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social welfare

(Encyclopedia)social welfare or public charity, organized provision of educational, cultural, medical, and financial assistance to the needy. Modern social welfare measures may include any of the following: the car...

Evangelical United Brethren Church

(Encyclopedia)Evangelical United Brethren Church, Protestant denomination created (1946) by the union of the Evangelical Church and the United Brethren in Christ. Both denominations originated early in the 19th cen...

Anglo-Saxons

(Encyclopedia)Anglo-Saxons, name given to the Germanic-speaking peoples who settled in England after the decline of Roman rule there. They were first invited by the Celtic King Vortigern, who needed help fighting t...

Memphis, city, United States

(Encyclopedia)Memphis mĕmˈfĭs [key], city (1990 pop. 610,337), seat of Shelby co., SW Tenn., on the Fourth, or Lower, Chickasaw Bluff above the Mississippi, at the mouth of the Wolf River; inc. 1826. A river por...

New Guinea

(Encyclopedia)New Guinea gĭnˈē [key], island, c.342,000 sq mi (885,780 sq km), SW Pacific, N of Australia; the world's second largest island after Greenland. Politically it is divided into two sections: the Indo...

Tudor

(Encyclopedia)Tudor, royal family that ruled England from 1485 to 1603. Its founder was Owen Tudor, of a Welsh family of great antiquity, who was a squire at the court of Henry V and who married that king's widow, ...

Barbados

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Barbados bärbāˈdōz [key], island state (2020 est. pop. 287,371), 166 sq mi (430 sq km), in ...

dinosaur

(Encyclopedia)dinosaur dīˈnəsôr [key] [Gr., = terrible lizard], extinct land reptile of the Mesozoic era. The dinosaurs, which were egg-laying animals, ranged in length from 21⁄2 ft (91 cm) to about 127 f...

Utopia

(Encyclopedia)Utopia yo͞otōˈpēə [key] [Gr.,=no place], title of a book by Sir Thomas More, published in Latin in 1516. The work pictures an ideal state where all is ordered for the best for humanity as a whole...

bin Laden, Osama

(Encyclopedia)bin Laden, Osama or Usama ōsäˈmə bĭn lädˈən, ŭsäˈmə [key], 1957?–2011, Saudi-born leader of Al Qaeda, a terrorist organization devoted to uniting all Muslims and establishing a transnati...

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