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Mechelen

(Encyclopedia)Mechelen mĕkhˈələn [key], Fr. Malines, commune (1991 est. pop. 75,000), Antwerp prov., N central Belgium, on the Dijle River. In English it is also known as Mechlin. It is a commercial, industrial...

Périer, Casimir Pierre

(Encyclopedia)Périer, Casimir Pierre käzēmērˈ pyĕr pĕryāˈ [key], 1777–1832, French statesman. He was a member of a wealthy bourgeois family. His father, Claude Périer, a manufacturer and financier of Gr...

brasses, monumental

(Encyclopedia)brasses, monumental, or sepulchral brasses, memorials to the dead, in use in churches on the Continent and in England in the 13th cent. and for several centuries following. They are usually set in the...

Campo Formio, Treaty of

(Encyclopedia)Campo Formio, Treaty of kämˈpō fôrˈmyō [key], Oct., 1797, peace treaty between France and Austria, signed near Campo Formio, a village near Udine, NE Italy, then in Venetia. It marked the end of...

Ostend Manifesto

(Encyclopedia)Ostend Manifesto, document drawn up in Oct., 1854, at Ostend, Belgium, by James Buchanan, American minister to Great Britain, John Y. Mason, minister to France, and Pierre Soulé, minister to Spain. W...

European Southern Observatory

(Encyclopedia)European Southern Observatory (ESO), an intergovernmental organization for astronomical research with headquarters in Garching, near Munich, Germany. The ESO began in 1962 as a consortium among Belgiu...

Cresson, Edith

(Encyclopedia)Cresson, Edith ādētˈ krĕsōNˈ [key], 1934–, French politician, b. Edith Campion. After studying at the École des Hautes Études Commerciales, she became a consultant in private industry. Activ...

Council of the European Union

(Encyclopedia)Council of the European Union, institution of the European Union (EU) that has the final vote on legislation proposed by the European Commission and approved by the European Parliament; in some cases ...

Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park

(Encyclopedia)Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, c.13,500 sq mi (35,000 sq km; roughly the size of Belgium), the largest multinational park in S Africa and one of the largest parks in the world, in NE South Africa, ...

Leopold II, king of the Belgians

(Encyclopedia)Leopold II, 1835–1909, king of the Belgians (1865–1909), son and successor of Leopold I. His reign saw great industrial and colonial expansion. In 1876 he organized, with the help of H. M. Stanley...