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Shelby, Carroll Hall

(Encyclopedia)Shelby, Carroll Hall, 1923–2012, automobile racer and designer, b. Leesburg, Tex. After serving as a flight instructor in World War II, he began (1952) a career as a race-car driver. He was Sports I...

Peace Corps

(Encyclopedia)Peace Corps, agency of the U.S. government, whose purpose is to assist underdeveloped countries in meeting their needs for trained manpower. The Peace Corps was established in 1961 by executive order ...

Topalov, Veselin

(Encyclopedia)Topalov, Veselin, 1975–, Bulgarian chess player. Topalov won the under-14 world championship in 1989 and placed second in the under-16 the following year, becoming a grandmaster in 1992 and a potent...

Weah, George

(Encyclopedia)Weah, George (George Manneh Oppong Ousman Weah), 1966–, Liberian soccer player and political leader. An outstanding striker, Weah was soccer's African, European, and World player of the year in 1995...

Zidane, Zinédine

(Encyclopedia)Zidane, Zinédine, 1972–, French soccer player. The son of Algerian immigrants, Zidane, nicknamed Zizou, was an attacking midfielder and one of the finest contemporary footballers. He played for Fra...

Leakey, Mary Douglas

(Encyclopedia)Leakey, Mary Douglas, 1913–96, British archaeologist, b. London as Mary Douglas Nicol; wife of Louis Leakey and mother of Richard Leakey. She had little formal education, but a fascination with arch...

King, Carole

(Encyclopedia) King, Carole, 1942-, American singer-songwriter, b. New York, N.Y., as Carole Joan Klein. King enjoyed two separate careers; in the early ‘60s, she ...

era

(Encyclopedia)era, period of historic time. In geology, it is the name applied to large divisions of geological process, e.g., Paleozoic era (see geology). In chronology an era is a period reckoned from a fixed poi...

Jordan, Michael Jeffrey

(Encyclopedia)Jordan, Michael Jeffrey, 1963–, American basketball player, b. Brooklyn, N.Y. As a freshman at the Univ. of North Carolina, he made the shot that won the 1982 National Collegiate Athletic Associatio...

solar time

(Encyclopedia)solar time, time defined by the position of the sun. The solar day is the time it takes for the sun to return to the same meridian in the sky. Local solar time is measured by a sundial. When the cente...