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Benedict, Ruth Fulton

(Encyclopedia)Benedict, Ruth Fulton, 1887–1948, American anthropologist, b. New York City, grad. Vassar, 1909, Ph.D. Columbia, 1923. She was a student and later a colleague of Franz Boas at Columbia, where she ta...

Sakhalin

(Encyclopedia)Sakhalin sägälyĕnˈ [key], island (c.29,500 sq mi/76,400 sq km), off the coast of Asian Russia, between the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan; separated from the Russian mainland on the west by t...

saxifrage

(Encyclopedia)saxifrage săkˈsĭfrĭj [key], common name for several members of the Saxifragaceae, a family of widely varying herbs, shrubs, and small trees of cosmopolitan distribution. They are found especially ...

Lille

(Encyclopedia)Lille lēl [key], city (1990 pop. 178,301), capital of Nord dept., N France, near the Belgian border. With its central position in NW Europe, Lille became a great commercial, cultural, and manufacturi...

Straits Settlements

(Encyclopedia)Straits Settlements, collective name for certain former British colonies in Southeast Asia. The three British East India Company territories of Pinang, Singapore, and Malacca (see Melaka) were given a...

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

(Encyclopedia)Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, Calif. The original museum, the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art, opened in 1913. Among its important patrons was William Randolph Hearst,...

mamba

(Encyclopedia)mamba, name for African snakes of the genus Dendroaspis, in the cobra family. Widely distributed throughout Africa except in the deserts, mambas have extremely toxic venom. When attacking they raise t...

Shapur II

(Encyclopedia)Shapur II or Sapor II, 310–79, king of Persia (310–79), of the Sassanid, or Sassanian, dynasty. He was the posthumous son of Hormuz II and therefore was born king. His long reign was marked by gre...

Cybele

(Encyclopedia)Cybele sĭbˈəlē [key], in ancient Asian religion, the Great Mother Goddess. The chief centers of her early worship were Phrygia and Lydia. In the 5th cent. b.c. her cult was introduced into Greece,...

goose

(Encyclopedia)goose, common name for large wild and domesticated swimming birds related to the duck and the swan. Strictly speaking, the term goose is applied to the female and gander to the male. In North America ...