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imitation
imitation The acquisition of patterns of behaviour by repeating similar behaviour observed in others, not necessarily of the same species....
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Alexander III
Alexander III 1241-86, king of Scotland (1249-86), son and successor of Alexander II . He married a daughter of Henry III of England and quarreled with Henry, and later Henry's son Edward I , over the old English claims to overlordship in Scotland. The great achievement of Alexander was his fin...
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language acquisition
language acquisition the process of learning a native or a second language. The acquisition of native languages is studied primarily by developmental psychologists and psycholinguists. Although how children learn to speak is not perfectly understood, most explanations involve both the observation t...
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Hubert de Burgh
Hubert de Burgh , d. 1243, chief justiciar of England under kings John and Henry III . Having served as a royal minister and commander in France, he was appointed justiciar by John in 1215. He continued in this position after John's death (1216) and in 1217 took part in the defeat of the French fle...
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Cosimo I de' Medici
Cosimo I de' Medici 1519-74, duke of Florence (1537-69), grand duke of Tuscany (1569-74); son of Giovanni de' Medici (Giovanni delle Bande Nere). In 1537, Lorenzino de' Medici murdered Cosimo's predecessor, Alessandro de' Medici, and fled from Florence, leaving the succession to Cosimo. Cosimo, d...
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Hapsburg
Hapsburg or Habsburg , ruling house of Austria (1282-1918).
Rise to Power
The family, which can be traced to the 10th cent., originally held lands in Alsace and in NW Switzerland. Otto (d. 1111) took the name Hapsburg from a castle near Aargau, Switzerland, when he was designated cou...
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Louisiana Purchase
Louisiana Purchase 1803, American acquisition from France of the formerly Spanish region of Louisiana.
Reasons for the Purchase
The revelation in 1801 of the secret agreement of 1800, whereby Spain retroceded Louisiana to France, aroused uneasiness in the United States both because Napole...
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Code Napoléon
Code Napoléon or Code Civil , first modern legal code of France, promulgated by Napoleon I in 1804. The work of J. J. Cambacérès and a commission of four appointed by Napoleon I in 1800 was important in making the final draft. The Code Napoléon embodied the private ...
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John Galsworthy
John Galsworthy , 1867-1933, English novelist and dramatist. Winner of the 1932 Nobel Prize in Literature, he is best remembered for his series of novels tracing the history of the wealthy Forsyte family from the 1880s to the 1920s. Of an old and rich family, Galsworthy spent his youth in relative l...
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body snatching
body snatching the stealing of corpses from graves and morgues. Before cadavers were legally available for dissection and study by medical students, traffic in stolen bodies was profitable. Those who engaged in the illicit practice were sometimes called resurrectionists; they were active from about...
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