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light-year

(Encyclopedia)light-year, in astronomy, unit of length equal to the distance light travels in one sidereal year. It is 9.461 × 1012 km (about 6 million million mi). Alpha Centauri and Proxima Centauri, the stars n...

Greb, Harry

(Encyclopedia)Greb, Harry, 1894–1926, American boxer, b. Pittsburgh. Although blind in one eye, Greb was one of the most feared fighters in American ring history. He was a natural middleweight, but fought light h...

Baird, John Logie

(Encyclopedia)Baird, John Logie, 1888–1946, Scottish inventor. In 1926 he gave the first demonstration of true television with a televisor of his own invention that differed from later instruments in being partia...

twilight

(Encyclopedia)twilight, period between sunset and total darkness or between total darkness and sunrise. Total darkness does not occur immediately when the sun sinks below the horizon because light from the sun that...

Tunney, Gene

(Encyclopedia)Tunney, Gene (James Joseph Tunney), 1898–1978, American boxer, b. New York City. He began boxing in neighborhood clubs as a youngster. In World War I, he served in the U.S. marines and while in Pari...

Five-Year Plan

(Encyclopedia)Five-Year Plan, Soviet economic practice of planning to augment agricultural and industrial output by designated quotas for a limited period of usually five years. Nations other than the former USSR a...

Richards, William Trost

(Encyclopedia)Richards, William Trost, 1833–1905, American painter, b. Philadelphia, studied in Florence, Rome, and Paris, and settled in Germantown, Pa. Early in his career he painted landscapes and still lifes,...

Sacheverell, Henry

(Encyclopedia)Sacheverell, Henry səshĕˈvərəl [key], 1674?–1724, English clergyman, the center of a religio-political incident in the reign of Queen Anne. In two sermons (1709) Dr. Sacheverell attacked the Wh...

Fiedler, Arthur

(Encyclopedia)Fiedler, Arthur, 1894–1979, American conductor, b. Brookline, Mass. Fiedler, who ultimately became a grandfatherly American musical icon, studied violin with his father, a member of the Boston Symph...

Candlemas

(Encyclopedia)Candlemas kănˈdəlməs [key], Feb. 2, Christian festival commemorating the Purification of the Blessed Virgin and the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. The name Candlemas is derived from the proc...