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Jan Masaryk
Jan Masaryk , 1886-1948, Czechoslovak diplomat, son of Thomas G. Masaryk. He was (1925-38) Czechoslovak minister to Great Britain, and in London he became (1940) foreign minister in the Czechoslovak government in exile headed by Eduard Beneš after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia. Duri...
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Arthur Seyss-Inquart
Arthur Seyss-Inquart , 1892-1946, Austrian National Socialist leader. In Feb., 1938, Chancellor Schuschnigg of Austria was forced by German pressure to appoint him minister of the interior. Seyss-Inquart became chancellor a few hours before German troops entered (Mar. 11) Austria. The Anschluss ...
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Rush-Bagot Convention
Rush-Bagot Convention , 1817, agreement between the United States and Great Britain concerning the Canadian border. It consisted of the exchange of notes signed by Richard Rush , Acting Secretary of State of the United States, and Charles Bagot, British minister in Washington. In 1818 the U.S. Sena...
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Georges Bidault
Georges Bidault , 1899-1983, French political leader. An influential columnist (1932-39), he was imprisoned (1940-41) in World War II and then joined the French underground, becoming its leader. A founder of the Mouvement Républicain Populaire (MRP), one of France's leading postwar parties, h...
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Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Adenauer , 1876-1967, West German chancellor. A lawyer and a member of the Catholic Center party, he was lord mayor of Cologne and a member of the provincial diet of Rhine prov. from 1917 until 1933, when he was dismissed by the National Socialist (Nazi) regime. He was twice imprisoned (1933,...
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Smithson Tennant
Smithson Tennant 1761-1815, English chemist. In 1796 he proved, by burning a diamond, that the diamond consists solely of carbon. In 1804 he announced his discovery of osmium and iridium.
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Tonga
Tonga , officially Kingdom of Tonga, island kingdom (2005 est. pop. 112,000), 270 sq mi (699 sq km), South Pacific, c.2000 mi (3,220 km) NE of Sydney, Australia. Tonga is the only surviving independent kingdom in the South Pacific. Nukualofa is the capital.
Land, People, and Economy
The ...
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Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi , 1939-, Malaysian government official and politician. A graduate of the Univ. of Malaya (B.A. 1964) and the son of a prominent politician, he held a series of civil service posts, including deputy secretary general (1974-78) in the ministry of culture, youth, and sports, befor...
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Benjamin Franklin Chavis Muhammad
Benjamin Franklin Chavis Muhammad 1948-, African-American civil-rights and religious leader, b. Oxford, N.C., as Benjamin Franklin Chavis, Jr. An activist from boyhood, he was a youth coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In the late 1970s, Chavis was one of ten men wrongly ...
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Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin , 1931-2007, Soviet and Russian politician, president of Russia (1991-99). Born in Yekaterinburg (then Sverdlovsk) and educated at the Urals Polytechnic Institute, Yeltsin began his career as a construction worker (1953-68). He joined the Communist party in 1961, becoming ...
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