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roller skating

(Encyclopedia)roller skating, gliding on a hard, smooth, durable surface on skates with rollers or wheels, in recent years has become a popular adult sport. Skates mounted on wooden rollers date from the 1860s, and...

Yorkshire terrier

(Encyclopedia)Yorkshire terrier, breed of small, spirited toy dog originated and developed in Yorkshire, England, in the mid-19th cent. It stands about 9 in. (22.8 cm) high at the shoulder and weighs from 4 to 7 lb...

bestiary

(Encyclopedia)bestiary bĕsˈchēĕrˌē [key], a type of medieval book that was widely popular, particularly from the 12th to 14th cent. The bestiary presumed to describe the animals of the world and to show what ...

Carmichael, Hoagy

(Encyclopedia)Carmichael, Hoagy hōˈgē [key] (Hoagland Howard Carmichael), 1899–1981, American songwriter, pianist, and singer, b. Bloomington, Ind. While still a student at Indiana Univ. he was influenced by a...

Kelly, Hugh

(Encyclopedia)Kelly, Hugh, 1739–77, English dramatist, b. Killarney. His first and best-known play, the sentimental comedy False Delicacy, was produced by Garrick in 1768 and was extremely popular in its time. ...

Warren, Samuel

(Encyclopedia)Warren, Samuel, 1807–77, English lawyer and author. He wrote many legal texts, Passages from the Diary of a Late Physician (1832), and the extremely popular novel Ten Thousand a Year (1841). ...

blue-green algae

(Encyclopedia)blue-green algae, popular name for those microorganisms that are now more properly called cyanobacteria. ...

Adam, in genetics

(Encyclopedia)Adam, in genetics, popular term for a theoretical male ancestor of all living people; see Eve, in genetics. ...

Compromise of 1850

(Encyclopedia)Compromise of 1850. The annexation of Texas to the United States and the gain of new territory by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo at the close of the Mexican War (1848) aggravated the hostility betwee...

Kuomintang

(Encyclopedia)Kuomintang gwōˈmĭnˈdängˈ, kwōˈmĭntăngˈ [key] [Chin.,=national people's party] (KMT), Chinese and Taiwanese political party. Sung Chiao-jen organized the party in 1912, under the nominal lea...