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Union Pacific Railroad

(Encyclopedia)Union Pacific Railroad, transportation company chartered (1862) by Congress to build part of the nation's first transcontinental railroad line. Under terms of the Pacific Railroads Act, the Union Paci...

Kuhn, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Kuhn, Richard rĭkhˈärt ko͞on [key], 1900–1967, Austrian chemist, director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, Heidelberg. For his research on the carotinoids (he prepared eight of them in pure form...

mestizo

(Encyclopedia)mestizo māstēˈsō [key] [Span.,=mixture], person of mixed race; particularly, in Mexico and Central and South America, a person of European (Spanish or Portuguese) and indigenous descent. The mesti...

international date line

(Encyclopedia)international date line, imaginary line on the earth's surface, generally following the 180° meridian of longitude, where, by international agreement, travelers change dates. Traveling eastward acros...

International Geophysical Year

(Encyclopedia)International Geophysical Year (IGY), 18-month period from July, 1957, through Dec., 1958, during a period of maximum sunspot activity, designated for cooperative study of the solar-terrestrial enviro...

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