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Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro [Port.,=river of January], city (1990 pop. 5,533,011; 1995 metropolitan area est. pop. 10,181,000), capital of Rio de Janeiro state, SE Brazil, on Guanabara Bay of the Atlantic Ocean. The second largest city and former capital of Brazil, it is the cultural center of the country and a...
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Brazil
Brazil , Port. Brasil, officially Federative Republic of Brazil, republic (2005 est. pop. 186,113,000), 3,286,470 sq mi (8,511,965 sq km), E South America. By far the largest of the Latin American countries, Brazil occupies nearly half the continent of South America, stretching from the Guiana Hig...
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Henry Handel Richardson
Henry Handel Richardson pseud. of Ethel Richardson Robertson, 1870-1946, Australian novelist, b. Melbourne. Her years of study at the Presbyterian Ladies' College, Melbourne, were reflected in her book The Getting of Wisdom (1910). After studying piano at Leipzig she turned to writing, living...
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petrology
petrology branch of geology specifically concerned with the origin, composition, structure, and properties of rocks , primarily igneous and metamorphic, and secondarily sedimentary. It includes petrography, the systematic description and classification of rocks using microscopic examination of roc...
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William Hickling Prescott
William Hickling Prescott 1796-1859, American historian, b. Salem, Mass. He entered his father's law office, but was compelled by a serious eye injury to abandon law. He received medical attention on a European trip and finally, resolving to devote himself to historical writing, began a thorough pr...
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James Thurber
James Thurber 1894-1961, American humorist, b. Columbus, Ohio, studied at Ohio State Univ. After working on various newspapers he served on the staff of The New Yorker from 1927 to 1933 and was later a principal contributor to the magazine, considerably influencing its tone through his various dr...
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Donner Party
Donner Party group of emigrants to California who in the winter of 1846-47 met with one of the most famous tragedies in Western history. The California-bound families were mostly from Illinois and Iowa, and most prominent among them were the two Donner families and the Reed family. In going West th...
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statistical mechanics
statistical mechanics quantitative study of systems consisting of a large number of interacting elements, such as the atoms or molecules of a solid, liquid, or gas, or the individual quanta of light (see photon ) making up electromagnetic radiation. Although the nature of each individual element o...
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Robert Hayden
Robert Hayden , 1913-80, American poet, b. Detroit. After earning his M.A. at the Univ. of Michigan, he taught there and at Fisk Univ. Although the tone of his poems is quiet and often loving, he has a considerable gift for irony and his insights can be shattering. His Ballad of Remembrance (1962)...
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Erymanthian boar
Erymanthian boar , in Greek mythology, a huge boar that ravaged the environs of Mt. Erymanthos. As his third labor, Hercules captured it by chasing it into deep snow and binding it with heavy chains.
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