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Halifax, Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, 1st earl of

(Encyclopedia)Halifax, Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, 1st earl of, 1881–1959, British statesman. He entered the House of Commons (1910) as a Conservative and was president of the Board of Education (1922–24) an...

Dance, George

(Encyclopedia)Dance, George, the elder, 1695–1768, English architect. Among his public buildings in London, the most important is the Mansion House (1739–52), an example of the neo-Palladian style. He built the...

Brent, Margaret

(Encyclopedia)Brent, Margaret, 1600?–1671?, early American feminist, b. Gloucester, England. With her two brothers and a sister, she left England to settle (1638) in St. Marys City, Md., where she acquired an ext...

charcoal

(Encyclopedia)charcoal, substance obtained by partial burning or carbonization (destructive distillation) of organic material. It is largely pure carbon. The entry of air during the carbonization process is control...

hardwood

(Encyclopedia)hardwood: see wood.

annual rings

(Encyclopedia)annual rings, the growth layers of wood that are produced each year in the stems and roots of trees and shrubs. In climates with well-marked alternations of seasons (either cold and warm or wet and dr...

Wilkens, Lenny

(Encyclopedia)Wilkens, Lenny (Leonard Randolph Wilkens), 1937–, American basketball player and coach, b. Brooklyn, N.Y. After playing at Providence College, he joined the St. Louis Hawks of the National Basketbal...

Brewster, Sir David

(Encyclopedia)Brewster, Sir David, 1781–1868, Scottish physicist and natural philosopher. He is noted especially for his research into the polarization of light (the invention of the kaleidoscope was one result o...

Tindemans, Leo

(Encyclopedia)Tindemans, Leo (Leonard Clemence Tindemans), 1922–2014, Belgian stateman. He studied economics at the universities of Antwerp and Ghent, and in 1958 became head of the Flemish Christian Democrats. F...

brazilwood

(Encyclopedia)brazilwood, common name for several trees of the family Leguminosae (pulse family) whose wood yields a red dye. The dye has largely been replaced by synthetic dyes for fabrics, but it is still used in...