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Sanhedrin

(Encyclopedia)Sanhedrin sănhĕdˈrĭn [key], ancient Jewish legal and religious institution in Jerusalem that appears to have exercised the functions of a court between c.63 b.c. and c.a.d. 68. The accounts of it ...

Orangemen

(Encyclopedia)Orangemen, members of the Loyal Orange Institution, familiarly called the Orange Order, a Protestant Irish society founded and flourishing mainly in Ulster. It was established (1795) to maintain the P...

dowry

(Encyclopedia)dowry douˈrē [key], the property that a woman brings to her husband at the time of the marriage. The dowry apparently originated in the giving of a marriage gift by the family of the bridegroom to t...

Ewell, Benjamin Stoddert

(Encyclopedia)Ewell, Benjamin Stoddert yo͞oˈəl [key], 1810–94, American educator, b. Georgetown, D.C., grad. West Point, 1832; brother of Gen. R. S. Ewell. He taught mathematics at West Point, Hampden-Sidney C...

Hrdlička, Aleš

(Encyclopedia)Hrdlička, Aleš äˈlĕsh hûrdˈlĭchkä [key], 1869–1943, American anthropologist, b. Humpolec (now in Czech Republic). He received his medical education in the United States. In 1903 he began to...

Hess, Harry Hammond

(Encyclopedia)Hess, Harry Hammond, 1906–69, American geologist and oceanographer, b. New York City, B.S., Yale, 1931, Ph.D., Princeton, 1932. He taught at Rutgers (1932–33) and was a research associate at the G...

Freer, Charles Lang

(Encyclopedia)Freer, Charles Lang frēr [key], 1856–1919, American art collector, b. Kingston, N.Y. He gave to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., his entire collection and the building (designed acc...

Gorton, Sir John Grey

(Encyclopedia)Gorton, Sir John Grey, 1911–2002, Australian political leader, b. Melbourne. A fighter pilot in World War II, he was elected to the senate as a Liberal in 1949. He held a number of cabinet posts in ...

Goffman, Erving

(Encyclopedia)Goffman, Erving, 1922–82, American sociologist, b. Manville, Alta. His field research in the Shetland Islands resulted in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1956), which analyzes interperson...

mufti

(Encyclopedia)mufti mŭfˈtē [key], in Islamic law, attorney or judicial/religious scholar who writes his opinion (fatwa) on legal subjects for private clients or to assist judges in deciding cases. The recorded o...

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