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Strategic Defense Initiative

(Encyclopedia)Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), former U.S. government program responsible for research and development of a space-based system to defend the nation from attack by strategic ballistic missiles (se...

empyema

(Encyclopedia)empyema ĕmpē-ēˈmə [key], persistent purulent discharge into a cavity such as the pleural space or the gallbladder. Empyema results as a complication of bacterial infections such as pneumonia and ...

Steer, Philip Wilson

(Encyclopedia)Steer, Philip Wilson, 1860–1942, English landscape painter. Steer worked largely in the tradition of French impressionist painting and was considered the greatest English landscape painter of his da...

Bourget, Le

(Encyclopedia)Bourget, Le, town, Seine–Saint-Denis dept., N central France. A suburb of Paris, it is the site of Le Bourget airport, once Paris's main airport but n...

Scott, Robert Falcon

(Encyclopedia)Scott, Robert Falcon, 1868–1912, British naval officer and antarctic explorer. He commanded two noted expeditions to Antarctica. The first expedition (1901–4), in the Discovery, organized jointly ...

Altichiero da Zevio

(Encyclopedia)Altichiero da Zevio ältēkyāˈrō dä tsāvˈyō [key], c.1330–c.1395, Italian painter, follower of Giotto. He worked in Verona and then Padua. His frescoes in the churches of Sant' Antonio and Sa...

White, Edward Higgins, 2d

(Encyclopedia)White, Edward Higgins, 2d, 1930–67, American astronaut, b. San Antonio. While serving as pilot of Gemini 4 (June 3–7, 1965), he became the first American to perform extravehicular activity. He had...

Arrokoth

(Encyclopedia)Arrokoth, trans-Neptunian object in the Kuiper Belt (see comet). First observed by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2014 and later nicknamed Ultima Thule (until its official naming in late 2019), it beca...

Moab

(Encyclopedia)Moab mōˈăb [key], ancient nation located in the uplands E of the Dead Sea, now part of Jordan. The area is unprotected from the east, hence its history is a chain of raids by the Bedouin. The Moabi...

Magdalena

(Encyclopedia)Magdalena mägᵺälāˈnä [key], river, c.1,000 mi (1,600 km) long, rising in the Cordillera Central, SW Colombia and flowing N to the Caribbean Sea near Barranquilla. It flows in a fault-block vall...