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Prussia

(Encyclopedia)Prussia prŭshˈə [key], Ger. Preussen, former state, the largest and most important of the German states. Berlin was the capital. The chief member of the German Empire (1871–1918) and a state of t...

Lang, Andrew

(Encyclopedia)Lang, Andrew, 1844–1912, English scholar and man of letters, b. Scotland. His poetry, much of it written in the forms of ballades, triolets, and rondeaux, appeared in such volumes as his Ballads in ...

Lewis, Matthew Gregory

(Encyclopedia)Lewis, Matthew Gregory, 1775–1818, English author, b. London. In addition to his writing he pursued a diplomatic career and served for a time in Parliament. He was often called “Monk” Lewis from...

Gorgas, William Crawford

(Encyclopedia)Gorgas, William Crawford, 1854–1920, American disease and sanitation expert, surgeon general of the United States, b. Mobile, Ala., grad. Bellevue Hospital Medical College, 1879. He served with the ...

Schirra, Wally

(Encyclopedia)Schirra, Wally, (Walter Marty Schirra, Jr.), 1923–2007, the only American astronaut to fly in all of NASA's first three manned spaceflight programs, b. Hackensack, N.J., grad. U.S. Naval Academy (19...

Shockley, William Bradford

(Encyclopedia)Shockley, William Bradford, 1910–89, American physicist, b. London. He graduated from the California Institute of Technology (B.S., 1932) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D., 1936)....

Social Gospel

(Encyclopedia)Social Gospel, liberal movement within American Protestantism that attempted to apply biblical teachings to problems associated with industrialization. It took form during the latter half of the 19th ...

Bultmann, Rudolf Karl

(Encyclopedia)Bultmann, Rudolf Karl bo͝oltˈmän [key], 1884–1976, German existentialist theologian, educated at the universities of Tübingen, Berlin, and Marburg. He taught at the universities of Breslau and G...

Lateran Council, Third

(Encyclopedia)Lateran Council, Third, 1179, 11th ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church. It was convened at the Lateran Palace, Rome, by Pope Alexander III after the Peace of Venice (1178) had reconciled h...

mortar, in warfare

(Encyclopedia)mortar, in warfare, term originally applied to certain types of artillery with high trajectories, but later applied to an infantry weapon that consists of a tube supported by a bipod that fires a proj...