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Big Bend National Park

(Encyclopedia)Big Bend National Park, 801,163 acres (324,471 hectares), W Tex.; authorized 1935, est. 1944. It is a triangle formed where the Rio Grande runs southeast then northeast in a big bend along the U.S.-Me...

Ceauşescu, Nicolae

(Encyclopedia)Ceauşescu, Nicolae nēkŏlīˈ choushĕsˈko͞o [key], 1918–89, Romanian statesman. The son of a peasant, he early became active in the Romanian Communist movement and was arrested as a revolutiona...

White, Edmund

(Encyclopedia)White, Edmund (Edmund Valentine White 3d), 1940–, American writer, b. Cincinnati, B.A. Univ. of Michigan, 1962. White is one of the best known—and probably the finest stylist—of the openly gay w...

Kiarostami, Abbas

(Encyclopedia)Kiarostami, Abbas ăbôˈsā kēyôˈrōmămēˌ [key], 1940–2016, Iranian filmmaker. Widely acclaimed as Iran's greatest film director, he typically explores the lives of ordinary Iranians in his f...

Dreiser, Theodore

(Encyclopedia)Dreiser, Theodore drīˈsər, –zər [key], 1871–1945, American novelist, b. Terre Haute, Ind. A pioneer of naturalism in American literature, Dreiser wrote novels reflecting his mechanistic view o...

Slovak literature

(Encyclopedia)Slovak literature. The earliest documents written in the Slovak language date from the 15th cent. Following the Czech Hussite movement, many Czech cultural leaders emigrated to Slovakia (16th cent.); ...

Van Dyck, Sir Anthony

(Encyclopedia)Van Dyck or Vandyke, Sir Anthony both: văn dīk [key], 1599–1641, Flemish portrait and religious painter and etcher, b. Antwerp. In 1618 he was received as a master in the artists' guild, but even ...

German literature

(Encyclopedia)German literature, works in the German language by German, Austrian, Austro-Hungarian, and Swiss authors, as well as by writers of German in other countries. The postwar decades saw a gradual litera...

Supreme Court, United States

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Supreme Court, United States, highest court of the United States, established by Article 3 of the Constitution of the United States. With the emergence of a working conservative majority,...

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