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ape

(Encyclopedia)ape, any primate of the superfamily Hominoidea, which includes humans; this article, however, focuses on the nonhuman apes. The small apes, the gibbons and the siamang, and the orangutans, which belon...

Fowler, William Alfred

(Encyclopedia)Fowler, William Alfred, 1911–95, American nuclear astrophysicist, b. Pittsburgh. While a professor at the California Institute of Technology, Fowler studied how chemical elements are formed in nucle...

hornpipe

(Encyclopedia)hornpipe, English folk dance known since the 16th cent., when it obtained its name from the wind instrument that accompanied it. The hornpipes of the 17th and 18th cent. have moderate 3–2 time and 4...

early man

(Encyclopedia)early man: see human evolution.

Rhinebeck

(Encyclopedia)Rhinebeck, village (1990 pop. 2,725), Dutchess co., SE N.Y., in the foothills of the Berkshire Mts. near the Hudson River; settled before 1700, inc. 1834. It is the site of Beekman Arms, said to be th...

Iran-contra affair

(Encyclopedia)Iran-contra affair, in U.S. history, secret arrangement in the 1980s to provide funds to the Nicaraguan contra rebels from profits gained by selling arms to Iran. The Iran-contra affair was the produc...

Massachusetts Bay

(Encyclopedia)Massachusetts Bay, inlet of the Atlantic Ocean. The bay, with its arms (Boston, Cape Cod, and Plymouth bays), extends 65 mi (105 km) from Cape Ann on the north to Cape Cod on the south. Its coastline ...

détente

(Encyclopedia)détente, relaxation of tensions between nations, applied particularly to a period of improved relations between the United States and Soviet Union in the 1960s and 70s that resulted as the hostilitie...

disarmament, nuclear

(Encyclopedia)disarmament, nuclear, the reduction and limitation of the various nuclear weapons in the military forces of the world's nations. The atomic bombs dropped (1945) on Japan by the United States in World ...
 

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