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Osborne, John

(Encyclopedia)Osborne, John (John James Osborne), 1929–94, English dramatist. He began his theatrical career as an actor and playwright in provincial English repertory theaters. Osborne's plays usually focus on a...

Kurile Lake

(Encyclopedia)Kurile Lake, crater lake, 29 sq mi (76 sq km), 130 mi (209 km) SSW of Petropavlovsk, Russia, near the tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula. Located in a rugged volcanic region and lying some 330 ft (100 m) ...

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

(Encyclopedia)Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at Cambridge; coeducational; chartered 1861, opened 1865 in Boston, moved 1916. It has long been recognized as an outstanding technological institute and its Slo...

Dodge, Grenville Mellen

(Encyclopedia)Dodge, Grenville Mellen, 1831–1916, Union general in the Civil War and railroad builder, b. Danvers, Mass. Before the war Dodge, a civil engineer, did railroad work in the West. After he distinguish...

Finley, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Finley, Robert fĭnˈlē [key], 1772–1817, American clergyman, a founder of the American Colonization Society, b. Princeton, N.J. In 1787 he graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton),...

Sagunto

(Encyclopedia)Sagunto sägo͞onˈtō [key], Latin Saguntum, town (1990 pop. 58,135), Valencia prov., E Spain, on the Palencia River, in Valencia. A seaport on the Mediterranean, it is an important metallurgical cen...

Rappahannock

(Encyclopedia)Rappahannock răpəhănˈək [key], river, 212 mi (341 km) long, rising in the Blue Ridge Mts., N Va., and flowing generally SE to Chesapeake Bay. It is navigable to Fredericksburg. In the Civil War m...

Vostok, Lake

(Encyclopedia)Vostok, Lake väˈstôk [key], c.3,900 sq mi (10,000 sq km), c.155 mi (250 km) long and 30 mi (50 km) at its greatest width, in East Antartica beneath the remote Vostok research station. One of the la...

Stowe, Harriet Beecher

(Encyclopedia)Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 1811–96, American novelist and humanitarian, b. Litchfield, Conn. With her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, she stirred the conscience of Americans concerning slavery and thereby inf...

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