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Ploieşti

(Encyclopedia)Ploieşti ployĕshtˈ [key], city (1990 pop. 259,014), S central Romania, in Walachia. It is the chief center of the Romanian petroleum industry and of the Ploieşti oil region. The city is a railroad...

Warsaw Treaty Organization

(Encyclopedia)Warsaw Treaty Organization or Warsaw Pact, alliance set up under a mutual defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, in 1955 by Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania,...

National Institute of Standards and Technology

(Encyclopedia)National Institute of Standards and Technology, governmental agency within the U.S. Dept. of Commerce with the mission of “working with industry to develop and apply technology, measurements, and st...

Tiglathpileser III

(Encyclopedia)Tiglathpileser III, d. 728 b.c., king of ancient Assyria. He seems to have usurped the throne in 745 b.c. He bore the alternative name of Pul, by which he was known in biblical history (2 Kings 15.19)...

Veterans Affairs, United States Department of

(Encyclopedia)Veterans Affairs, United States Department of, federal executive department established to operate programs to benefit veterans and their families. The department was established in 1989; its predeces...

Carey, Hugh Leo

(Encyclopedia)Carey, Hugh Leo, 1919–2011, American politician, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., grad. St. John's Univ. (1942), St. John's Univ. School of Law (1951). A liberal Democrat, Carey was elected to Congress in 1960 an...

senate, Roman

(Encyclopedia)senate, Roman, governing council of the Roman republic. It was the outgrowth of the council of the kings. By the 3d cent. b.c. the senate was a group of 300 men with a high degree of political, legisl...

Ailly, Pierre d'

(Encyclopedia)Ailly, Pierre d' pyĕr dāyēˈ [key], 1350–1420, French theologian and writer, cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He was the teacher of John Gerson and was Gerson's predecessor as chancellor of...

Nestorianism

(Encyclopedia)Nestorianism, Christian heresy that held Jesus to be two distinct persons, closely and inseparably united. In 428, Emperor Theodosius II named an abbot of Antioch, Nestorius (d. 451?), as patriarch of...

North, Douglass Cecil

(Encyclopedia)North, Douglass Cecil, 1920–2015, American economic historian, b. Cambridge, Mass., Ph.D. Univ. of California, Berkeley, 1952. North was on the faculty at the Univ. of Washington, Seattle (1950–83...