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data encryption

(Encyclopedia)data encryption, the process of scrambling stored or transmitted information so that it is unintelligible until it is unscrambled by the intended recipient. Historically, data encryption has been used...

feminism

(Encyclopedia)feminism, movement for the political, social, and educational equality of women with men; the movement has occurred mainly in Europe and the United States. It has its roots in the humanism of the 18th...

Iran-contra affair

(Encyclopedia)Iran-contra affair, in U.S. history, secret arrangement in the 1980s to provide funds to the Nicaraguan contra rebels from profits gained by selling arms to Iran. The Iran-contra affair was the produc...

Rolling Stones

(Encyclopedia)Rolling Stones, English rock music group that rose to prominence in the mid-1960s and continues to exert great influence. Member...

Thatcher, Margaret Hilda Roberts Thatcher, Baroness

(Encyclopedia)Thatcher, Margaret Hilda Roberts Thatcher, Baroness, 1925–2013, British political leader. Great Britain's first woman prime minister, nicknamed the “Iron Lady” for her uncompromising political s...

Strategic Defense Initiative

(Encyclopedia)Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), former U.S. government program responsible for research and development of a space-based system to defend the nation from attack by strategic ballistic missiles (se...

cold war

(Encyclopedia)cold war, term used to describe the shifting struggle for power and prestige between the Western powers and the Communist bloc from the end of World War II until 1989. Of worldwide proportions, the co...

fundamentalism

(Encyclopedia)fundamentalism. 1 In Protestantism, religious movement that arose among conservative members of various Protestant denominations early in the 20th cent., with the object of maintaining traditional int...

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