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Eyzies-de-Tayac, Les

(Encyclopedia)Eyzies-de-Tayac, Les lā zāzēˈ-də-tīäkˈ [key], or Les Eyzies, village, Dordogn...

Reading, cities, United States

(Encyclopedia)Reading. rĕdˈĭng [key] 1 Town (1990 pop. 22,539), Middlesex co., NE Mass., a suburb of Boston; settled 1639, set off from Lynn and inc. 1644. Printing is the major industry. A 17th-century tavern i...

Balla, Giacomo

(Encyclopedia)Balla, Giacomo, 1871–1958, Italian painter, one of the founders of futurism. He moved from Turin to Rome in his twenties and began painting in a realist style. He travelled (1900) to Paris, where he...

James V, king of Scotland

(Encyclopedia)James V, 1512–42, king of Scotland (1513–42), son and successor of James IV. His mother, Margaret Tudor, held the regency until her marriage in 1514 to Archibald Douglas, 6th earl of Angus, when s...

Molière, Jean Baptiste Poquelin

(Encyclopedia)Molière, Jean Baptiste Poquelin zhäN bätēstˈ pôklăNˈ môlyĕrˈ [key], 1622–73, French playwright and actor, b. Paris; son of a merchant who was upholsterer to the king. His name was origina...

Lagarde, Christine

(Encyclopedia)Lagarde, Christine (Christine Madeleine Odette Lallouette Lagarde) krĭstēnˈ lägärdˈ [key], 1956–, French lawyer and government official, the first woman to head the International Monetary Fund...

Périgord

(Encyclopedia)Périgord pārēgôrˈ [key], region of SW France, now included in Dordogne and parts of Lot-et-Garonne depts. Périgueux (the capital) and Bergerac are the chief cities. The region consists of low, a...

Mary Magdalene

(Encyclopedia)Mary Magdalene i.e., tearful [key] [traditionally Greek,=of Magdala], Christian saint, a woman widely venerated in Christendom. The name Madeleine is a French form of Magdalene. She appears in the New...

Poison Affair

(Encyclopedia)Poison Affair, in French history, scandal implicating a number of prominent persons at the court of King Louis XIV. It began with the trial of Marie Madeleine d'Aubray, marquise de Brinvilliers (c.163...

nuclear weapons

(Encyclopedia)nuclear weapons, weapons of mass destruction powered by atomic, rather than chemical, processes. Nuclear weapons produce large explosions and hazardous radioactive byproducts by means of either nuclea...

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