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Banach, Stefan

(Encyclopedia)Banach, Stefan stĕˈfän bäˈnäkh [key], 1892–1945, Polish mathematician. He was educated at the Institute of Technology in Lviv; his doctoral thesis laid the foundations of modern functional ana...

Plenković, Andrej

(Encyclopedia)Plenković, Andrej, 1970–, Croatian political leader. He studied law then joined (1994) the Croatian ministry of foreign affairs in the department for European integration, heading the department fr...

Waves

(Encyclopedia)Waves (Women Appointed for Voluntary Emergency Service), U.S. navy organization, created (1942) in World War II to release male naval personnel for sea duty. The organization was commanded until 1946 ...

Commonwealth of Independent States

(Encyclopedia)Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), community of independent nations established by a treaty signed at Minsk, Belarus, on Dec. 8, 1991, by the heads of state of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. Bet...

São Caetano do Sul

(Encyclopedia)São Caetano do Sul souN kītäˈno͞o ᵺo͝o so͞ol [key], city (1996 pop. 140,808), São Paulo state, SE Brazil, an industrial suburb southeast of the city of São Paulo. Because of their integrati...

Maillart, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Maillart, Robert mīyärˈ [key], 1872–1940, Swiss engineer, renowned for his inventive and beautiful reinforced-concrete bridges. Maillart's basic structural principles—integration of the support...

Lubbers, Ruud

(Encyclopedia)Lubbers, Ruud (Rudolphus Franciscus Marie Lubbers), 1939–2018, Dutch political leader. After the death of his father (1965), he became codirector of the family's engineering firm. A member (from 196...

Brittan, Sir Leon

(Encyclopedia)Brittan, Sir Leon brĭtˈən [key], 1939–, British politician. Educated at Cambridge, he was elected to Parliament as a Conservative in 1974. Under Margaret Thatcher he served as home secretary (198...

Arthur, Owen Seymour

(Encyclopedia)Arthur, Owen Seymour, 1949–2020, Barbadian political leader. An economist, he worked for the Jamaican national planning agency in the 1970s and the Barbados ministry of finance and planning in the 1...

Maddox, Lester G.

(Encyclopedia)Maddox, Lester G. (Lester Garfield Maddox, Sr), 1915–2003, U.S. public official, governor of Georgia (1967–71), b. Atlanta. He achieved national notoriety in 1964 when he drove African Americans f...

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