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Binney, Horace

(Encyclopedia)Binney, Horace, 1780–1875, American lawyer, b. Philadelphia. A leading lawyer in Pennsylvania, Binney was appointed in 1808 a director of the First Bank of the United States. He served in Congress f...

Black Hand

(Encyclopedia)Black Hand, symbol and name for a criminal and terroristic secret society, and especially associated with the Mafia and the Camorra. The Black Hand flourished in Sicily in the late 19th cent., and in ...

Scouts

(Encyclopedia)Scouts or Boy Scouts, organization of boys and girls 11 to 17 years old, founded (1907) in Great Britain by Sir Robert (later Lord) Baden-Powell and originally for boys only; since the late 20th cent....

Revelation

(Encyclopedia)Revelation or Apocalypse əpŏkˈəlĭps [key], the last book of the New Testament. It was written c.a.d. 95 on Patmos Island off the coast of Asia Minor by an exile named John, in the wake of local p...

Frontenac, Louis de Buade, comte de Palluau et de

(Encyclopedia)Frontenac, Louis de Buade, comte de Palluau et de frŏnˈtĭnăk, Fr. lwē də büädˈ koNt də pälüōˈ ā də frôNtənäkˈ [key], 1620–98, French governor of New France. His early military ca...

Radisson, Pierre Esprit

(Encyclopedia)Radisson, Pierre Esprit pyĕr ĕsprēˈ rädēsôNˈ [key], c.1632–1710, French explorer and fur trader in North America. He arrived in Canada in 1651. His journals, first published as the Voyages o...

Kenton, Simon

(Encyclopedia)Kenton, Simon, 1755–1836, American frontiersman, b. probably Fauquier co., Va. In 1771, believing he had killed a man, he fled westward, assuming the name Simon Butler. He settled in Boonesboro, Ky....

Middleton, Conyers

(Encyclopedia)Middleton, Conyers, 1683–1750, English clergyman, one of the earliest English rationalistic theologians. A fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, he became known through his disputes with Richard Ben...

Foot Resolution

(Encyclopedia)Foot Resolution, offered in 1829 by Samuel Augustus Foot in the U.S. Senate. This resolution instructed the committee on public lands to inquire into the limiting of public land sale. The Jacksonian D...

Dartmouth College Case

(Encyclopedia)Dartmouth College Case, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1819. The legislature of New Hampshire, in 1816, without the consent of the college trustees, amended the charter of 1769 to make Dartmouth...