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Martineau, James

(Encyclopedia)Martineau, James, 1805–1900, English philosopher and Unitarian clergyman; brother of Harriet Martineau. He strongly upheld the theist position against the negations of physical science. A renowned t...

mass extinction

(Encyclopedia)mass extinction, the extinction of a large percentage of the earth's species, opening ecological niches for other species to fill. There have been at least ten such events. The five greatest were thos...

Palermo stone

(Encyclopedia)Palermo stone, ancient Egyptian stone of black diorite engraved toward the end of the 5th dynasty (2565–2420 b.c.) and containing the earliest extant annals. The stone is only a small fragment of wh...

Yen Li-pen

(Encyclopedia)Yen Li-pen yŭn lē-bŭn [key], d. 673, Chinese painter, foremost master of the T'ang dynasty. He became the most celebrated court painter of the 7th cent. and held several high public offices. Althou...

multiple personality

(Encyclopedia)multiple personality, a very rare psychological disorder in which a person has two or more distinct personalities, each with its own thoughts, feelings, and patterns of behavior. The personalities oft...

Cartier-Bresson, Henri

(Encyclopedia)Cartier-Bresson, Henri äNrēˈ kärtēāˈ-brĕsôNˈ [key], 1908–2004, French photojournalist, b. Chanteloup, near Paris. Cartier-Bresson is renowned for his countless memorable images of 20th-cen...

Timaeus , Greek historian

(Encyclopedia)Timaeus tīmēˈəs [key], c.356–c.260 b.c., Greek historian of Tauromenium (now Taormina), Sicily. Son of the tyrant of the city, he was banished by Agathocles either in 317 or 312 b.c. and lived f...

parallelogram

(Encyclopedia)parallelogram, closed plane figure bounded by four line segments, or sides, with opposite pairs of sides parallel and equal in length. The rhombus, rectangle, and square are special types of parallelo...

snakebite

(Encyclopedia)snakebite, wound inflicted by the teeth of a snake. The bite of a nonvenomous snake is rarely serious. Venomous snakes have fangs, hollow teeth through which poison is injected into a victim. All type...

Trudeau, Garry Beekman

(Encyclopedia)Trudeau, Garry Beekman tro͞oˈdō [key], 1948–, American political cartoonist, b. New York City. Since its debut in 1969, his comic strip “Doonesbury” has satirized contemporary events, persona...