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Washington, George

(Encyclopedia)Washington, George, 1732–99, 1st President of the United States (1789–97), commander in chief of the Continental army in the American Revolution, called the Father of His Country. The Univ. of V...

Floyd, John Buchanan

(Encyclopedia)Floyd, John Buchanan, 1807–63, U.S. Secretary of War (1857–60) and Confederate general, b. Smithfield, Va. After failing as a lawyer and cotton planter in Arkansas, he returned to Virginia and pra...

Lee, Arthur

(Encyclopedia)Lee, Arthur, 1740–92, American Revolutionary diplomat, b. Westmoreland co., Va.; brother of Francis L. Lee, Richard H. Lee, and William Lee. Educated in Great Britain, he returned to Virginia to pra...

Stuart, James Ewell Brown

(Encyclopedia)Stuart, James Ewell Brown (Jeb Stuart), 1833–64, Confederate cavalry commander in the American Civil War, b. Patrick co., Va. Most of his U.S. army service was with the 1st Cavalry in Kansas. On Vir...

gross national product

(Encyclopedia)gross national product (GNP), in economics, a quantitative measure of a nation's total economic activity, generally assessed yearly or quarterly. In estimating the GNP, only the final value of a produ...

Astor, John Jacob, 1763–1848, American merchant

(Encyclopedia)Astor, John Jacob ăsˈtər [key], 1763–1848, American merchant, b. Walldorf, near Heidelberg, Germany. At the age of 16 he went to England, and five years later, in 1784, he arrived in Baltimore, p...

Nice

(Encyclopedia)Nice nēs [key], city (1990 pop. 345,674), capital of Alpes-Maritimes dept., SE France, on the Mediterranean Sea. Nice is the most famous resort on the French Riviera. Although the economy depends mai...

Maghreb

(Encyclopedia)Maghreb or Magrib both: mäˈgrĭb [key] [Arab.,=the West], Arabic term for NW Africa. It is generally applied to all of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia but actually pertains only to the area of the thr...

Turks and Caicos Islands

(Encyclopedia)Turks and Caicos Islands kīˈkōs [key], dependency of Great Britain (2015 est. pop. 34,000), 166 sq mi (430 sq km), West Indies. There are more than 30 cays and islands, of which eight are inhabited...

Santiago de Cuba

(Encyclopedia)Santiago de Cuba ᵺā ko͞oˈbä [key], city (1994 est. pop. 385,800), capital of Santiago de Cuba prov., SE Cuba. Cuba's second largest city, Santiago is situated on a cliff overlooking a bay. The c...