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Matadi

(Encyclopedia)Matadi mətäˈdē [key], city (1984 pop. 138,798), Kongo Central prov., W Congo (Kinshasa), on the Congo River. With one of the largest harbors in central Africa, Matadi is the main port of the count...

El Dorado, legendary country of South America

(Encyclopedia)El Dorado ĕlˈdəräˈdō, –rāˈ– [key] [Span.,=the gilded man], legendary country of the Golden Man sought by adventurers in South America. The legend supposedly originated in a custom of the C...

bushbuck

(Encyclopedia)bushbuck, either of two small, delicate, spiral-horned antelopes of sub-Saharan Africa, the imbabala (Tragelaphus sylvaticus) and the kéwel (T. scriptus), formerly classified as a single species. Bus...

Ramaphosa, Cyril

(Encyclopedia)Ramaphosa, Cyril (Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa), 1952–, South African political leader, b. Johannesburg. A lawyer, he became involved in the antiapartheid Black Consciousness Movement while a university...

rhinoceros

(Encyclopedia)rhinoceros, massive hoofed mammal of Africa, India, and SE Asia, characterized by a snout with one or two horns. The rhinoceros family, along with the horse and tapir families, forms the order of odd-...

Dhlakama, Afonso Marceta Macacho

(Encyclopedia)Dhlakama, Afonso Marceta Macacho, 1953–2018, Mozambican rebel leader and opposition figure. Conscripted into the Portuguese colonial army, he soon deserted and fought briefly with the Marxist Mozamb...

Vaal

(Encyclopedia)Vaal fäl [key], river, c.750 mi (1,210 km) long, rising in Mpumalanga, NE South Africa, and flowing SW to the Orange River. It forms most of the northern border of the Free State. The river's flow is...

banjo

(Encyclopedia)banjo, stringed musical instrument, with a body resembling a tambourine. The banjo consists of a hoop over which a skin membrane is stretched; it has a long, often fretted neck and four to nine string...

Sankara, Thomas Isidore Noël

(Encyclopedia)Sankara, Thomas 1948–87, president (1983–87) of Burkina Faso. Thomas Sankara, sometimes referred to as the African Che Guevara, was an activist, mil...

diamond

(Encyclopedia)diamond, mineral, one of two crystalline forms of the element carbon (see allotropy), the hardest natural substance known, used as a gem and in industry. The discoveries of 1870–71 in South Africa...