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Earhart, Amelia

(Encyclopedia)Earhart, Amelia ârˈhärt [key], 1897–1937, American aviator, b. Atchison, Kans. She was the first woman to cross the Atlantic by airplane (1928) and the first woman to make a solo flight across th...

head-hunting

(Encyclopedia)head-hunting, practice of taking and preserving the head of a slain enemy. It has occurred throughout the world from ancient times into the 20th cent. In Europe, it flourished in the Balkans until the...

Mead, Margaret

(Encyclopedia)Mead, Margaret, 1901–78, American anthropologist, b. Philadelphia, grad. Barnard, 1923, Ph.D. Columbia, 1929. In 1926 she became assistant curator, in 1942 associate curator, and from 1964 to 1969 s...

Makeba, Miriam

(Encyclopedia)Makeba, Miriam məkāˈbə [key], 1932–2008, South African singer. She became the first black South African to achieve international fame and she played a fundamental role in introducing African mus...

plebiscite

(Encyclopedia)plebiscite plĕbˈĭsīt [key] [Lat.,=popular decree], vote of the people on a question submitted to them, as in a referendum. The term, however, has acquired the more specific meaning of a popular vo...

Bakassi

(Encyclopedia)Bakassi bäkäˈsē [key], peninsula, c.400 sq mi (1,000 sq km), E Cameroon, on the Cameroon-Nigeria border, at the SE end of the Gulf of Guinea. The swampy peninsula and associated small islands are ...

bowerbird

(Encyclopedia)bowerbird, common name for any of several species of birds of the family Ptilonorhynchidae, native to Australia and New Guinea, which build, for courtship display, a bower of sticks or grasses. Usuall...

thylacine

(Encyclopedia)thylacine thīˈləsīnˌ [key] or Tasmanian wolf, carnivorous marsupial, or pouched mammal, of New Guinea, Australia, and Tasmania, presumed extinct since 1936. The thylacine is often cited as an exa...

climate

(Encyclopedia)climate, average condition of the atmosphere near the earth's surface over a long period of time, taking into account temperature, precipitation (see rain), humidity, wind, barometric pressure, and ot...

Indian Ocean

(Encyclopedia)Indian Ocean, third largest ocean, c.28,350,000 sq mi (73,427,000 sq km), extending from S Asia to Antarctica and from E Africa to SE Australia; it is c.4,000 mi (6,400 km) wide at the equator. It con...