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Gates, Bill

(Encyclopedia)Gates, Bill (William Henry Gates 3d), 1955–, American business executive, b. Seattle, Wash. At the age of 19, Gates founded (1975) the Microsoft Corp....

Library of Congress

(Encyclopedia)Library of Congress, national library of the United States, Washington, D.C., est. 1800. It occcupies three buildings on Capitol Hill: The Thomas Jefferson Building (1897), the John Adams Building (19...

privacy, right of

(Encyclopedia)privacy, right of, the right to be left alone without unwarranted intrusion by government, media, or other institutions or individuals. While a consensus supporting the right to privacy has emerged (a...

Bermuda Hundred

(Encyclopedia)Bermuda Hundred, fishing village, on the peninsula at the confluence of the Appomattox and James rivers, SE Va., NE of Petersburg; founded 1613. During the Civil War the Union Army of the James was bo...

Monitor and Merrimack

(Encyclopedia)Monitor and Merrimack, two American warships that fought the first engagement between ironclad ships. When, at the beginning of the Civil War, the Union forces abandoned the Norfolk Navy Yard at Ports...

Draghi, Mario

(Encyclopedia)Draghi, Mario mäˈēō drägˈē [key], 1947–, Italian economist and government and international ...

Holy Alliance

(Encyclopedia)Holy Alliance, 1815, agreement among the emperors of Russia and Austria and the king of Prussia, signed on Sept. 26. It was quite distinct from the Quadruple Alliance (Quintuple, after the admission o...

war debts

(Encyclopedia)war debts. This article discusses the obligations incurred by foreign governments for loans made to them by the United States during and shortly after World War I. For international obligations arisin...

Prodi, Romano

(Encyclopedia)Prodi, Romano rōmäˈnō prōˈdē [key], 1939–, Italian politician, premier of Italy (1996–98, 2006–8), b. Scandiano. Educated at the Catholic Univ. of Milan (grad. 1961), he. He is a trained ...

human rights

(Encyclopedia)human rights, universal rights held to belong to individuals by virtue of their being human, encompassing civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights and freedoms, and based on the notion ...