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hockey, ice

(Encyclopedia)hockey, ice, team sport in which players use sticks to propel a hard, round disk into a net-backed goal. The NHL long regarded itself as the world's elite, but the overwhelming superiority of the ...

Australian literature

(Encyclopedia)Australian literature, the literature of Australia. Because the vast majority of early Australian settlers were transported prisoners, the beginnings of Australian literature were oral rather than wri...

Poe, Edgar Allan

(Encyclopedia)Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809–49, American poet, short-story writer, and critic, b. Boston. He is acknowledged today as one of the most brilliant and original writers in American literature. His skillfully...

Henry VIII, king of England

(Encyclopedia)Henry VIII, 1491–1547, king of England (1509–47), second son and successor of Henry VII. Henry was a supreme egotist. He advanced personal desires under the guise of public policy or moral rig...

James I, king of England

(Encyclopedia)James I, 1566–1625, king of England (1603–25) and, as James VI, of Scotland (1567–1625). James's reign witnessed the beginnings of English colonization in North America (Jamestown was founded in...

Twain, Mark

(Encyclopedia)Twain, Mark, pseud. of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835–1910, American author, b. Florida, Mo. As humorist, narrator, and social observer, Twain is unsurpassed in American literature. His novel The Ad...

hymn

(Encyclopedia)hymn, song of praise, devotion, or thanksgiving, especially of a religious character (see also cantata). Early Christian hymnody consisted mainly of the Psalms and the great canticles Nunc dimittis, M...

Peninsular War

(Encyclopedia)Peninsular War, 1808–14, fought by France against Great Britain, Portugal, Spanish regulars, and Spanish guerrillas in the Iberian Peninsula. The Peninsular War immeasurably raised Britain's mi...

science fiction

(Encyclopedia)science fiction, literary genre in which a background of science or pseudoscience is an integral part of the story. Although science fiction is a form of fantastic literature, many of the events recou...

West Virginia

(Encyclopedia)CE5 West Virginia, E central state of the United States. It is bordered by Pennsylvania and Maryland (N, NE), Virginia (E and S), Kentucky (W) and, across the Ohio River, Ohio (NW). Economic cond...