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veto

(Encyclopedia)veto [Lat.,=I forbid], power of one functionary (e.g., the president) of a government, or of one member of a group or coalition, to block the operation of laws or agreements passed or entered into by ...

Damocles

(Encyclopedia)Damocles dămˈəklēz [key], in classical mythology, courtier at the court of Dionysius I. He so persistently praised the power and happiness of Dionysius that the tyrant, in order to show the precar...

Snowdon

(Encyclopedia)Snowdon, Welsh Yr Wyddfa, highest mountain of Wales, 3,560 ft (1,085 m) high, Gwynedd, NW Wales. Its five peaks are separated by passes. There is a rack and pinion railway (opened 1896) from Llanberis...

Shoshone project

(Encyclopedia)Shoshone project, NW Wyo., near the Mont. line and in the Shoshone River basin. Developed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, it irrigates a large portion of land and has four divisions. The project is...

Ptolemaïs, town, Greece

(Encyclopedia)Ptolemaïs ptôlĭmīsˈ [key], town (1991 pop. 25,195), N Greece, in Macedonia. It was a small market town until 1958, when it began to be developed as an industrial center. Lignite, mined there in v...

Stirling engine

(Encyclopedia)Stirling engine, an external combustion reciprocating engine having an enclosed working fluid that is alternately compressed and expanded to operate a piston, thus converting heat from a variety of so...

Mugabe, Robert Gabriel

(Encyclopedia)Mugabe, Robert Gabriel mo͞ogäˈbē, –bā [key], 1924–2019, president of Zimbabwe (1987–2017). A founder of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) in 1963 and a guerrilla leader, he was imp...

Justice, United States Department of

(Encyclopedia)Justice, United States Department of, federal executive department established in 1870 and charged with providing the means for enforcing federal laws, furnishing legal counsel in federal cases, and c...

Bassett, Angela Evelyn

(Encyclopedia) Bassett, Angela Evelyn 1958- , American actress, b. New York, N.Y., Yale Univ. (B.A., 1980; M.F.A., 1983; D.F.A. (2018, hon.). Bassett’s parents ...

Burger, Warren Earl

(Encyclopedia)Burger, Warren Earl, 1907–95, American jurist, 15th chief justice of the United States (1969–86), b. St. Paul, Minn. After receiving his law degree in 1931 from St. Paul College of Law (now Mitche...