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Italo Balbo
Italo Balbo , 1896-1940, Italian Fascist leader and aviator. After serving in World War I, he joined the Fascist movement and in 1922 was one of the four top leaders of the March on Rome, which brought Mussolini to power. A general of the Fascist militia, he held several cabinet posts and was (1929-...
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cruiser
cruiser large, fast, moderately armed warship, intermediate in type between the aircraft carrier and the destroyer. During World War II, battle cruisers operated as small battleships, combining in one vessel maximum qualities of gun caliber, armor protection, and speed. Upon the retirement of the ...
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destroyer
destroyer class of warship very fast relative to its length, generally equipped with torpedos, antisubmarine equipment, and medium-caliber and antiaircraft guns. The newest destroyers are equipped with guided missiles as their chief offensive weapon. The destroyer, originally called the torpedo-boa...
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artillery
artillery originally meant any large weaponry (including such ancient engines of war as catapults and battering rams) or war material, but later applied only to heavy firearms as opposed to small arms . Types of artillery include antiaircraft and antitank guns (which fire at high muzzle veloci...
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battleship
battleship large, armored warship equipped with the heaviest naval guns. The evolution of the battleship, from the ironclad warship of the mid-19th cent., received great impetus from the Civil War. By 1872 the French were building iron and steel warships, and in 1876 the British started constructio...
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searchlight
searchlight device, usually swiveled, using a lens and reflecting surface to direct a powerful beam of light of nearly parallel rays. In 1892 such apparatus was used along the English Channel in coastal defense and later, in the South African War, as an aid to infantry movement. It was also used to...
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James Alfred Van Allen
James Alfred Van Allen 1914-2006, American physicist and space scientist, Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. A graduate (Ph.D 1939) of and professor of physics (1951-85) at what is now the Univ. of Iowa, where he was an influential teacher, Van Allen discovered what are now known as the Van Allen radiation belts...
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Benedict XVI
Benedict XVI 1927-, pope (2005-) and Roman Catholic theologian, a German (b. Marktl am Inn, Bavaria) named Josef (or Joseph) Alois Ratzinger; successor of John Paul II . He entered the seminary in 1939, but his training was interrupted by World War II. Drafted (1943) into the antiaircraft corps an...
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drone
drone or remotely piloted vehicle, a pilotless craft guided by remote control. Aircraft, ships, and land vehicles can be designed or outfitted as drones, although underwater vessels—both piloted and pilotless—are usually called submersibles . Small, relatively inexpensive military ...
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Afghanistan War
Afghanistan War 1978-92, conflict between anti-Communist Muslim Afghan guerrillas (mujahidin) and Afghan government and Soviet forces. The conflict had its origins in the 1978 coup that overthrew Afghan president Sardar Muhammad Daud Khan, who had come to power by ousting the king in 1973. The pres...
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