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playing cards

(Encyclopedia)playing cards, parts of a set or deck, used in playing various games of chance or skill. The origin of playing cards is unknown, and almost as many theories exist as there are historians of the subjec...

Phidias

(Encyclopedia)Phidias or Pheidias both: fĭdˈēəs [key], c.500–c.432 b.c., Greek sculptor, one of the greatest sculptors of ancient Greece. No original in existence can be attributed to him with certainty, alth...

catalog

(Encyclopedia)catalog, descriptive list, on cards or in a book, of the contents of a library. Assurbanipal's library at Nineveh was cataloged on shelves of slate. The first known subject catalog was compiled by Cal...

Boston, city, United States

(Encyclopedia)Boston, city (2020 pop. 692,600), state capital and seat of Suffolk co., E Mass., on Boston Bay, an arm of Massachusetts Bay; inc. 1822. The city includ...

Westminster, Statute of

(Encyclopedia)Westminster, Statute of, 1931, in British imperial history, an act of the British Parliament that gave formal recognition to the autonomy of the dominions of the British Empire and was in effect the f...

Parthenon

(Encyclopedia)Parthenon pärˈthənŏn [key] [Gr.,=the virgin's place], temple sacred to Athena, on the acropolis at Athens. Built under Pericles between 447 b.c. and 432 b.c., it is the culminating masterpiece of ...

Lawrence, Jacob

(Encyclopedia)Lawrence, Jacob (Jacob Armstead Lawrence), 1917–2000, American painter, b. Atlantic City, N.J. One of the most important African-American artists of the late 20th cent., Lawrence focused on social a...

Luxembourg, city, Luxembourg

(Encyclopedia)Luxembourg or Luxemburg, city (1991 pop. 75,377), capital of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, S Luxembourg, at the confluence of the Alzette and Pétrusse rivers. It is a commercial, banking, industrial...

Holmes, William Henry

(Encyclopedia)Holmes, William Henry, 1846–1933, American geologist, anthropologist, and museum director, b. Harrison co., Ohio. He was internationally recognized for his work in museum science. In 1872 he became ...

Sacramento, city, United States

(Encyclopedia)Sacramento săkrəmĕnˈtō [key], city (1990 pop. 369,365), state capital and seat of Sacramento co., central Calif., on the Sacramento River at its confluence with the American River; settled 1839, ...