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Resolution Trust Corporation

(Encyclopedia)Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC), in U.S. history, government-owned company formed in 1989 to liquidate the assets of insolvent savings and loan associations (S&Ls). Essentially a huge property-...

Richards, I. A.

(Encyclopedia)Richards, I. A. (Ivor Armstrong Richards), 1893–1979, English literary critic. Richards was one of the founders of the school of interpretation known as the New Criticism, which stressed an awarenes...

Peebles, Phillip James Edwin

(Encyclopedia)Peebles, Phillip James Edwin, 1935–, Canadian-American astrophysicist and cosmologist, b. Winnipeg, Man., Ph.D. Princeton, 1962. He spent his entire career as a researcher at Princeton, becoming a f...

personal watercraft

(Encyclopedia)personal watercraft (PWC), a lightweight vessel usually less than 16 ft (5 m) long that uses an inboard water jet pump, powered by an internal-combustion engine, as its primary source of propulsion. T...

tapeworm

(Encyclopedia)tapeworm, name for the parasitic flatworms forming the class Cestoda. All tapeworms spend the adult phase of their lives as parasites in the gut of a vertebrate animal (called the primary host). Most ...

Faulkner, William

(Encyclopedia)Faulkner, William, 1897–1962, American novelist, b. New Albany, Miss., one of the great American writers of the 20th cent. Born into an old Southern family named Falkner, he changed the spelling of ...

Gregoras, Nicephorus

(Encyclopedia)Gregoras, Nicephorus nīsĕfˈərəs grĕgˈərəs [key], c.1295–c.1359, Byzantine historian and theologian, one of the most learned men of his time. Among his scientific and philosophical works is ...

nursery school

(Encyclopedia)nursery school, educational institution for children from two to four years of age. It is distinguishable from a day nursery in that it serves children of both working and nonworking parents, rarely r...

Kefauver, Carey Estes

(Encyclopedia)Kefauver, Carey Estes kēfôvər [key], 1903–63, U.S. Senator from Tennessee (1949–63), b. Madisonville, Tenn., known as Estes Kefauver. He became a Chattanooga lawyer and in 1938 was elected to t...

Kenny, Enda

(Encyclopedia)Kenny, Enda ĕnˈdä [key], 1951–, Irish politician. After teaching primary school, he was elected to the Irish parliament in 1975, winning his late father's seat and becoming the body's youngest me...

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