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canoeing

(Encyclopedia)canoeing, sport of propelling a canoe through water. John MacGregor, an English barrister and founder of the Royal Canoe Club (est. 1865), is generally credited with being the initiator of modern spor...

prickly ash

(Encyclopedia)prickly ash, name for two deciduous shrubs or small trees (Zanthoxylum americanum and Z. clava-herculis) of the family Rutaceae (rue family). They are native to E North America and have prickly twigs ...

Segura

(Encyclopedia)Segura sāgo͞oˈrä [key], river, c.200 mi (320 km) long, rising on the northeastern slopes of the Sierra de Segura, SE Spain, and flowing generally E into the Mediterranean Sea. It is used for hydro...

Newmarket

(Encyclopedia)Newmarket, town (1991 pop. 15,861), Suffolk, E England. It has been a horse-racing center since early in the 17th cent. There are four principal races: the One Thousand Guineas, the Two Thousand Guine...

Jacobins

(Encyclopedia)Jacobins jăkˈəbĭnz [key], political club of the French Revolution. Formed in 1789 by the Breton deputies to the States-General, it was reconstituted as the Society of Friends of the Constitution a...

Cowes

(Encyclopedia)Cowes kouz [key], town, Isle of Wight, S England. A resort town with lovely promenades, it is...

DeGeneres, Ellen Lee

(Encyclopedia) DeGeneres, Ellen Lee, 1958- , American actor and talk-show host, b. Metairie, La. DeGeneres’s parents split in 1974, and she subsequently ...

Lepidodendron and Sigillaria

(Encyclopedia)Lepidodendron sĭjĭlârˈēə [key], two principal genera of an extinct group of primitive vascular trees. They dominated the forests of the early Carboniferous period until the ferns gained ascendan...

Sharp, Granville

(Encyclopedia)Sharp, Granville, 1735–1813, English reformer, scholar, and abolitionist. In 1772 he won a case establishing the principle that any slave would become free upon reaching British land. Sharp continue...

Río Tinto

(Encyclopedia)Río Tinto, Ríotinto mēˈnäs dā [key], town (1990 pop. 5,934), Huelva prov., SW Spain, in the Sierra Morena Mts., in Andalusia. It is the center of the Río Tinto mining region, named for the riv...