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Pan-Americanism

(Encyclopedia)Pan-Americanism, movement toward commercial, social, economic, military, and political cooperation among the nations of North, Central, and South America. In the early 20th cent., U.S. manipulation ...

Tacaná

(Encyclopedia)Tacaná täkänäˈ [key], volcano, 13,333 ft (4,064 m) high, on the Mexico-Guatemala boundary; second highest peak in Central America. Major eruptions occurred in 1855 and 1878. ...

whaling

(Encyclopedia)whaling, the hunting of whales for the oil that can be rendered from their flesh, for meat, and for baleen (whalebone). Historically, whale oil was economically the most important. In 1932–33, par...

Anthony Rodney, Walter

(Encyclopedia)Rodney, Walter, 1942–1980, Scholar and revolutionary, b. Georgetown, British Guiana. Ph.D. School of African and Oriental Studies, 1966. A Pan-African...

isolationism

(Encyclopedia)isolationism, a national policy of abstaining from political, military, or economic alliances or agreements with other countries. Isolationism may be adopted in order to devote a country's energies to...

Hakluyt, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Hakluyt, Richard hăkˈlo͞ot, hăkˈəlwĭt [key], 1552?–1616, English geographer. He graduated in 1574 from Oxford, where he later lectured on geography. A passionate interest in the history of di...

Byrd, Robert Carlyle

(Encyclopedia)Byrd, Robert Carlyle, 1917–2010, U.S. senator from West Virginia (1959–2010), b. North Wilkesboro, N.C., as Cornelius Calvin Sale, Jr. A Democrat, he served (1947–52) in the West Virginia legisl...

Cabrillo, Juan Rodríguez

(Encyclopedia)Cabrillo, Juan Rodríguez hwän rôᵺrēˈgāth käbrēˈlyō [key], Port. João Rodrigues Cabrilho, d. 1543, Spanish conquistador and discoverer of California, b. Portugal. In 1520 he landed in Mexi...

hare

(Encyclopedia)hare, name for certain herbivorous mammals of the family Leporidae, which also includes the rabbit and pika. The name is applied especially to species of the genus Lepus, sometimes called the true har...

Monroe Doctrine

(Encyclopedia)Monroe Doctrine, principle of American foreign policy enunciated in President James Monroe's message to Congress, Dec. 2, 1823. It initially called for an end to European intervention in the Americas,...