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Hillel, Jewish scholar

(Encyclopedia)Hillel, fl. c.30 b.c.–a.d. 10, Jewish scholar, regarded as the forebear of the later patriarchs who led the Jews of Palestine until c.a.d. 400. The Jerusalem Talmud calls him the president of the Sa...

Guadarrama, Sierra de

(Encyclopedia)Guadarrama, Sierra de syārˈrä ᵺā gwäᵺäräˈmä [key], mountain range rising from the plateau of central Spain, N of Madrid, and extending c.120 mi (190 km) between the Tagus and Douro rivers...

Fort Peck Dam

(Encyclopedia)Fort Peck Dam, 21,430 ft (6,531 m) long and 250 ft (76 m) high, on the Missouri River, NE Mont.; one of the world's largest earth-filled dams. The dam was built (1933–40) by the U.S. Army Corps of E...

Gans, Herbert

(Encyclopedia)Gans, Herbert găns [key], 1927–, American sociologist and educator, b. Cologne, Germany. He came to the United States in 1940 and became a U.S. citizen. In The Urban Villagers (2d ed. 1982), an imp...

Diogenes

(Encyclopedia)Diogenes dīŏjˈənēz [key], c.412–323 b.c., Greek Cynic philosopher; pupil of Antisthenes. He was born in Sinope and lived in Athens. He taught that the virtuous life is the simple life, and he d...

Adams, Herbert Baxter

(Encyclopedia)Adams, Herbert Baxter, 1850–1901, American historian, b. Shutesbury, near Amherst, Mass. In 1876, the year he received his doctorate at Heidelberg, he became one of the original faculty of Johns Hop...

LL Cool J

(Encyclopedia) LL Cool J , 1968- , African-American rapper and actor, b. Queens, N.Y., as James Todd Smith. Smith had a tragic upbringing, with his father shooting bo...

Diddley, Bo

(Encyclopedia)Diddley, Bo, 1928–2008, African-American singer, guitarist, and songwriter who was one of the founders of rock and roll, b. near McComb, Miss., as Otha Ellas Bates. He and his cousin, Gussie McDanie...

Close, Glenn

(Encyclopedia)Close, Glenn, 1947–, American actress, b. Greenwich, Conn. She began her career in the theater, debuting on Broadway in Love for Love (1974), winning an Obie for the off-Broadway The Singular Life o...

fallopian tube

(Encyclopedia)fallopian tube fəlōˈpēən [key], either of a pair of tubes extending from the uterus to the paired ovaries in the human female, also called oviducts, technically known as the uterine tube. At one ...