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sea snake

(Encyclopedia)sea snake, name for any of the venomous marine snakes of the family Hydrophidae, found in tropical waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans. The sea snake's body is flattened laterally and its oarlike ...

dauphin, French title

(Encyclopedia)dauphin dôˈfĭn, Fr. dōfăNˈ [key] [Fr.,=dolphin], French title, borne first by the counts of Vienne (also called Viennois) and later by the eldest son of the king of France, or, if the dauphin ca...

Farmer, James Leonard, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)Farmer, James Leonard, Jr., 1920–99, African-American civil-rights leader who was one of the principal civil-rights figures of the 1950s and 60s, b. Marshall, Tex., grad. Wiley College (B.S. 1938), ...

horsetail

(Encyclopedia)horsetail, any plant of the genus Equisetum [Lat.,=horse bristle], the single surviving genus of a large group (Equisetophyta) of primitive vascular plants. Like the ferns and club mosses, relatives o...

Jehovah's Witnesses

(Encyclopedia)Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian group originating in the United States at the end of the 19th cent., organized by Charles Taze Russell, whose doctrine centers on the Second Coming of Christ. The Witnes...

Kodiak Island

(Encyclopedia)Kodiak Island kōˈdēăkˌ [key], 5,363 sq mi (13,890 sq km), c.100 mi (160 km) long and 10–60 mi (16–96 km) wide, off S Alaska, separated from the Alaska Peninsula by Shelikof Strait. Alaska's l...

Paterno, Joe

(Encyclopedia)Paterno, Joe (Joseph Vincent Paterno) pətûrˈnō [key], 1926–2012, American football coach, b. Brooklyn, N.Y. A former quarterback at Brown Univ., he joined (1950) the coaching staff at Pennsylvan...

Walton, Sir William Turner

(Encyclopedia)Walton, Sir William Turner, 1902–83, English composer, b. Oldham. Walton studied at Oxford. One of his earliest works was a piano quartet (1918–19). In 1923, Façade, satirical poems by Edith Sitw...

Bulfinch, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Bulfinch, Charles, 1763–1844, American architect, b. Boston. A member of the Boston board of selectmen in 1791, he was chosen chairman in 1799—an office equivalent to mayor and held by Bulfinch fo...

Stone, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Stone, Robert, 1937–2015, American novelist, b. Brooklyn, N.Y. During his early years he was in the Navy, and later he joined Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters in their drug-enhanced adventures. He...