wallace, Edgar

(Encyclopedia)Wallace, Edgar (Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace), 1875–1932, English novelist and playwright, b. Greenwich. He was the author of more than 150 detective and adventure novels, of which as many as 5 mil...

Tyler, Wat

(Encyclopedia)Tyler, Wat, d. 1381, English rebel. His given name appears in full as Walter; his surname signifies the trade of a roof tiler. He came into prominence as the leader of the rebellion of 1381, known as ...

African Methodist Episcopal Church

(Encyclopedia)African Methodist Episcopal Church, Methodist denomination (see Methodism). It was established in 1816 in Philadelphia with Richard Allen as its first bishop. In 1991 there were about 3.5 million memb...

Barnet

(Encyclopedia)Barnet bärˈnət [key], outer borough of Greater London, SE England. Although mainly residen...

Gregory, Dick

(Encyclopedia)Gregory, Dick (Richard Claxton Gregory), 1932–2017, African-American civil-rights activist and comedian, b. St. Louis, Mo. A biting satirist who used the struggle for civil rights and other topical ...