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Emigrant Aid Company

(Encyclopedia)Emigrant Aid Company, organization formed in 1854 to promote organized antislavery immigration to the Kansas territory from the Northeast. Eli Thayer conceived the plan as early as Feb., 1854, even be...

Easter Island

(Encyclopedia)Easter Island, Span. Isla de Pascua, Polynesian Rapa Nui, remote island (2020 est. pop. 5,000), 66 sq mi (171 sq km), in the South Pacific, c.2,200 ...

Pennsylvania Dutch

(Encyclopedia)Pennsylvania Dutch [Ger. Deutsch=German], people of E Pennsylvania of German descent who migrated to the area in the 18th cent., particularly those in Northampton, Berks, Lancaster, Lehigh, Lebanon, Y...

Populist party

(Encyclopedia)Populist party, in U.S. history, political party formed primarily to express the agrarian protest of the late 19th cent. In some states the party was known as the People's party. In 1896, while th...

Patagonia

(Encyclopedia)Patagonia pätägōˈnyä [key], region, c.300,000 sq mi (777,000 sq km), primarily in S Argentina, S of the Río Colorado and E of the Andes, but including extreme SE Chile and N Tierra del Fuego. Pa...

Sarkozy, Nicolas

(Encyclopedia)Sarkozy, Nicolas (Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarkozy de Nagy-Bocsa) nēkōläˈ pōl stāfänˈ särkōzēˈ də näzhēˌ-bōksäˈ [key], 1955–, French politician, president of France (2007–12), b. ...

Reformed Church in America

(Encyclopedia)Reformed Church in America, Protestant denomination founded in colonial times by settlers from the Netherlands and formerly known as the Dutch Reformed Church. The Reformed Church in Holland emerged i...

Tea Party

(Encyclopedia)Tea Party, in the early 21st cent., U.S. political movement that arose in reaction to the economic crisis of 2008 and the government rescue and aid measures for the financial, automobile, and other in...

Erie Canal

(Encyclopedia)Erie Canal, artificial waterway, c.360 mi (580 km) long; connecting New York City with the Great Lakes via the Hudson River. Locks were built to overcome the 571-ft (174-m) difference between the leve...

bossism

(Encyclopedia)bossism, in U.S. history, system of political control centering about a single powerful figure (the boss) and a complex organization of lesser figures (the machine) bound together by reciprocity in pr...