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Zimmermann note

(Encyclopedia)Zimmermann note, secret telegram sent on Jan. 16, 1917, by German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmermann to Count Johann von Bernstorff, the German ambassador to the United States. In it Zimmermann said ...

commando

(Encyclopedia)commando, small, elite military raiding and assault unit or soldier. Although the word was coined in the Boer War (1899–1902), the role is as old as battles themselves. In 1940, when the British org...

pacifism

(Encyclopedia)pacifism, advocacy of opposition to war through individual or collective action against militarism. Although complete, enduring peace is the goal of all pacifism, the methods of achieving it differ. S...

Burns, Ken

(Encyclopedia)Burns, Ken (Kenneth Lauren Burns), 1953–, American documentary filmmaker, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., grad. Hampshire College (1975). Acting as producer, director, and cinematographer, Burns typically explor...

reparations

(Encyclopedia)reparations, payments or other compensation offered as an indemnity for loss or damage. Although the term is used to cover payments made to Holocaust survivors and to Japanese Americans interned durin...

Craven, Avery Odelle

(Encyclopedia)Craven, Avery Odelle, 1886–1980, American historian, b. Randolph co., N.C.; Ph.D., Univ. of Chicago, 1923. He taught at several colleges in the Midwest before returning (1928) to Chicago and becomin...

Fort Snelling

(Encyclopedia)Fort Snelling, on a bluff above the junction of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers, SE Minn.; est. 1820. It served as a regional protective barrier and as a nucleus for settlement. Minneapolis and S...

Niel, Adolphe

(Encyclopedia)Niel, Adolphe ädôlfˈ nyĕl [key], 1802–69, marshal of France under Napoleon III. He served with the corps of engineers in the Algerian campaigns, in the French intervention against the Roman repu...

Rainbow Division

(Encyclopedia)Rainbow Division, nickname of the 42d Division of the U.S. army. The first U.S. combat division to arrive in France in World War I, it participated in the second battle of the Marne, fought in the cou...

Baring, Maurice

(Encyclopedia)Baring, Maurice, 1874–1945, English author. After a career in the diplomatic service, he turned to journalism in 1904. A war correspondent during the Russo-Japanese War, he wrote several books on Ru...