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Cruz, Ramón de la

(Encyclopedia)Cruz, Ramón de la rämōnˈ dā lä kro͞oth [key], 1731–94, Spanish dramatist. He wrote tragedies and adapted French and Italian plays, but he owes his fame to his sainetes, some 450 masterly one-...

Clackmannanshire

(Encyclopedia)Clackmannanshire klăkmănˈənshər, –shĭrˌ [key], council area (1993 est. pop. 48,660), 60 sq mi (157 sq km), and former county, central Scotland. Under the Local Government Act of 1973, the cou...

Clayton, Henry De Lamar

(Encyclopedia)Clayton, Henry De Lamar dĕ lˈəmärˌ [key], 1857–1929, U.S. congressman, b. Barbour co., Ala. A Democrat, he was a member of the House of Representatives from 1897 to 1915 and later a federal dis...

Nye, Gerald Prentice

(Encyclopedia)Nye, Gerald Prentice, 1892–1971, U.S. Senator (1925–45), b. Hortonville, Wis. After settling (1915) in North Dakota he devoted himself to country journalism. A progressive Republican, he was appoi...

Stevenage

(Encyclopedia)Stevenage, city (1991 pop. 74,757) and district, Hertfordshire, E central England. Stevenage was the first new town to be designated under the New Towns Act of 1946, a program to decentralize populati...

Carnarvon, Henry Howard Molyneux Herbert, 4th earl of

(Encyclopedia)Carnarvon, Henry Howard Molyneux Herbert, 4th earl of, 1831–90, British statesman. As colonial secretary (1866–67) under the earl of Derby he introduced the British North America Act, which made C...

jeopardy

(Encyclopedia)jeopardy, in law, condition of a person charged with a crime and thus in danger of punishment. At common law a defendant could be exposed to jeopardy for the same offense only once; exposing a person ...

independent counsel

(Encyclopedia)independent counsel, in U.S. law, a judicially appointed investigator of charges of misdeeds by high government officials. Originally termed “special prosecutor,” the position was first created by...

Sahl, Mort

(Encyclopedia) Sahl, Mort, 1927-2021, American comedian and social commentator, b. Montreal, Canada, as Morton Lyon Sahl, Univ. of Southern Calirofnia (B.A., 1950). ...

Toland, John

(Encyclopedia)Toland, John tōˈlənd [key], 1670–1722, British deist, b. Ireland. Brought up a Roman Catholic, Toland became a Protestant at 16. He studied at Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Leiden and after 1694 lived ...