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ironclad

(Encyclopedia)ironclad, mid-19th-century wooden warship protected from gunfire by iron armor. The success of the ironclad when first employed by the French in the Crimean War sparked a naval armor and armaments rac...

Watkins Glen

(Encyclopedia)Watkins Glen wŏtˈkĭnz [key], resort village (1990 pop. 2,207), seat of Schuyler co., W central N.Y., in the Finger Lakes region, at the southern end of Seneca Lake; inc. 1842. It is in a grape and ...

Abrahams, Peter

(Encyclopedia)Abrahams, Peter, 1919–2017, South African novelist and journalist, b. Peter Henry Abrahams Deras. Though he lived mostly in exile, he exposed the injustices of the apartheid system and the politics ...

skiing

(Encyclopedia)skiing, sport of sliding over snow on skis—long, narrow, flexible runners. Water skiing is a warm-weather sport in which a motor-propelled craft tows a skier through the water. Although its orig...

Lowden, Frank Orren

(Encyclopedia)Lowden, Frank Orren, 1861–1943, American political leader, b. Chisago co., Minn. He practiced law in Chicago after 1887 and gained extensive agricultural holdings in Illinois. A leading member of th...

Laurel, cities, United States

(Encyclopedia)Laurel. 1 Town (1990 pop. 19,438), Prince Georges co., central Md., about halfway between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore; patented in the late 1600s, inc. 1870. Primarily residential, Laurel has ligh...

MacInnes, Colin

(Encyclopedia)MacInnes, Colin məkĭnˈəs [key], 1914–76, English novelist, b. London. Son of the novelist Angela Thirkell, MacInnes was educated in Australia and served in the British intelligence corps during ...

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke

(Encyclopedia)Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, case decided in 1978 by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court held in a closely divided decision that race could be one of the factors considered in choos...

Vincennes, town, France

(Encyclopedia)Vincennes văNsĕnˈ [key], town (1990 pop. 42,651), Val-de-Marne dept., N central France, an industrial and residential suburb E of Paris. Radio, electrical, and photographic equipment, machinery, an...

Davis, Angela Yvonne

(Encyclopedia)Davis, Angela Yvonne, 1944–, African-American political activist, b. Birmingham, Ala. She taught philosophy (1969–70) at the Univ. of California, Los Angeles, until she was finally denied reappoin...