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debenture

(Encyclopedia)debenture dəbĕnˈchər [key], document acknowledging indebtedness. In Great Britain a debenture is practically the same as a bond, and debenture stock is similar to preferred stock. In the United St...

Evans, Walker

(Encyclopedia)Evans, Walker, 1903–75, American photographer, b. St. Louis. Evans began his photographic career in 1928. His studies of Victorian architecture and his photographs of the rural South during the Grea...

Fletcher, Andrew

(Encyclopedia)Fletcher, Andrew, 1655–1716, Scottish politician, known as Fletcher of Saltoun. An opponent of the policies of the duke of Lauderdale and the duke of York (later James II) in Scotland, he fled to Ho...

Fraser, Douglas Andrew

(Encyclopedia)Fraser, Douglas Andrew, 1916–2008, American labor leader, b. Glasgow, Scotland. His family emigrated to the United States when he was a child and settled in Detroit, where he began his working life ...

Education, United States Department of

(Encyclopedia)Education, United States Department of, executive department of the federal government responsible for advising on educational plans and policies, providing assistance for education, and carrying out ...

Guelleh, Ismaïl Omar

(Encyclopedia)Guelleh, Ismaïl Omar hĭsˈmäĭl ōˈmär gĕlˈlä [key], 1947–, Djiboutian political leader, b. Dire Dawa, Ethiopia. He moved to Djibouti (then a French territory) in the late 1960s and joined t...

Wickremanayake, Ratnasiri

(Encyclopedia)Wickremanayake, Ratnasiri, 1933–2016, Sri Lankan political leader. He entered the Sri Lankan parliament (1960) as a member of the People's United Front; in 1962 he joined the Sri Lanka Freedom party...

functionalism, in anthropology and sociology

(Encyclopedia)functionalism, in anthropology and sociology, a theory stressing the importance of interdependence among all behavior patterns and institutions within a social system to its long-term survival. It was...

Brandt, Willy

(Encyclopedia)Brandt, Willy vĭlˈē bränt [key], 1913–92, German political leader. His name originally was Karl Herbert Frahm. Active in his youth in the Social Democratic party, after Adolf Hitler came to powe...

Merton, Robert King

(Encyclopedia)Merton, Robert King, 1910–2003, American sociologist, b. Philadelphia as Meyer Schkolnick, grad. Temple Univ. (A.B., 1931) and Harvard (M.A., 1932; Ph.D., 1936). From 1941 on he was a professor of s...