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Carlsen, Magnus

(Encyclopedia)Carlsen, Magnus (Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen), 1990–, Norwegian chess player. He became a grandmaster in 2004 at age 13, becoming the youngest player to achieve this honor, and in 2006 he won his first...

Persian Gulf Wars

(Encyclopedia)Persian Gulf Wars, two conflicts involving Iraq and U.S.-led coalitions in the late 20th and early 21st cent. The First Persian Gulf War, also known as the Gulf War, Jan.–Feb., 1991, was an armed co...

Allawi, Ayad

(Encyclopedia)Allawi, Ayad ĕyädˈ äläˈwē [key], 1946–, Iraqi political leader. A doctor and prominent secular Shiite, he was a Ba'ath party member but went into exile in 1971. After a 1978 assassination att...

Francis de Sales, Saint

(Encyclopedia)Francis de Sales, Saint, 1567–1622, French Roman Catholic preacher, Doctor of the Church, and key figure in the Counter Reformation in France. He was a member of an aristocratic family of Savoy and ...

Hue

(Encyclopedia)Hue hwā [key], city (1989 pop. 260,489), former capital of the historic region of Annam, Vietnam, in a rich farming area on the Hue River near the South China Sea. Probably founded in the 3d cent. a....

Fonseka, Sarath

(Encyclopedia)Fonseka, Sarath säˈrät fänsĕkˈä [key], 1950–, Sri Lankan general and politician. He joined the army in 1970 and rose through the officer corps. From the early 1980s he led Sri Lankan troops i...

Gálvez, Bernardo de

(Encyclopedia)Gálvez, Bernardo de bĕrnärˈᵺō dā gälˈvāth [key], c.1746–1786, Spanish governor of Louisiana. He served in the Spanish army before going to Louisiana in 1776 as the young commandant of the...

Mosby, John Singleton

(Encyclopedia)Mosby, John Singleton môzˈbē [key], 1833–1916, Confederate partisan leader in the American Civil War, b. Edgemont, Va. He was practicing law in Bristol, Va., when the Civil War broke out. Mosby s...

Neutrality Act

(Encyclopedia)Neutrality Act, law passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Aug., 1935. It was designed to keep the United States out of a possible European war by banning shi...

autogiro

(Encyclopedia)autogiro jīˈrəplān [key], type of aircraft supported in the air by a horizontally mounted airfoil similar to that of a helicopter but unpowered. Invented by the Spaniard Juan de la Cierva, it was ...