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altitude

(Encyclopedia)altitude, vertical distance of an object above some datum plane, such as mean sea level or a reference point on the earth's surface. It is usually measured by the reduction in atmospheric pressure wit...

engraving

(Encyclopedia)engraving, in its broadest sense, the art of cutting lines in metal, wood, or other material either for decoration or for reproduction through printing. In its narrowest sense, it is an intaglio print...

Begin, Menachem

(Encyclopedia)Begin, Menachem mĕnäˈkhĕm bāˈgĭn [key], 1913–92, Zionist leader and Israeli prime minister (1977–83), b. Russia. He became (1938) leader of a Zionist youth movement in Poland, where he also...

gas

(Encyclopedia)gas, in physics, one of the three commonly recognized states of matter, the other two being solid and liquid. A substance in the gaseous state has neither definite shape nor definite volume. Like liqu...

House Un-American Activities Committee

(Encyclopedia)House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), a committee (1938–75) of the U.S. House of Representatives, created to investigate disloyalty and subversive organizations. Its first chairman, Martin ...

elevator, in machinery

(Encyclopedia)elevator, in machinery, device for transporting people or goods from one level to another. The term is applied to the enclosed structures as well as the open platforms used to provide vertical transpo...

John II, king of Hungary and prince of Transylvania

(Encyclopedia)John II (John Sigismund Zapolya), 1540–71, king of Hungary and prince of Transylvania, son of John I. Through his mother, Isabel (daughter of Sigismund I of Poland), he was related to the Jagiello d...

Karadžić, Radovan

(Encyclopedia)Karadžić, Radovan räˈdōvän käˈräjĭch [key], 1945–, Bosnian Serb physician, author, and political leader, b. Savnik, Montenegro, Yugoslavia. The son of a Serb nationalist and World War II r...

Kelvin, William Thomson, 1st Baron

(Encyclopedia)Kelvin, William Thomson, 1st Baron, 1824–1907, British mathematician and physicist, b. Belfast. He was professor of natural philosophy at the Univ. of Glasgow (1846–99). He is known especially for...

Bassiouni, M. Cherif

(Encyclopedia)Bassiouni, M. Cherif (Mahmoud Cherif Bassiouni), 1937–2017, Egyptian-American international criminal law jurist and human-rights advocate, b. Cairo. Bassiouni fought for Egypt in the Suez conflict (...