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Three Emperors' League

(Encyclopedia)Three Emperors' League, informal alliance among Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Russia, announced officially in 1872 on the occasion of the meeting of emperors Francis Joseph, William I, and Alexander I...

Welsbach mantle

(Encyclopedia)Welsbach mantle or Welsbach burner [for C. A. von Welsbach], cylindrical framework of gauze impregnated with oxides of thorium and cerium. When heated in a gas flame, it produces a very bright light b...

Swedish literature

(Encyclopedia)Swedish literature, literary works in the Swedish language. In the early 20th cent. the fiction of Hjalmar Söderberg presaged a renewed emphasis on restraint and realism. Ludvig Nordström, Gust...

perestroika

(Encyclopedia)perestroika pərˈĕstroyˈkə [key], Soviet economic and social policy of the late 1980s. Perestroika [restructuring] was the term attached to the attempts (1985–91) by Mikhail Gorbachev to transfo...

Voronin, Vladimir

(Encyclopedia)Voronin, Vladimir vlädēˈmēr vōrōnˈyĭn [key], 1941–, Moldovan political leader. Voronin rose through the ranks of the Communist party in what was then the USSR's Moldavian SSR to become the r...

Bustamante, Sir Alexander

(Encyclopedia)Bustamante, Sir Alexander bŭsˌtəmănˈtē [key], 1884–1977, prime minister of Jamaica (1962–67). Born William Alexander Clarke, the son of an Irish father and a Jamaican mother, he was adopted...

Sturm und Drang

(Encyclopedia)Sturm und Drang shto͝orm o͝ont dräng [key] or Storm and Stress, movement in German literature that flourished from c.1770 to c.1784. It takes its name from a play by F. M. von Klinger, Wirrwarr; od...

Apollinaire, Guillaume

(Encyclopedia)Apollinaire, Guillaume gēyōmˈ äpōlēnârˈ [key], 1880–1918, French poet. He was christened Wilhelm Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky. Apollinaire was a leader in the restless period of technical inn...

Herrera, Abraham Cohen de

(Encyclopedia)Herrera, Abraham Cohen de ār-rāˈrä [key], c.1570–1635, Jewish philosopher and kabbalist, also called Alonso Nunez de Herrera and Abraham Irira. Born possibly in Portugal of a Marrano family, his...

Karlsruhe

(Encyclopedia)Karlsruhe kärlsˈro͞oə [key], city (1994 pop. 278,000), Baden-Württemberg, SW Germany, on the northern fringes of the Black Forest, connected by canal with a port on the nearby Rhine River. It is ...