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reclamation of land

(Encyclopedia)reclamation of land, practice of converting land deemed unproductive into arable land by such methods as irrigation, drainage, flood control, altering the texture and mineral and organic content of so...

Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation

(Encyclopedia)Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, commonly known as Freddie Mac, government-sponsored enterprise that uses private capital to buy home mortgages as a means to help lower housing costs. A sister ...

Guillaume, Charles Édouard

(Encyclopedia)Guillaume, Charles Édouard shärl ādwärˈ gēyōmˈ [key], 1861–1938, Swiss physicist and metrologist, Ph.D. Zürich Polytechnic (now the Federal Institute of Technology), 1882. Guillaume joined ...

Central Intelligence Agency

(Encyclopedia)Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), independent executive bureau of the U.S. government established by the National Security Act of 1947, replacing the wartime Office of Strategic Services (1942–45),...

Burns, Arthur Frank

(Encyclopedia)Burns, Arthur Frank, 1904–87, American economist, b. Austria, grad. Columbia Univ. (A.B., 1925; A.M., 1925; Ph.D., 1934). He taught economics at Rutgers Univ. (1927–44), and then joined (1944) the...

Sessions, William Steele

(Encyclopedia)Sessions, William Steele, 1930–2020, U.S. government official, b. Fort Smith, Ark. After serving in the U.S. air force (1951–55), he attended Baylor Univ. (B.A. 1956, LL.B. 1958). A Republican, he...

Howard University

(Encyclopedia)Howard University, at Washington, D.C.; coeducational; with federal support. It was founded in 1867 by Gen. Oliver O. Howard of the Freedmen's Bureau, to provide education for newly emancipated slaves...

Volcker, Paul Adolph

(Encyclopedia)Volcker, Paul Adolph, 1927–2019, American economist, government official, and banker, b. Cape May, N.J. After working as an under secretary in the Treasury Department (1969–74) and as president of...

DNA fingerprinting

(Encyclopedia)DNA fingerprinting or DNA profiling, any of several similar techniques for analyzing and comparing DNA from separate sources, used especially in law enforcement to identify suspects from hair, blood, ...

Banda, Joyce Hilda

(Encyclopedia)Banda, Joyce Hilda, 1950–, Malawian political leader, b. Nyasaland (now Malawi). First elected to parliament in 1999 as a member of the United Democratic Front, she was named minister for gender and...