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tribune

(Encyclopedia)tribune, in ancient Rome, one of various officers. The history of the office of tribune is closely associated with the struggle of the plebs against the patrician class to achieve a more equitable pos...

Cortes

(Encyclopedia)Cortes kôrˈtĕz, Span. kōrˈtās [key], representative assembly in Spain. The institution originated (12th–13th cent.) in various Spanish regions with the Christian reconquest; until the 19th cen...

Formosus

(Encyclopedia)Formosus fôrmōˈsəs [key], c.816–896, pope (891–96), probably a Roman; successor of Stephen VI. Under Pope Nicholas I he had been bishop in Bulgaria, where he pursued a rigorous Romanizing camp...

Babangida, Ibrahim

(Encyclopedia)Babangida, Ibrahim ēbräˈhēm bäbänˈgēdä [key], 1941–, Nigerian military and political leader. After graduating (1963) from Nigeria's military college, he joined the army and received further...

Wenceslaus II, king of Bohemia

(Encyclopedia)Wenceslaus II, 1271–1305, king of Bohemia (1278–1305) and of Poland (1300–1305), son and successor of Ottocar II. From the death (1278) of his father until 1283 the regency was exercised by Otto...

boyars

(Encyclopedia)boyars bōyärzˈ [key], upper nobility in Russia from the 10th through the 17th cent. The boyars originally obtained influence and government posts through their military support of the Kievan prince...

Ba'ath party

(Encyclopedia)Ba'ath party bäˈäth [key], Arab political party, in Syria and in Iraq. Founded in Damascus in 1941 with an ideology of secularism, socialism, and pan-Arab unionism, it was reformed with the name Ba...

states' rights

(Encyclopedia)states' rights, in U.S. history, doctrine based on the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to ...

carpet

(Encyclopedia)carpet or rug, thick fabric, usually woolen (but often synthetic), commonly used today as a floor covering. In North America the Navajos and other tribes have for generations produced substantial ru...

Arcadia, region of ancient Greece

(Encyclopedia)Arcadia ärkāˈdēə [key], region of ancient Greece, in the middle of the Peloponnesus, without a seaboard, and surrounded and dissected by mountains. The Arcadians, relatively isolated from the res...