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Agrippina the Younger

(Encyclopedia)Agrippina the Younger, d. a.d. 59, Roman matron; daughter of Germanicus Caesar and Agrippina the Elder. By her first husband, Cneius Domitius Ahenobarbus, she was the mother of Nero. After her brother...

Billy the Kid

(Encyclopedia)Billy the Kid, 1859–81, American outlaw, b. New York City. His real name was probably Henry McCarty; he was known as William H. Bonney. His family moved to Kansas and then to New Mexico when he was ...

Canute the Saint

(Encyclopedia)Canute the Saint, d. 1086, king (1080–86) and patron saint of Denmark. He built churches and cathedrals and raised the bishops to the rank of prince. In 1085 he made an unsuccessful attempt to invad...

Carlos the Jackal

(Encyclopedia)Carlos the Jackal, pseud. of the revolutionary and international terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, 1949–, b. Caracas, Venezuela. Son of an affluent Marxist lawyer, he joined the Communist party at ...

Adam, the first man, in the Bible

(Encyclopedia)Adam ădˈəm [key], [Heb.,=man], in the Bible, the first man. In the Book of Genesis, God creates humankind in his image as a species of male and female, giving them dominion over other life. Elsewhe...

refugee

(Encyclopedia)refugee, one who leaves one's native land either because of expulsion or to escape persecution. The legal problem of accepting refugees is discussed under asylum; this article considers only mass disl...

Syria

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Syria sērˈēə [key], officially Syrian Arab Republic, republic (2015 est. pop. 18,735,000), 71,467 sq mi (185,100 sq km), W Asia. It borders on Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea in the west,...

Hamas

(Encyclopedia)Hamas hämäsˈ [key] [Arab., = zeal], Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement, a Palestinian Islamic fundamentalist organization that was founded in 1987 during the Intifada; it seeks ...

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