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Drake, Sir Francis

(Encyclopedia)Drake, Sir Francis, 1540?–1596, English navigator and admiral, first Englishman to circumnavigate the world (1577–80). In 1585, Drake commanded a fleet that sacked Vigo in Spain and burned São ...

dogfish

(Encyclopedia)dogfish, name for a number of small sharks of several different families. Best known are the spiny dogfishes (family Squalidae) and the smooth dogfishes (family Triakidae). Spiny dogfishes have two sp...

Gordon, Charles George

(Encyclopedia)Gordon, Charles George, 1833–85, British soldier and administrator. He served in the Crimean War, went to China in the expedition of 1860, taking part in the capture of Beijing, and in 1863 took ove...

Accra

(Encyclopedia)Accra əkräˈ, ăkˈrə [key], city (1984 pop. 867,459), capital of Ghana, a port on the Gulf of Guinea. It is Ghana's largest city and its administrative, communications, and economic center. The ch...

Milner, Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount

(Encyclopedia)Milner, Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount, 1854–1925, British statesman and colonial administrator. He distinguished himself as a student at Oxford and was briefly a journalist in London. He became (1887)...

octopus

(Encyclopedia)octopus, cephalopod mollusk having no shell, eight muscular arms or tentacles, a pouch-shaped body, and two large, highly developed eyes. The prey (crabs, lobsters, and other shellfish) is seized by t...

buffalo, in zoology

(Encyclopedia)buffalo, name commonly applied to the American bison but correctly restricted to certain related African and Asian mammals of the cattle family. The water buffalo, or Indian buffalo, Bubalus bubalis, ...

scurvy

(Encyclopedia)scurvy, deficiency disorder resulting from a lack of vitamin C (ascorbic acid) in the diet. Scurvy does not occur in most animals because they can synthesize their own vitamin C, but humans, other pri...

Herschel

(Encyclopedia)Herschel hûrˈshəl [key], family of distinguished English astronomers. Sir William Herschel,Sir William Herschel, 1738–1822, born Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel, was a great pioneer in astronomy. Bor...

KwaZulu-Natal

(Encyclopedia)KwaZulu-Natal kwäzo͞oˈlo͞o-nätälˈ [key], province (2011 pop. 10,267,300), 36,433 sq mi (94,361 sq km), E South Africa, on the Indian Ocean. Formerly Natal province, in the post-apartheid consti...