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credit, letter of

(Encyclopedia)credit, letter of, commercial instrument through which a bank or other financial institution instructs a correspondent institution to advance a specified sum of money to the bearer. The document is ca...

air traffic control

(Encyclopedia)air traffic control, the system by which airplanes are safely routed into and out of major airports. Air traffic control in the United States is centered in a number of regional control centers that r...

fetish

(Encyclopedia)fetish fĕtˈĭsh [key], inanimate object believed to possess some magical power. The fetish may be a natural thing, such as a stone, a feather, a shell, or the claw of an animal, or it may be artific...

Howe, Elias

(Encyclopedia)Howe, Elias, 1819–67, American inventor, b. Spencer, Mass. He was apprenticed in 1838 to an instrument maker and watchmaker in Boston at whose suggestion he turned his attention to devising a sewing...

Hooker, John Lee

(Encyclopedia)Hooker, John Lee, 1917–2001, American blues singer and guitarist, b. near Clarksdale, Miss. From a cotton-sharecropping family, he learned the blues from his stepfather and various visiting Delta bl...

Jodrell Bank Observatory

(Encyclopedia)Jodrell Bank Observatory jôdˈrəl [key], observatory for radio astronomy located at Jodrell Bank, Macclesfield, England. Founded in 1945 on the site of a botanical experiment station, it is administ...

Yerkes Observatory

(Encyclopedia)Yerkes Observatory, astronomical observatory located in Williams Bay, Wis., on the shore of Lake Geneva. It was founded in 1892 with funds provided by Charles T. Yerkes and its first director was Geor...

Abbey Theatre

(Encyclopedia)Abbey Theatre, Irish theatrical company devoted primarily to indigenous drama. W. B. Yeats was a leader in founding (1902) the Irish National Theatre Society with Lady Gregory, J. M. Synge, and A. E. ...

Bürgi, Joost

(Encyclopedia)Bürgi, Joost or Jost, 1552–1632, Swiss mathematician and instrument maker. As the official clockmaker (1579–92) to Duke Wilhelm IV of Hesse-Kassell, he developed the first clock with a minute han...

Binnig, Gerd

(Encyclopedia)Binnig, Gerd gĕrt bĭnˈĭkh [key], 1947–, German physicist, Ph.D. Univ. of Frankfurt, 1978. At the IBM Research Laboratory in Zürich, Binnig and fellow researcher Heinrich Rohrer built the first ...