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McDougall, Alexander

(Encyclopedia)McDougall, Alexander məkdo͞oˈgəl [key], 1731–86, American Revolutionary political leader and general, b. Islay, Inner Hebrides, Scotland. He was taken (1738) as a child to New York. He became a ...

Maiduguri

(Encyclopedia)Maiduguri mīdo͞oˈgərē [key], town (1991 est. pop. 282,000), capital of Borno state, NE Nigeria. The city is an important industrial center engaged in food processing and aluminum, steel, asbestos...

Kivu, region, Congo

(Encyclopedia)Kivu kēˈvo͞o, kēvo͞oˈ [key], region, c.89,000 sq mi (230,510 sq km), E Congo (Kinshasa). It borders on Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Lake Tanganyika on the east. Kivu is divided into three provin...

Ardennes, region, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France

(Encyclopedia)Ardennes, wooded plateau, from 1,600 to 2,300 ft (488–701 m) high, in SE Belgium, N Luxembourg, and Ardennes dept., N France, E and S of the Meuse River. The plateau is cut into wild crags and ravin...

Rough Riders

(Encyclopedia)Rough Riders, popular name for the 1st Regiment of U.S. Cavalry Volunteers, organized largely by Theodore Roosevelt in the Spanish-American War (1898). Its members were mostly ranchers and cowboys fro...

banner system

(Encyclopedia)banner system, Manchu conscription system. Companies of Manchu warriors were grouped (1601) into brigades, each with a distinctive banner. The banner system integrated former tribal units into a burea...

Samarra

(Encyclopedia)Samarra sämärˈrä [key], town, N central Iraq, on the Tigris River. It is on the site of an ancient settlement and has given its name to a type of Neolithic pottery of the 5th millennium b.c. The p...

Sassou-Nguesso, Denis

(Encyclopedia)Sassou-Nguesso, Denis dĕˈnē säsˈō-əngāˈsō [key], 1943?–, Congolese army officer and president (1979–92, 1997–) of Congo (Brazzaville). He served (1977–79) as the minister of national...

Rajk, Laszlo

(Encyclopedia)Rajk, Laszlo läsˈlō roik [key], 1909–49, Hungarian Communist leader. After fighting in the Spanish civil war of 1936–39 he was interned (1939) in a French camp for Spanish Loyalists. Rajk retur...

Rappahannock

(Encyclopedia)Rappahannock răpəhănˈək [key], river, 212 mi (341 km) long, rising in the Blue Ridge Mts., N Va., and flowing generally SE to Chesapeake Bay. It is navigable to Fredericksburg. In the Civil War m...