(Encyclopedia) water moccasin or cottonmouth, highly venomous snake, Ancistrodon piscivorus, of the swamps and bayous of the S United States. Like the closely related copperhead, it is a pit viper…
(Encyclopedia) Schulz, Charles M. (Charles Monroe Schulz), 1922–2000, American cartoonist, b. Minneapolis, Minn. Creator of the syndicated comic strip Peanuts (1950–2000), one of the world's most…
(Encyclopedia) Plessy v. Ferguson, case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1896. The court upheld an 1890 Louisiana statute mandating racially segregated but equal railroad carriages, ruling that…
(Encyclopedia) pelican, common name for a large, gregarious aquatic bird of warm regions, allied to the cormorants and gannets. Pelicans are heavy-bodied, long-necked birds with large, flat bills.…
(Encyclopedia) Uluru–Kata Tjuta National Park, 327,647 acres (132,566 hectares), SW Northern Territory, central Australia. This Anangu-owned park, leased to the Australian government by the…
The members of the U.S. Senate in the 117th Congress are listed below. Dates in the left column indicate term in office; birth years are given in parentheses after party affiliation. All terms are…
(Encyclopedia) Angell, James BurrillAngell, James Burrilljāmz bûrˈəl ānˈjəl [key], 1829–1916, American educator, editor, and diplomat, b. Scituate, R.I., grad. Brown, 1849, and studied abroad. He…
rock groupBorn: 1984 Hiro Yamamoto (bass player) moved from Illinois to Olympia, Washington, to attend college in 1981. He started playing music with his roommate, Chris Cornell (drummer, lead…
popular swing band Formed in 1993 in Efland, North Carolina, Squirrel Nut Zippers has been at the forefront of swing music's return to popularity in the late 1990s. Their albums include The…
In recent years astronomers have discovered that our solar system is a great deal more crowded than we imagined. In 2004 alone, a dozen new moons circling Saturn were identified. Today's…
