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American Film Institute

(Encyclopedia)American Film Institute (AFI), nonprofit organization established in Washington, D.C., in 1967 by the National Endowment for the Arts to preserve and catalog American films and television, to provide ...

American Friends Service Committee

(Encyclopedia)American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), organization est. 1917 by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) that provides social services and information to the public in an attempt to promote int...

Shanghai Cooperation Organization

(Encyclopedia)Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), association of Eurasian nations founded 2001 in Shanghai by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Under the charter signed in 2002...

American Library Association

(Encyclopedia)American Library Association, founded 1876, organization whose purpose is to increase the usefulness of books through the improvement and extension of library services. As the major professional assoc...

Daughters of the American Revolution

(Encyclopedia)Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), a Colonial patriotic society in the United States, open to women having one or more ancestors who aided the cause of the Revolution. The society was organiz...

health maintenance organization

(Encyclopedia)health maintenance organization (HMO), type of prepaid medical service in which members pay a monthly or yearly fee for all health care, including hospitalization. The term “health maintenance organ...

American Indian Movement

(Encyclopedia)American Indian Movement (AIM), Native American civil-rights activist organization, founded in 1968 to encourage self-determination among Native Americans and to establish international re...

American architecture

(Encyclopedia)American architecture, the architecture produced in the geographical area that now constitutes the United States. Wright, generally acknowledged as one of the greatest architects of the 20th cent., ...

World Health Organization

(Encyclopedia)World Health Organization (WHO), specialized agency of the United Nations, established in 1948, with its headquarters at Geneva. WHO admits all sovereign states (including those not belonging to the U...

American Medical Association

(Encyclopedia)American Medical Association (AMA), professional physicians' organization (founded 1847). Its goals are to protect the interests of American physicians, advance public health, and support the growth o...