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Gregory Peck
Gregory Peck 1916-2003, American movie actor, b. La Jolla, Calif., as Eldred Gregory Peck. Peck studied at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse and debuted on Broadway in The Morning Star (1942) and in film in Days of Glory (1944). He achieved stardom in 1944 with his role in The Keys to the King...
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Fletcher v. Peck
Fletcher v. Peck case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1810, involving the Yazoo land fraud . The court ruled that an act of the Georgia legislature rescinding a land grant was unconstitutional because it revoked rights previously granted by contract. The decision was the first to declare a st...
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Matthew Gregory Lewis
Matthew Gregory Lewis 1775-1818, English author, b. London. In addition to his writing he pursued a diplomatic career and served for a time in Parliament. He was often called "Monk" Lewis from the title of his extravagant Gothic romance The Monk (1796), the writing of which was influenced b...
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nuthatch
nuthatch , common name applied to a number of Old and New World species of small birds of the genus Sitta, related to the titmouse and the creeper. The name refers to its habit of wedging nuts into crevices in trees and pecking them open. Nuthatches are unique in that they climb down tree trunks h...
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John Gower
John Gower , 1330?-1408, English poet. He was the best-known contemporary and friend of Chaucer, who addressed him as "Moral Gower," at the end of Troilus and Criseyde. Apparently he was a Kentish landowner who lived in London until his last years, when he became blind and retired as a layman ...
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woodpecker
woodpecker common name for members of the Picidae, a large family of climbing birds found in most parts of the world. Woodpeckers typically have sharp, chisellike bills for pecking holes in tree trunks, and long, barbed, extensible tongues with which they impale their insect prey. Their spiny tail ...
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Assiniboin
Assiniboin , Native North Americans whose culture is that of the N Great Plains; their language belongs to the Siouan branch of the Hokan-Siouan linguistic stock (see Native American languages ). At the time of the first contact with European settlers they had no permanent village sites; they moved...
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Darwin's finches
Darwin's finches or Galapagos finches , species of small finches, constituting the subfamily Geospizinae of the finch family. This group of thirteen species is confined to the Galápagos Islands, except a single species found on Cocos Island, about 600 mi (960 km) northeast. Their special ...
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magpie
magpie common name for certain birds of the family Corvidae (crows and jays). The black-billed magpie, Pica pica, of W North America has iridescent black plumage, white wing patches and abdomen, and a long wedge-shaped tail. It is altogether about 20 in. (50 cm) long. Magpies build large, domed n...
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rabbi
rabbi [Heb.,=my master; my teacher], the title of a Jewish spiritual leader. The role of the rabbi has undergone a number of transformations. In the Talmudic period, rabbis were primarily teachers and interpreters of the Torah. They developed the liturgy, calendar, and other aspects of post-Temple ...
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