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Alamogordo

(Encyclopedia)Alamogordo ălˌəməgôrˈdō, –də [key], city, seat of Otero co., S N.Mex., near the Sacramento Mts.; inc. 1912. Holloman Air Force Base, home to U.S. stealth aircraf...

turnip

(Encyclopedia)turnip, garden vegetable of the same genus of the family Cruciferae (or Brassicaceae; mustard family) as the cabbage; native to Europe, where it has been long cultivated. The two principal kinds are t...

Venda

(Encyclopedia)Venda vĕndˈə [key], former black “homeland” and nominal republic, NE South Africa. It comprised two connected areas near the Zimbabwe border in what is now Limpopo prov. Kruger National Park bo...

inflammation

(Encyclopedia)inflammation, reaction of the body to injury or to infectious, allergic, or chemical irritation. The symptoms are redness, swelling, heat, and pain resulting from dilation of the blood vessels in the ...

guinea fowl

(Encyclopedia)guinea fowl gĭnˈē [key], common name for any of the seven species of gallinaceous birds of the family Numididae, native to Africa and Madagascar. The helmeted guinea fowl, Numida meleagris, from wh...

Warner, Sylvia Townsend

(Encyclopedia)Warner, Sylvia Townsend, 1893–1978, English novelist and poet. Her first published work was poetry, The Espalier (1925), but she became more generally known with two novels of gentle fantasy, Lolly ...

water moccasin

(Encyclopedia)water moccasin or cottonmouth, highly venomous snake, Ancistrodon piscivorus, of the swamps and bayous of the S United States. Like the closely related copperhead, it is a pit viper and has a heat-sen...

right whale

(Encyclopedia)right whale, name for whales of the family Balaenidae. They were so named by whalers, who for centuries considered them “the right whales” to hunt, because they float when killed and because they ...

Milk, Harvey

(Encyclopedia)Milk, Harvey, 1931–78, U.S. politician and gay-rights activist. When elected (1977) to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, he was the first acknowledged homosexual to win high local office in th...

Thomas Jefferson Memorial

(Encyclopedia)Thomas Jefferson Memorial, monument, 18 acres (7 hectares), in East Potomac Park, on the Tidal Basin, Washington, D.C.; authorized by Congress 1934, built 1938–43, dedicated 1943. The white marble b...