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East India Company, British

(Encyclopedia)East India Company, British, 1600–1874, company chartered by Queen Elizabeth I for trade with Asia. The original object of the group of merchants involved was to break the Dutch monopoly of the spic...

East India Company, Dutch

(Encyclopedia)East India Company, Dutch, 1602–1798, chartered by the States-General of the Netherlands to expand trade and assure close relations between the government and its colonial enterprises in Asia. The c...

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...

Ohio Company of Associates

(Encyclopedia)Ohio Company of Associates, organization for the purchase and settlement of lands on the Ohio River, founded at Boston in 1786. Its organizers were a group of New England men, most of them former Amer...

Western Union Telegraph Company

(Encyclopedia)Western Union Telegraph Company, enterprise created (1851) to provide telegraphic communications services in the United States. Originally known as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegra...

selective service

(Encyclopedia)selective service, in U.S. history, term for conscription. Conscription was established (1863) in the U.S. Civil War, but proved unpopular (see draft riots). The law authorized release from service to...

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