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earring

(Encyclopedia)earring, a personal adornment, sometimes an amulet, worn attached to the ear lobe. Since prehistoric times the ear has been pierced for the insertion of the earring; certain primitive tribes distort t...

Great Slave Lake

(Encyclopedia)Great Slave Lake, second largest lake of Canada, c.10,980 sq mi (28,400 sq km), Northwest Territories, named for the Slave (Dogrib), a tribe of Native Americans. It is c.300 mi (480 km) long and from ...

Nadal, Rafael

(Encyclopedia)Nadal, Rafael (Rafael Nadal Parera), 1986–, Spanish tennis player, b. Majorca. Widely regarded as the greatest clay-court player ever, “Rafa” turned professional at 15. In 2005 he won his first ...

Nome

(Encyclopedia)Nome nōm [key], city (1990 pop. 3,500), W Alaska, on the southern side of Seward Peninsula, on Norton Sound; founded c.1898, when gold was discovered on the beach there. It is the commercial, governm...

Nkrumah, Kwame

(Encyclopedia)Nkrumah, Kwame kwäˈmā nkro͞oˈmä [key], 1909–72, African political leader, prime minister ...

Death Valley

(Encyclopedia)Death Valley, SE Calif. and SW Nev., a deep, arid basin, 140 mi (225 km) long, bordered on the W by the Panamint Range and on the E by the Amargosa Range. In summer the valley has recorded some of the...

Copperbelt

(Encyclopedia)Copperbelt, mining region, N central Zambia, central Africa. A natural extension of the mineral-rich region of SE Congo, the Copperbelt is one of the richest sources of copper in the world. Cobalt, se...

Macmillan

(Encyclopedia)Macmillan, river, c.200 mi (320 km) long, rising in two main forks in the Selwyn Mts., E Yukon, Canada, and flowing generally W to the Pelly River. It was an important route to the gold fields from c....

Potchefstroom

(Encyclopedia)Potchefstroom pŏchˈəfstrōm, –stro͞om [key], city, now part and seat of Tlokwe local municipality, North West prov. (in what formerly was part of Transvaal), NE South Africa. Located in a fertil...

Scherbo, Vitaly

(Encyclopedia)Scherbo, Vitaly, 1972–, Belarussian gymnast. Often considered to be the best male gymnast of all time, he had won at least one world title on each apparatus by the time he retired in 1997. He won hi...