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National Organization for Women

(Encyclopedia)National Organization for Women (NOW), group founded (1966) to support “full equality for women in America in a truly equal partnership with men.” Its founder and first president was feminist lead...

Test Act

(Encyclopedia)Test Act, 1673, English statute that excluded from public office (both military and civil) all those who refused to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, who refused to receive the communion acc...

Secret Service, United States

(Encyclopedia)Secret Service, United States, a law enforcement division (since 2003) of the Dept. of Homeland Security. It was established in 1865 in the the Dept. of the Treasury to investigate and prevent counter...

Constitutional Union party

(Encyclopedia)Constitutional Union party, in U.S. history, formed when the conflict between North and South broke down the older parties. The Constitutional Union group, composed of former Whigs and remnants of the...

chinchilla

(Encyclopedia)chinchilla chĭnchĭlˈə [key], small burrowing rodent of South America. It lives in colonies at high altitudes (up to 15,000 ft/4,270 m) in the Andes of Bolivia, Chile, and Peru. One of the costlies...

Glanvill, Ranulf de

(Encyclopedia)Glanvill, Ranulf de glănˈvĭl [key], d. 1190, English jurist. He served Henry II in many offices, finally as chief justiciar after 1180. He commissioned one of the great works of English law, the T...

Al-Fasi, Isaac ben Jacob ha-Kohen

(Encyclopedia)Al-Fasi, Isaac ben Jacob ha-Kohen äl-fäˈsē [key], 1013–1103, prominent Jewish Talmudic scholar of the very late Gaonic period, b. near Fès, N Africa. He headed the rabbinical school at Fès unt...

Ur-Nammu

(Encyclopedia)Ur-Nammu ŭr-nämˈo͞o [key], fl. 2060 b.c., king of the ancient city of Ur, sometimes called Zur-Nammu or Ur-Engur. He founded a new Sumerian dynasty, the third dynasty of Ur, that lasted a century....

Varona y Pera, Enrique José

(Encyclopedia)Varona y Pera, Enrique José ānrēˈkā hōsāˈ värōˈnä ē pāˈrä [key], 1849–1933, Cuban philosopher and vice president of Cuba (1913–17). Varona was a professor at the Univ. of Havana an...

Vattel, Emerich de

(Encyclopedia)Vattel, Emerich de āˈmərĭkh də vätĕlˈ [key], 1714–67, Swiss philosopher and jurist. He served (1746–58) as Saxon minister at Bern and later in the cabinet of Augustus III at Dresden. He is...