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grebe

(Encyclopedia)grebe grēb [key], common name for swimming birds found on or near quiet waters in most parts of the world. Grebes resemble the loon and the duck; they have short wings, vestigial tails, and long, ind...

sunfish

(Encyclopedia)sunfish, common name for members of the family Centrachidae, comprising numerous species of spiny-finned, freshwater fishes with deep, laterally flattened bodies found in temperate North America. All ...

Franklin, John Hope

(Encyclopedia)Franklin, John Hope, 1915–2009, the dean of 20th-century African-American historians, b. Rentiesville, Okla., grad. Fisk Univ. (A.B., 1935), Harvard (M.A., 1936; Ph.D., 1941). Franklin served on the...

New Granada

(Encyclopedia)New Granada grənäˈdə [key], former Spanish colony, N South America. It included at its greatest extent present Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela. Between 1499 and 1510 a host of conquerors ...

raccoon

(Encyclopedia)raccoon, nocturnal New World mammal of the genus Procyon. The common raccoon of North America, Procyon lotor, also called coon, is found from S Canada to South America, except in parts of the Rocky Mt...

Citadel, The–The Military College of South Carolina

(Encyclopedia)Citadel, The–The Military College of South Carolina sĭtˈədəl, –dĕlˌ [key], at Charleston; state supported; chartered (1842) as The Citadel, opened 1843. From 1882 to 1910 it was named the So...

Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area

(Encyclopedia)Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area: see National Parks and Monuments (table)national parks and monuments (table). ...

desert

(Encyclopedia)desert, arid region, usually partly covered by sand, having scanty vegetation or sometimes almost none, and capable of supporting only a limited and specially adapted animal population. The so-called ...

guinea pig

(Encyclopedia)guinea pig gĭnˈē [key], domesticated form of the cavy, Cavia porcellus, a South American rodent. It is unrelated to the pig; the name may refer to its shrill squeal. Guinea pigs were raised by the ...

Mound Builders

(Encyclopedia)Mound Builders, in North American archaeology, name given to those people who built mounds in a large area from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Mississippi River to the Appalachian ...