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reparations

(Encyclopedia)reparations, payments or other compensation offered as an indemnity for loss or damage. Although the term is used to cover payments made to Holocaust survivors and to Japanese Americans interned durin...

valence, in chemistry

(Encyclopedia)valence, combining capacity of an atom expressed as the number of single bonds the atom can form or the number of electrons an element gives up or accepts when reacting to form a compound. Atoms are c...

feminism

(Encyclopedia)feminism, movement for the political, social, and educational equality of women with men; the movement has occurred mainly in Europe and the United States. It has its roots in the humanism of the 18th...

divorce

(Encyclopedia)divorce, partial or total dissolution of a marriage by the judgment of a court. Partial dissolution is a divorce “from bed and board,” a decree of judicial separation, leaving the parties official...

compound

(Encyclopedia)compound, in chemistry, a substance composed of atoms of two or more elements in chemical combination, occurring in a fixed, definite proportion and arranged in a fixed, definite structure. A compound...

woman suffrage

(Encyclopedia)woman suffrage, the right of women to vote. Throughout the latter part of the 19th cent. the issue of women's voting rights was an important phase of feminism. On the European mainland, Finland (1...

housing

(Encyclopedia)housing, in general, living accommodations available for the inhabitants of a community. Throughout the 19th cent., with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, housing as a problem worsened as urban...

commune, in medieval history

(Encyclopedia)commune kômˈyo͞on [key], in medieval history, collective institution that developed in continental Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. Because of the importance of the commune in municipal g...

suicide

(Encyclopedia)suicide [Lat.,=self-killing], the deliberate taking of one's own life. Suicide may be compulsory, prescribed by custom or enjoined by the authorities, usually as an alternative to death at the hands o...

children's literature

(Encyclopedia)children's literature, writing whose primary audience is children. See also children's book illustration. The contributions and innovations of the 19th cent. continued into the 20th cent., achieving...