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Badajoz

(Encyclopedia)Badajoz bäᵺähōthˈ [key], city, capital of Badajoz prov., SW Spain, in Extremadura, on the ...

Vigée-Lebrun, Élisabeth

(Encyclopedia)Vigée-Lebrun, Élisabeth ālēzäbĕtˈ vēzhāˈ-ləbröNˈ [key], 1755–1842, French portrait painter; pupil of her father, the painter Louis Vigée. She was influenced by Greuze. Summoned to Vers...

Viriatus

(Encyclopedia)Viriatus vērēäˈtəs [key], d. 139 b.c., leader of the Lusitani (see Lusitania). One of the survivors of the massacre of the Lusitani by the Roman praetor Servius Sulpicius Galba, Viriatus rose as ...

Magnoliophyta

(Encyclopedia)Magnoliophyta măgˌnōlēŏfˈətə [key], division of the plant kingdom consisting of those organisms commonly called the flowering plants, or angiosperms. The angiosperms have leaves, stems, and ro...

laurel, in botany

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Sassafras, Sassafras albidum, a member of the laurel family laurel, common name for the Lauraceae, a family of forest trees and shrubs found mainly in tropical SE Asia but also abundant in tro...

plum, in botany

(Encyclopedia)plum, common name for a tree of any of many species of the genus Prunus of the family Rosaceae (rose family) and for its fruit, a drupe. The plum is generally cultivated in the temperate zones, though...

Dudley, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Dudley, Joseph, 1647–1720, colonial governor of Massachusetts, b. Roxbury, Mass.; son of Thomas Dudley. In 1682 he was one of the agents sent to England to protest against the threatened loss of the...

conglomerate, in business

(Encyclopedia)conglomerate, corporation whose asset growth, often very rapid, comes largely through the acquisition of, or merger with, other firms whose products are largely unrelated to each other or to that of t...

Aldrich, Nelson Wilmarth

(Encyclopedia)Aldrich, Nelson Wilmarth, 1841–1915, U.S. Senator from Rhode Island, b. Foster, R.I. He rose in local politics as state assemblyman (1875–76) and U.S. Representative (1879–81) before he served a...

Charles, Ray

(Encyclopedia)Charles, Ray (Ray Charles Robinson), 1930–2004, African-American musician and composer, b. Albany, Ga. Blinded at age seven, he was raised in Florida and at 16 began singing in a local hillbilly gro...