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Richard Lemon Lander
Richard Lemon Lander 1804-34, English explorer. He accompanied Clapperton to the Niger River in 1827 and brought back Clapperton's journal, which was published (1829) with an account of Lander's return to the coast. Accompanied by his brother John Lander (1807-39), he led an expedition (1830-31) to...
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Rolf Hochhuth
Rolf Hochhuth , 1931-, German dramatist. His provocative first drama, The Deputy (1963), accuses Pope Pius XII and the Roman Catholic clergy of tolerating Nazi crimes against the Jews. It received productions worldwide and caused great controversy. His second play, Soldiers (1967), initially ban...
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puma
puma or cougar , New World member of the cat family, Felis concolor. Also known as mountain lion, catamount, panther, and painter, it ranges from S British Columbia to the southern tip of South America. The puma is slenderly built, with a lionlike face. There is great variation both in size ...
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Pygmy
Pygmy or Pigmy , a racial designation of dark-skinned people who live in equatorial rain forests and average less than 59 in. (150 cm) in height. Some studies make a distinction between Negrillos, who live in Africa, and Negritos, who live in Southeast Asia, New Guinea, and the Philippines: this...
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Spartacus
Spartacus , d. 71 BC, leader in an ancient Italian slave revolt, b. Thrace. He broke out (73 BC) of a gladiators' school at Capua and fled to Mt. Vesuvius, where many fugitives joined him. Their army defeated several Roman forces and moved north, devastating S Italy and Campania; Spartacus' aim was ...
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Edmund Ludlow
Edmund Ludlow 1617?-1692, English parliamentarian and regicide. He commanded a regiment of cavalry in the English civil war and served on the court that condemned King Charles I, signing his death warrant. In 1651-52 he was assistant and then successor to Henry Ireton in the subjugation of Irelan...
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Samnites
Samnites , people of ancient Italy. Their country was Samnium . The Samnites were Oscan-speaking and therefore should be included among the Sabelli. The Tabula Agnonensis, a bronze tablet that carries an inscription engraved in the full Oscan alphabet, is an important record of the language. The ...
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Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh , in Babylonian legend, king of Uruk . He is the hero of the Gilgamesh epic, a work of some 3,000 lines, written on 12 tablets c.2000 BC and discovered among the ruins at Nineveh. The epic was lost when the the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal was destroyed in 612 BC The library'...
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cephalopod
cephalopod , member of the class Cephalopoda, the most highly organized group of mollusks (phylum Mollusca ), and including the squids , octopuses , cuttlefish , and nautiluses . The class as a whole has become adapted for a free-swimming existence. Cephalopods are able to move about rapidly, a...
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Paul Celan
Paul Celan , pseud. of Paul Antschel , 1920-70, Romanian-French poet. Although he spent his early years in Romania and his later years in France, Celan wrote in German and is widely considered the greatest postwar poet in Europe. A Jew, who lost both parents in a Nazi camp, he composed works that...
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