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Downs, North, and South Downs

(Encyclopedia)Downs, North, and South Downs, parallel ranges of chalk hills, SE England. They rise to 965 ft (294 m) at Leith Hill, Surrey. The North Downs range, extending c.100 mi (160 km) from near Farnham, Surr...

Stark, John

(Encyclopedia)Stark, John, 1728–1822, American Revolutionary soldier, b. Londonderry, N.H. He fought in the French and Indian Wars. At the start of the Revolution he distinguished himself at Bunker Hill, and he s...

Tábor

(Encyclopedia)Tábor täˈbôr [key], city (1991 pop. 36,342), S central Czech Republic, in Bohemia. The city's economy relies on agricultural trade, tobacco, textiles, and the mining of kaolin. The city was founde...

Smithies, Oliver

(Encyclopedia)Smithies, Oliver, 1925–2017, American geneticist, b. Halifax, England, Ph.D., Oxford, 1951. Smithies was on the faculty at the Univ. of Toronto (1953–60) and Univ. of Wisconsin–Madison (1960–8...

Scouts

(Encyclopedia)Scouts or Boy Scouts, organization of boys and girls 11 to 17 years old, founded (1907) in Great Britain by Sir Robert (later Lord) Baden-Powell and originally for boys only; since the late 20th cent....

Edward VIII

(Encyclopedia)Edward VIII, 1894–1972, king of Great Britain and Ireland (1936), known in later years as the duke of Windsor; eldest son of George V. He attended the naval colleges at Osborne and Dartmouth and Mag...

Surratt, Mary Eugenia

(Encyclopedia)Surratt, Mary Eugenia sərătˈ [key], 1820–65, alleged conspirator in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, hanged on July 7, 1865. A widow (her maiden name was Jenkins) who had moved from Surratts...

Uttarakhand

(Encyclopedia)Uttarakhand, formerly Uttaranchal, state (2001 provisional pop. 8,479,562), 20,650 sq mi (53,483 sq km), N India. Situated in the Himalayas where many peaks top 20,000 ft (6,096 m), it is bordered by ...

transcontinental railroad

(Encyclopedia)transcontinental railroad, in U.S. history, rail connection with the Pacific coast. In 1845, Asa Whitney presented to Congress a plan for the federal government to subsidize the building of a railroad...

Grand Army of the Republic

(Encyclopedia)Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), organization established by Civil War veterans of the Union army and navy. Principal figures in the founding of the GAR were John A. Logan and Richard J. Oglesby. The...