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eminent domain

(Encyclopedia)eminent domain, the right of a government to force the owner of private property sell it if it is needed for a public use. The right is based on the doctrine that a sovereign state has dominion over a...

extinction

(Encyclopedia)extinction, in biology, disappearance of species of living organisms. Extinction usually occurs as a result of changed conditions to which the species is not suited. If no member of the affected speci...

Fourier, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Fourier, Charles shärl fo͞oryāˈ [key], 1772–1837, French social philosopher. From a bourgeois family, he condemned existing institutions and evolved a kind of utopian socialism. In Théorie des ...

International Labor Organization

(Encyclopedia)International Labor Organization (ILO), specialized agency of the United Nations, with headquarters in Geneva. It was created in 1919 by the Versailles Treaty and affiliated with the League of Nations...

Grand Coulee Dam

(Encyclopedia)Grand Coulee Dam ko͞oˈlē [key], 550 ft (168 m) high and 4,173 ft (1,272 m) long, on the Columbia ...

Fortas, Abe

(Encyclopedia)Fortas, Abe fôrˈtəs [key], 1910–82, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1965–69), b. Memphis, Tenn. After receiving his law degree from Yale in 1933, he taught there (1933–37) and al...

Flaubert, Gustave

(Encyclopedia)Flaubert, Gustave güstävˈ flōbĕrˈ [key], 1821–80, French novelist, regarded as one of the supreme masters of the realistic novel. He was a scrupulous, slow writer, intent on the exact word (le...

epic

(Encyclopedia)epic, long, exalted narrative poem, usually on a serious subject, centered on a heroic figure. The earliest epics, known as primary, or original, epics, were shaped from the legends of an age when a n...

Jolliet, Louis

(Encyclopedia)Jolliet or Joliet, Louis both: jōˈlēĕtˌ, jōˌlēĕtˈ, Fr. lwē zhôlyāˈ [key], 1645–1700, French explorer, joint discoverer with Jacques Marquette of the upper Mississippi River, b. Quebec ...

Auchincloss, Louis

(Encyclopedia)Auchincloss, Louis (Louis Stanton Auchincloss) ôˈkĭnklŏs [key], 1917–2010, American novelist and man of letters, b. Lawrence, New York; studied Yale, Univ. of Virginia Law School (LL.B., 1941). ...