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Pownall, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Pownall, Thomas pouˈnəl [key], 1722–1805, English colonial governor in North America. In 1753 he went to New York as secretary to Sir Danvers Osborn, newly appointed governor. Following Osborn's s...

folk song

(Encyclopedia)folk song, music of anonymous composition, transmitted orally. The theory that folk songs were originally group compositions has been modified in recent studies. These assume that the germ of a folk m...

Mutharika, Bingu wa

(Encyclopedia)Mutharika, Bingu wa bēngˈgo͞o wä mo͞otäˈrēkä [key], 1934–2012, Malawian economist and political leader, b. Nyasaland (now Malawi) as Brightson Webster Ryson Thom; he africanized his name du...

skiing

(Encyclopedia)skiing, sport of sliding over snow on skis—long, narrow, flexible runners. Water skiing is a warm-weather sport in which a motor-propelled craft tows a skier through the water. Although its orig...

Du Chaillu, Paul Belloni

(Encyclopedia)Du Chaillu, Paul Belloni pōl bĕlōnēˈ dü shāyüˈ [key], c.1831–1903, French-American explorer in Africa. Born probably in Paris, he spent his youth on the west coast of Africa, where his fath...

Morazán, Francisco

(Encyclopedia)Morazán, Francisco fränsēsˈkō mōräsänˈ [key], 1799–1842, Central American statesman, b. Tegucigalpa, Honduras. He led the revolutionary army that overthrew (1829) the regime of Manuel José...

Ekholm, Gordon Frederick

(Encyclopedia)Ekholm, Gordon Frederick ĕkˈhōlm [key], 1909–87, American archaeologist, b. St. Paul, Minn., Ph.D. Harvard, 1941. Working with the American Museum of Natural History in New York City after 1937, ...

Rajshahi

(Encyclopedia)Rajshahi rämˈpo͝or bōäˈlēä [key], city (1991 pop. 318,000), W central Bangladesh, on the Ganges River. It is the administrative center for a district that produces practically all of the count...

Bangui

(Encyclopedia)Bangui bäng-gēˈ [key], city (1994 est. pop. 560,000), capital of the Central African Republic, a port on the Ubangi River, near the Congo (Kinshasa) border. Bangui is an administrative, trade, and ...

Chillán, Nevados de

(Encyclopedia)Chillán, Nevados de, stratovolcano complex, Bíobío region, S central Chile, in the Andes. One of the country's most active volcanoes, it consists of three overlapping peaks; the highest, at 10,538 ...