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Victoria Falls
Victoria Falls waterfall, c.1 mi (1.6 km) wide with a maximum drop of 420 ft (128 m), in the Zambezi River, S central Africa, on the Zambia-Zimbabwe border. The falls are formed as the Zambezi plummets into a narrow chasm (c.400 ft/120 m wide) carved by its waters along a fracture zone in the ear...
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Teapot Dome
Teapot Dome in U.S. history, oil reserve scandal that began during the administration of President Harding . In 1921, by executive order of the President, control of naval oil reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyo., and at Elk Hills, Calif., was transferred from the Navy Dept. to the Dept. of the Interior....
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sleet
sleet precipitation of small, partially melted grains of ice. As raindrops fall from clouds, they pass through layers of air at different temperatures. If they pass through a layer with a temperature below the freezing point, they turn into sleet. Snowflakes that have melted by passing through a wa...
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Orange River
Orange River chief river of S Africa, c.1,300 mi (2,090 km) long, rising in the Maluti Mts., N Lesotho. It flows SW through Lesotho, then meanders northwest and west through central South Africa, forming the SW boundary of Free State and part of the South Africa-Namibia line before entering the Atl...
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Toltec
Toltec , ancient civilization of Mexico. The name in Nahuatl means "master builders." The Toltec formed a warrior aristocracy that gained ascendancy in the Valley of Mexico c.AD 900 after the fall of Teotihuacán. Their early history is obscure but they seem to have had ancient links with ...
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New Year's Day
New Year's Day among ancient peoples the first day of the year frequently corresponded to the vernal or autumnal equinox, or to the summer or winter solstice. In the Middle Ages it was celebrated among Christians usually on Mar. 25. After the adoption of the Gregorian calendar that began in 1582, t...
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calendar
calendar [Lat., from Kalends], system of reckoning time for the practical purpose of recording past events and calculating dates for future plans. The calendar is based on noting ordinary and easily observable natural events, the cycle of the sun through the seasons with equinox and solstice , a...
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Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill , 1900-1950, German-American composer, b. Dessau, studied with Humperdinck and Busoni in Berlin. He first became known with the production of two short, satirical, surrealist operas, Der Protagonist (1926) and Der Zar lässt sich photographieren [the czar has himself photographed]...
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Victoria Nile
Victoria Nile river, section of the White Nile, c.260 mi (420 km) long, central Uganda, E central Africa. It drains from the northern end of Lake Victoria at Jinja and flows generally north and west, over Ripon Falls and Owen Falls (both now submerged), through shallow Lake Kyoga, and thence over K...
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Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov , 1920-92, American author and scientist, b. Petrovichi, USSR, grad. Columbia Univ. (B.S., 1939; M.A., 1941; Ph.D., 1948). An astonishingly prolific author, he wrote over 400 books. He first became prominent as a writer of such science fiction as I, Robot (1950, repr. 1970), The Cave...
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