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Carriera, Rosalba

(Encyclopedia)Carriera, Rosalba rōzälˈbä kär-rēāˈrä [key], 1675–1757, Italian portrait and miniature painter, one of the greatest of her day. At 24 she had achieved a reputation throughout Italy and abro...

Bhaskara

(Encyclopedia)Bhaskara əchärˈyə [key] [Skt.,=learned], b. 1114, Indian mathematician and astronomer. According to the custom, he put his learned treatises into verse, adding, however, explanations in prose. His...

Black Monday

(Encyclopedia)Black Monday, Oct. 19, 1987, in U.S. history, day of financial panic. The Dow Jones Average fell 508.32 points, a drop of 22.6%, the largest since 1914. The point decline as well as the volume, 604.33...

bourse

(Encyclopedia)bourse bo͝ors [key], term applied to a European stock exchange. The first international bourse was established in Antwerp in the 16th cent. The Paris bourse, dating from 1720 but completely reorganiz...

bowfin

(Encyclopedia)bowfin, primitive freshwater fish found in the Mississippi basin, the Great Lakes, and E to Vermont. The bowfin has a light covering of rounded, overlapping scales, a large mouth, and sharp teeth. Its...

meteor

(Encyclopedia)meteor, appearance of a small particle flying through space that interacts with the earth's upper atmosphere. While still outside the atmosphere, the particle is known as a meteoroid. Countless meteor...

oral history

(Encyclopedia)oral history, compilation of historical data through interviews, usually tape-recorded and sometimes videotaped, with participants in, or observers of, significant events or times. Primitive societies...

speculation

(Encyclopedia)speculation, practice of engaging in business in order to make quick profits from fluctuations in prices, as opposed to the practice of investing in a productive enterprise in order to share in its ea...

Austerlitz

(Encyclopedia)Austerlitz ôˈstərlĭts, Ger. ouˈ– [key], Czech Slavkov u Brna, town, S Czech Republic, in Moravia. An agricultural center, the town has sugar refineries and cotton mills. It became a seat of the...

nightingale

(Encyclopedia)nightingale, common name for a migratory Old World bird of the family Turdidae (thrush family), celebrated for its vocal powers. The common nightingale of England and Western Europe, Luscinia megarhyn...