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Directory

(Encyclopedia)Directory, group of five men who held the executive power in France according to the constitution of the year III (1795) of the French Revolution. They were chosen by the new legislature, by the Counc...

Turgot, Anne Robert Jacques

(Encyclopedia)Turgot, Anne Robert Jacques än rōbĕrˈ zhäk türgōˈ [key], 1727–81, French economist, comptroller general of finances (1774–76). The son of a rich merchant, he showed precocious ability at s...

Wilde, Oscar

(Encyclopedia)Wilde, Oscar (Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde), 1854–1900, Irish author and wit, b. Dublin. He is most famous for his sophisticated, brilliantly witty plays, which were the first since the come...

virtual currency

(Encyclopedia)virtual currency, a means of payment that is electronically created and stored, more specifically an unregulated electronic medium of exchange that operates like a currency but is created and controll...

Louis XV, king of France

(Encyclopedia)Louis XV, 1710–74, king of France (1715–74), great-grandson and successor of King Louis XIV, son of Louis, titular duke of Burgundy, and Marie Adelaide of Savoy. The domestic abuses of Louis XIV...

pension

(Encyclopedia)pension, periodic payments to one who has retired from work because of age or disability. Pensions, originally thought of as charity, are now viewed as an essential part of the social responsibility o...

Scott, Sir Walter

(Encyclopedia)Scott, Sir Walter, 1771–1832, Scottish novelist and poet, b. Edinburgh. He is considered the father of both the regional and the historical novel. Scott's narrative poems introduced a form of v...

parlement

(Encyclopedia)parlement pärˈləmənt, Fr. pärləmäNˈ [key], in French history, the chief judicial body under the ancien régime. The parlement consisted of a number of separate chambers: the central pleading c...

Peale, Charles Willson

(Encyclopedia)Peale, Charles Willson pēl [key], 1741–1827, American portrait painter, naturalist, and inventor, b. Queen Annes County, Md. Charles Willson Peale's brother James Peale, 1749–1831, b. Cheste...

Cleveland, cities, United States

(Encyclopedia)Cleveland. 1 City (2020 pop. 372,674), seat of Cuyahoga co., NE Ohio, on Lake Erie at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River; laid out (1796) by Moses ...

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