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East India Company, French

(Encyclopedia)East India Company, French, 1664–1769, commercial enterprise planned by Jean Baptiste Colbert and chartered by King Louis XIV for the purpose of trading in the Eastern Hemisphere. It failed to found...

Cresson, Edith

(Encyclopedia)Cresson, Edith ādētˈ krĕsōNˈ [key], 1934–, French politician, b. Edith Campion. After studying at the École des Hautes Études Commerciales, she became a consultant in private industry. Activ...

Todorov, Tzvetan

(Encyclopedia)Todorov, Tzvetan, 1939–2017, Bulgarian-French literary theorist, historian of ideas, and sociologist, b. Sofia, Bulgaria, Ph.D. Univ. of Paris, 1966. He joined (1968) the National Center for Scienti...

Renan, Ernest

(Encyclopedia)Renan, Ernest ĕrnĕstˈ rənäNˈ [key], 1823–92, French historian and critic. He began training for the priesthood but renounced it in 1845. His first trip to Italy (1849) influenced his interest ...

maroon

(Encyclopedia)maroon, term for a fugitive slave in the 17th and 18th cent. in the West Indies and Guiana, or for a descendant of such slaves. They were called marron by the French and cimarrón by the Spanish. Form...

Boreman, Arthur Ingram

(Encyclopedia)Boreman, Arthur Ingram, 1823–96, first governor of West Virginia (1863–69), b. Waynesburg, Pa. A member (1855–61) of the Virginia house of delegates, Boreman opposed secession and presided over ...

United States Military Academy

(Encyclopedia)United States Military Academy, at West Point, N.Y.; for training young men and women to be officers in the U.S. army; founded and opened in 1802. The original act provided that the Corps of Engineers...

Lothair, king of Lotharingia

(Encyclopedia)Lothair, sometimes called Lothair II, d. 869, king of Lotharingia (855–69), second son of Emperor of the West Lothair I. He inherited the region bounded by the Rhine, Scheldt, Alps, and North Sea, w...

Fort Worth

(Encyclopedia)Fort Worth, city (2020 pop. 918,915), seat of Tarrant co., N Tex., on the Trinity River 30 mi (48 km) W of Dallas; settled 1843, inc. 1873. An army post...

Awami League

(Encyclopedia)Awami League, political organization in Pakistan and Bangladesh. It was founded in 1949 as an opposition party in Pakistan and had a moderately socialist ideology. The Awami [people's] League, with co...

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