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Haida

(Encyclopedia)Haida hīˈdə [key], Native North Americans living primarily on the Queen Charlotte Islands, off British Columbia, and on the southern end of the Prince of Wales Island, off Alaska. They speak the Ha...

Sayles, John

(Encyclopedia)Sayles, John (John Thomas Sayles), 1950–, one of America's most influential independent filmmakers as well as a screenwriter, fiction writer, playwright, and actor, b. Schenectady, N.Y., grad. Willi...

citrus fruits

(Encyclopedia)citrus fruits, widely used edible fruits of plants belonging to Citrus and related genera of the family Rutaceae (orange family). Included are the tangerine, citrange, tangelo, orange, pomelo, grapefr...

cosmetics

(Encyclopedia)cosmetics, preparations externally applied to change or enhance the beauty of skin, hair, nails, lips, and eyes. The use of body paint for ornamental and religious purposes has been common among primi...

commercial revolution

(Encyclopedia)commercial revolution, in European history, a fundamental change in the quantity and scope of commerce. In the later Middle Ages steady economic expansion had seen the rise of towns and the advent of ...

miniature painting

(Encyclopedia)miniature painting [Ital.,=artwork, especially manuscript initial letters, done with the red lead pigment minium; the word originally had no implication as to size]. In a general sense the term denote...

hajj

(Encyclopedia)hajj häj [key], the pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, one of the five basic requirements (arkan or “pillars”) of Islam. Its annual observance corresponds to the major holy day id al-adha, itself...

caravan

(Encyclopedia)caravan, group of travelers or merchants banded together and organized for mutual assistance and defense while traveling through unsettled or hostile country. Caravan trade is associated with the hist...

warship

(Encyclopedia)warship, any ship built or armed for naval combat. The forerunners of the modern warship were the men-of-war of the 18th and early 19th cent., such as the ship of the line, frigate, corvette, sloop of...

Protista

(Encyclopedia)Protista prōˌtŏktĭsˈtə [key], in the five-kingdom system of classification, a kingdom comprising a variety of unicellular and some simple multinuclear and multicellular eukaryotic organisms. Pro...

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