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Freedmen's Bureau

(Encyclopedia)Freedmen's Bureau, in U.S. history, a federal agency, formed to aid and protect the newly freed blacks in the South after the Civil War. Established by an act of Mar. 3, 1865, under the name “bureau...

natural rights

(Encyclopedia)natural rights, political theory that maintains that an individual enters into society with certain basic rights and that no government can deny these rights. The modern idea of natural rights grew ou...

Sidney, Algernon

(Encyclopedia)Sidney or Sydney, Algernon, 1622–83, English politician; son of Robert Sidney, earl of Leicester. He served in the parliamentary forces during the English civil war and was a member (1652–53) of t...

Bacon, Francis, English painter

(Encyclopedia)Bacon, Francis, 1910–92, English painter, b. Dublin. A self-taught artist, Bacon rejected abstraction in painting to explore a repertoire of strange, fractured, and often bizarre figurative images, ...

Dukakis, Michael Stanley

(Encyclopedia)Dukakis, Michael Stanley do͞okäkˈĭs [key], 1933–, American political leader, b. Brookline, Mass. He was a Democratic member of the Massachusetts house of representatives (1963–70) and was twic...

curlew

(Encyclopedia)curlew kûrˈlo͞o [key], common name for large shore birds of both hemispheres, generally brown and buff in color and with decurved bills. There are eight species, belonging to the genus Numenius. Th...

Common Cause

(Encyclopedia)Common Cause, U.S. organization that seeks a “reordering of national priorities and revitalization of the public process to make our political and governmental institutions more responsive to the ne...

loon

(Encyclopedia)loon, common name for migratory aquatic birds found in fresh- and saltwater in the colder parts of the Northern Hemisphere. Its strange, laughing call carries for great distances. Like the grebes, loo...

Lynch, John Roy

(Encyclopedia)Lynch, John Roy, 1847–1939, African-American politician, b. near Vidala, La. Born a slave, he became active in the Republican party after the Civil War in Natchez, Miss., and served (1869–73) in t...

Platt, Orville Hitchcock

(Encyclopedia)Platt, Orville Hitchcock, 1827–1905, U.S. Senator (1879–1905), b. Washington, Litchfield co., Conn. Platt held many public offices in Connecticut before he served in the U.S. Senate. He helped fra...