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mine
mine in warfare, term formerly applied to a system of tunnels dug under an army fortification and ending in a chamber where either explosives were placed to be detonated at the chosen moment or the supports were burned, causing the mine and the wall above it to collapse. Modern mines are encased ex...
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Legal Tender cases
Legal Tender cases lawsuits brought to the U.S. Supreme Court involving the constitutionality of the Legal Tender Act of 1862, which was passed to meet currency needs during the Civil War. The act had authorized the issue of $150 million in "United States notes" (see greenback ) without any re...
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National Education Association
National Education Association (NEA), organization of professional educators in the United States, with almost 2.5 million members. The NEA was founded (1850) as the National Teachers Association, changed its name in 1857, and was chartered by Congress in 1906. Its 13 standing committees and 7 divi...
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Edgar Wallace
Edgar Wallace (Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace), 1875-1932, English novelist and playwright, b. Greenwich. He was the author of more than 150 detective and adventure novels, of which as many as 5 million were sold in a year. The Terror (1930), which is typical of his work, still ranks high as a thr...
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Afghanistan War
Afghanistan War 1978-92, conflict between anti-Communist Muslim Afghan guerrillas (mujahidin) and Afghan government and Soviet forces. The conflict had its origins in the 1978 coup that overthrew Afghan president Sardar Muhammad Daud Khan, who had come to power by ousting the king in 1973. The pres...
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Tamil
Tamil Language spoken in s India, chiefly in the state of Tamil Nadu, by up to 50 million people. In addition, there are c.3 million speakers in n Sri Lanka and c.1 million distributed throughout Malaysia, Singapore, Fiji, Mauritius, and Guyana....
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Henry Ford
Henry Ford 1863-1947, American industrialist, pioneer automobile manufacturer, b. Dearborn, Mich.
The Inception of the Ford Motor Company
Ford showed mechanical aptitude at an early age and left (1879) his father's farm to work as an apprentice in a Detroit machine shop. He soon returned ...
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Helena
Helena Capital of Montana, USA, in the w central part. It was settled by prospectors in 1864. By 1868 the population was 7500 and US$16 million worth of gold had been mined. In 1875 it was made capital of Montana Territory, becoming state capital in 1889. Industries: mineral smelting, bakery equipm...
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concentration camp
concentration camp a detention site outside the normal prison system created for military or political purposes to confine, terrorize, and, in some cases, kill civilians. The term was first used to describe prison camps used by the Spanish military during the Cuban insurrection (1868-78), those cre...
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Archaeopteryx
Archaeopteryx [Gr.,=primitive wing], most primitive known bird , a 150 million-year-old fossil of which was first discovered in 1860 and described the following year in the late Jurassic limestone of Solnhofen, Bavaria. All eight known fossils of Archaeopteryx, discovered between 1860 and 1992, ...
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