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Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

(Encyclopedia)Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. Part of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum was designed by Gordon Bunshaft to house 6,000 pieces of the enormous art collection amassed by ...

graphene

(Encyclopedia)graphene, virtually transparent, highly conductive carbon material in which the atoms are organized into a honeycomblike arrangement and form a thin sheet that is one atom thick. Andre Geim and Konsta...

Gill, Sir David

(Encyclopedia)Gill, Sir David gĭl [key], 1843–1914, Scottish astronomer, educated at the Univ. of Aberdeen. He made observations of the transits of Venus and Mars and investigated the solar parallax. As astronom...

German Catholics

(Encyclopedia)German Catholics, religious groups founded in 1844 by dissidents from the Roman Catholic Church. They were led by two excommunicated priests, Johann Czerski of Schneidemühl, Posen, and Johann Ronge o...

Geological Survey, United States

(Encyclopedia)Geological Survey, United States, bureau organized in 1879 under the Dept. of the Interior to unify and centralize the work already undertaken by separate surveys under Clarence King, F. V. Hayden, Ge...

Jovellanos, Gaspar Melchor de

(Encyclopedia)Jovellanos, Gaspar Melchor de gäspärˈ mĕlchôrˈ dā hōvĕlyäˈnōs [key], 1744–1811, Spanish statesman and writer. Very influential as an advocate of economic and social reform during the enl...

Jahn, Friedrich Ludwig

(Encyclopedia)Jahn, Friedrich Ludwig frēˈdrĭkh lo͞otˈvĭkh yän [key], 1778–1852, German patriot. A high school teacher in Berlin, he was active in efforts to free Germany from Napoleonic rule. He organized ...

Janissaries

(Encyclopedia)Janissaries jănˈĭsârˌēz [key] [Turk.,=recruits], elite corps in the service of the Ottoman Empire (Turkey). It was composed of war captives and Christian youths pressed into service; all the rec...

New Sweden

(Encyclopedia)New Sweden, Swedish colony (1638–55), on the Delaware River; included parts of what are now Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. With the support of Swedish statesman Axel Oxenstierna, Admiral Kl...

Ohio Company

(Encyclopedia)Ohio Company, organization formed (1747) to extend settlements of Virginia westward. The members were mostly Virginia planters interested in land speculation and the fur trade. A royal charter (1749) ...