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Second Sino-Japanese War
Second Sino-Japanese War 1937-45, conflict between Japanese and Chinese forces for control of the Chinese mainland. The war sapped the Nationalist government's strength while allowing the Communists to gain control over large areas through organization of guerrilla units. Thus, it was an important ...
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Beijing
Beijing or Peking , city (1994 est. urban pop. 6,093,300; 1994 est. total pop. 7,240,700), capital of the People's Republic of China. It is in central Hebei prov., but constitutes an independent unit (6,564 sq mi/17,000 sq km) administered directly by the national government. The second largest ...
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U-2 incident
U-2 incident in U.S. and Soviet history, the events following the Soviet downing of an American U-2 high altitude reconnaissance aircraft over Soviet territory on May 1, 1960. The incident led to the collapse of a proposed summit conference between the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain...
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Manchurian Incident
Manchurian Incident or Mukden Incident, 1931, confrontation that gave Japan the impetus to set up a puppet government in Manchuria. After the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5), Japan replaced Russia as the dominant foreign power in S Manchuria. By the late 1920s the Japanese feared that unification o...
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Royal George
Royal George British naval vessel that sank on Aug. 29, 1782, while undergoing repairs at Spithead. Its commander, Admiral Richard Kempenfelt, and about 800 sailors and visitors were drowned. The incident is commemorated in William Cowper's poem "On the Loss of the Royal George."
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UFO
UFO a mysterious object seen in the sky (an Unidentified Flying Object) for which it is claimed no orthodox scientific explanation can be found. UFO incidents range from sightings of unidentified lights in the sky to accounts of supposed abductions by alien beings....
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refraction
refraction in physics, deflection of a wave on passing obliquely from one transparent medium into a second medium in which its speed is different, as the passage of a light ray from air into glass. Other forms of electromagnetic radiation , in addition to light waves, can be refracted, as can soun...
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John Lloyd Stephens
John Lloyd Stephens 1805-52, American author and traveler, b. Shrewsbury, N.J., grad. Columbia College, 1822. His travels (1834-36) in Europe, the Middle East, and Central America provided the material for a number of studies. By far the best are Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia, Petraea, and ...
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My Lai incident
My Lai incident , in the Vietnam War, a massacre of Vietnamese civilians by U.S. soldiers. On Mar. 16, 1968, a unit of the U.S. army Americal division, led by Lt. William L. Calley, invaded the South Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai (more correctly, Son My), an alleged Viet Cong stronghold. In the course...
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albedo
albedo , reflectivity of the surface of a planet, moon, asteroid, or other celestial body that does not shine by its own light. Albedo is measured as the fraction of incident light that the surface reflects back in all directions. A perfect reflector by definition has an albedo of unity, i.e., all t...
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