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Doon

(Encyclopedia)Doon do͞on [key], river, c.30 mi (48 km) long, South Ayrshire and East Ayrshire, SW Scotland, flowing NW through Loch Doon (6 mi/9.7 km long) to the Firth of Clyde S of Ayr. Robert Burns celebrated i...

Downing Street

(Encyclopedia)Downing Street, Westminster, London, England. On the street are the British Foreign Office and, at No. 10, the residence of the first lord of the Treasury, who is usually (although not necessarily) th...

Pied Piper of Hamelin

(Encyclopedia)Pied Piper of Hamelin, legendary figure of Hameln, Germany. He rid the town of its rats and mice by charming them away with his flute playing. When the citizens refused to pay him the price they had a...

Hugh Capet

(Encyclopedia)Hugh Capet kāˈpĭt, kăpˈĭt [key], c.938–996, king of France (987–96), first of the Capetians. He was the son of Hugh the Great, to whose vast territories he succeeded in 956. After the death ...

Joffrey Ballet

(Encyclopedia)Joffrey Ballet, one of the major American dance companies. It was founded in New York City in 1956 by the dancer-choreographer Robert Joffrey. From 1956 to 1964 it made yearly tours of the United Stat...

parliamentary law

(Encyclopedia)parliamentary law, rules under which deliberative bodies conduct their proceedings. In English-speaking countries these are based on the practice of the British Parliament, chiefly in the House of Com...

Lincoln, Mary Todd

(Encyclopedia)Lincoln, Mary Todd, 1818–82, wife of Abraham Lincoln, b. Lexington, Ky. Of a good Kentucky family, she was living with her sister, daughter-in-law of Gov. Ninian Edwards of Illinois, in Springfield,...

Philip I, king of France

(Encyclopedia)Philip I, 1052–1108, king of France (1060–1108), son and successor of Henry I. He enlarged, by arms and by diplomacy, his small royal domain. In order to prevent the union of England and Normandy ...

Dyce, Alexander

(Encyclopedia)Dyce, Alexander dīs [key], 1798–1869, Scottish editor. He is best known for his scholarly editions of the works of Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists, including those of George Peele, Robert Green...

Darwin, Sir Francis

(Encyclopedia)Darwin, Sir Francis, 1848–1925, English botanist, assistant to his father, Charles Robert Darwin. He lectured in botany at Cambridge and was foreign secretary of the Royal Society and president of t...