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astronaut

(Encyclopedia)astronaut, crew member on a U.S. manned spaceflight mission; the Soviet term is cosmonaut. Candidates for manned spaceflight are carefully screened to meet the highest physical and mental standards, a...

Day, William Rufus

(Encyclopedia)Day, William Rufus, 1849–1923, American statesman and associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1903–22), b. Ravenna, Ohio. Admitted (1872) to the bar, Day practiced law in Ohio and served (188...

Parker, Alton Brooks

(Encyclopedia)Parker, Alton Brooks, 1852–1926, American jurist, U.S. presidential candidate (1904), b. Cortland, N.Y. He practiced law in Kingston, N.Y., and was (1877–85) surrogate of Ulster co., N.Y. He becam...

Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act

(Encyclopedia)Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act, 1909, passed by the U.S. Congress. It was the first change in tariff laws since the Dingley Act of 1897; the issue had been ignored by President Theodore Roosevelt. The Repub...

Wallace, Henry

(Encyclopedia)Wallace, Henry, 1836–1916, American agricultural leader, b. West Newton, Pa., grad. Jefferson (later Washington and Jefferson) College, 1859. He studied (1861–63) theology and went (1863) to Iowa ...

Terre Haute

(Encyclopedia)Terre Haute tĕrˈə hōt, tĕrˈē hŭt [key], city (1990 pop. 51,483), seat of Vigo co., W Ind., on the Wabash River; inc. 1816. The commercial and trade center of a farm and coal-mining region, its...

Riis, Jacob August

(Encyclopedia)Riis, Jacob August rēs [key], 1849–1914, Danish-American journalist, photographer, and social reformer, b. Denmark. He immigrated to the United States in 1870. In 1877 he became a police reporter f...

Progressive party

(Encyclopedia)Progressive party, in U.S. history, the name of three political organizations, active, respectively, in the presidential elections of 1912, 1924, and 1948. At Philadelphia in July, 1948, a new...

Ireland, John, American Roman Catholic prelate

(Encyclopedia)Ireland, John īrˈlənd [key], 1838–1918, American Roman Catholic prelate, first archbishop of St. Paul, Minn. (1888–1918), b. Co. Kilkenny, Ireland. He emigrated to St. Paul in childhood. He was...

Mount Rushmore National Memorial

(Encyclopedia)Mount Rushmore National Memorial, 1,278 acres (518 hectares), SW S.Dak., in the Black Hills; est. 1925, dedicated 1927. There, carved on the face of the mountain and visible for 60 mi (97 km), are the...