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McClintock, Sir Francis Leopold

(Encyclopedia)McClintock, Sir Francis Leopold, 1819–1907, British arctic explorer. As a lieutenant in the navy he was assigned to his first arctic service in 1848, when Sir James Clark Ross went in search of the ...

boyars

(Encyclopedia)boyars bōyärzˈ [key], upper nobility in Russia from the 10th through the 17th cent. The boyars originally obtained influence and government posts through their military support of the Kievan prince...

Regency

(Encyclopedia)Regency, in British history, the period of the last nine years (1811–20) of the reign of George III, when the king's insanity had rendered him unfit to rule and the government was vested in the prin...

Steuben, Friedrich Wilhelm, Baron von

(Encyclopedia)Steuben, Friedrich Wilhelm, Baron von styo͞oˈbən, Ger. frēˈdrĭkh vĭlˈhĕlm bärōnˈ fən shtoiˈbən [key], 1730–94, Prussian army officer, general in the American Revolution, b. Magdeburg....

Valdez

(Encyclopedia)Valdez văldēzˈ [key], city (1990 pop. 4,068), Valdez-Chitina-Whittier census div., S Alaska, at the head of Valdez Arm inside Prince William Sound; inc. 1901. It has tourist and fishing industries,...

Travancore

(Encyclopedia)Travancore trăvənkôrˈ [key], former princely state, 7,622 sq mi (19,741 sq km), SW India, on the Arabian Sea. It is now in Kerala state. The region of Travancore has coastal lowlands (protected by...

Sevastopol

(Encyclopedia)Sevastopol sĭvăsˈtəpōlˌ [key], formerly spelled Sebastopol, city (1989 pop. 355,000), on the Crimean peninsula and the Bay of Sevastopol, an inlet of the Black Sea. From 1954 part of Ukraine (th...

Turkistan

(Encyclopedia)Turkistan or Turkestan both: tûrkˌĭstănˈ, –stänˈ [key], historic region of central Asia. Western, or Russian, Turkistan extended from the Caspian Sea in the west to the Chinese frontier in th...

Siberia

(Encyclopedia)Siberia sībērˈēə [key], Rus. Sibir, vast geographical region of Russia, covering c.2,900,000 sq mi (7,511,000 sq km) and having an estimated population (1992) of 32,459,000. Historically it has h...

Duck Lake

(Encyclopedia)Duck Lake, small lake, central Sask., Canada, SW of Prince Albert. It was the scene of the first encounter in Riel's Rebellion (see under Riel, Louis) in 1885. A large group of Métis (persons of mixe...