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Test Act

(Encyclopedia)Test Act, 1673, English statute that excluded from public office (both military and civil) all those who refused to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, who refused to receive the communion acc...

Canada Act

(Encyclopedia)Canada Act, also called the Constitutional Act of 1982, which made Canada a fully sovereign state. The British Parliament approved it on Mar. 25, 1982, and Queen Elizabeth II proclaimed it on Apr. 17,...

Medicare

(Encyclopedia)Medicare, national health insurance program in the United States for persons aged 65 and over and the disabled. It was established in 1965 with passage of the Social Security Amendments and is now run...

Catholic Emancipation

(Encyclopedia)Catholic Emancipation, term applied to the process by which Roman Catholics in the British Isles were relieved in the late 18th and early 19th cent. of civil disabilities. They had been under oppressi...

Indian Reorganization Act

(Encyclopedia)Indian Reorganization Act, legislation passed in 1934 in the United States in an attempt to secure new rights for Native Americans on reservations. Its main provisions were to restore to Native Americ...

Nottingham, Daniel Finch

(Encyclopedia)Nottingham, Daniel Finch, 2d earl of, 1647–1730, English politician, son of Heneage Finch, the 1st earl. A staunch supporter of the Church of England, he disapproved of James II's pro–Roman Cathol...

genetic testing

(Encyclopedia)genetic testing, medical screening for genetic disorders, by examining either a person's DNA directly or a person's biochemistry or chromosomes for indirect evidence. Testing may be done to identify a...

Indian Affairs, Bureau of

(Encyclopedia)Indian Affairs, Bureau of, created (1824) in the U.S. War Dept. and transferred (1849) to the U.S. Dept. of the Interior. The War Dept. managed Native American affairs after 1789, but a separate burea...

Jesuit Estates Act

(Encyclopedia)Jesuit Estates Act jĕzhˈəwĭt, jĕzˈ– [key], law adopted in 1888 by the Quebec legislature, partly to indemnify the Society of Jesus for Jesuit property confiscated by the British during the per...

Labor Relations Act

(Encyclopedia)Labor Relations Act: see National Labor Relations Board; Taft-Hartley Labor Act. ...