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Leopardi, Giacomo

(Encyclopedia)Leopardi, Giacomo jäˈkōmō lāōpärˈdē [key], 1798–1837, Italian poet and scholar, considered Italy's outstanding 19th-century poet. An intellectual prodigy, he taught himself Hebrew and ancie...

Kublai Khan

(Encyclopedia)Kublai Khan ko͞oˈblī kän [key], 1215–94, Mongol emperor, founder of the Yüan dynasty of China. From 1251 to 1259 he led military campaigns in S China. He succeeded (1260) his brother Mongke (Ma...

Buffalo Bill

(Encyclopedia)Buffalo Bill, 1846–1917, American plainsman, scout, and showman, b. near Davenport, Iowa. His real name was William Frederick Cody. His family moved (1854) to Kansas, and after the death of his fath...

Brautigan, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Brautigan, Richard brôˈtəgăn [key], 1935–84, American novelist and poet, b. Tacoma, Wash. He was a counterculture hero of the 1960s and 70s, and his work is an indictment of America's cultural e...

Wajda, Andrzej

(Encyclopedia)Wajda, Andrzej änˈjā vīˈdä [key], 1926–2016, Polish film director, leading member of the Polish Film School, which began in the 1950s. His films are typically studies of Poland's modern histor...

Thurmond, Strom

(Encyclopedia)Thurmond, Strom (James Strom Thurmond) thûrˈmənd [key], 1902–2003, U.S. senator from South Carolina (1954–2003), b. Edgefield, S.C. He read law while teaching school (1923–29) and was admitte...

Third World

(Encyclopedia)Third World, the technologically less advanced, or developing, nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, generally characterized as poor, having economies distorted by their dependence on the export...

Beowulf

(Encyclopedia)Beowulf bāˈəwo͝olf [key], oldest English epic, probably composed in the early 8th cent. by an Anglian bard in the vicinity of Northumbria. It survives in only one manuscript, written c.a.d. 1000 b...

Sand Creek

(Encyclopedia)Sand Creek, Colorado, site of a massacre (1864) of Cheyenne by Col. John M. Chivington and his Colorado Volunteers. The Cheyennes, led by Black Kettle, had offered to make peace and, at the suggestion...

balance of power

(Encyclopedia)balance of power, system of international relations in which nations seek to maintain an approximate equilibrium of power among many rivals, thus preventing the preponderance of any one state. Crucial...