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State, United States Department of

(Encyclopedia)State, United States Department of, executive department of the federal government responsible, under the President's direction, for the making and execution of American foreign policy. Before and ...

War of 1812

(Encyclopedia)War of 1812, armed conflict between the United States and Great Britain, 1812–15. It followed a period of great stress between the two nations as a result of the treatment of neutral countries by bo...

Massachusetts Bay Company

(Encyclopedia)Massachusetts Bay Company, English chartered company that established the Massachusetts Bay colony in New England. Organized (1628) as the New England Company, it took over the Dorchester Company, whi...

Berkshire Hills

(Encyclopedia)Berkshire Hills bûrkˈshər, –shĭr [key], mountainous region of wooded hills with many small lakes and streams, W Mass. The Berkshires are a southern extension of the Green Mts., but the name is g...

Neptune, in astronomy

(Encyclopedia)Neptune, in astronomy, 8th planet from the sun at a mean distance of about 2.8 billion mi (4.5 billion km) with an orbit lying between those of Uranus and the dwarf planet Pluto; its period of revolut...

Franklin, Benjamin

(Encyclopedia)Franklin, Benjamin, 1706–90, American statesman, printer, scientist, and writer, b. Boston. The only American of the colonial period to earn a European reputation as a natural philosopher, he is bes...

Webster, Daniel

(Encyclopedia)Webster, Daniel, 1782–1852, American statesman, lawyer, and orator, b. Salisbury (now in Franklin), N.H. As a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts (1827–41), he became a leading political figure of t...

Hastings, cities, United States

(Encyclopedia)Hastings. 1 City (2020 pop. 3,013), seat of Barry co., SW Mich; inc. 1865. The town is situated on the Thornapple River and was developed on land ...

Durant, William James

(Encyclopedia)Durant, William James, 1885–1981, American historian and essayist, b. North Adams, Mass. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia in 1917 and published his doctoral dissertation, Philosophy and the Socia...

Thornton, Matthew

(Encyclopedia)Thornton, Matthew, 1714–1803, political leader in the American Revolution, signer of the Declaration of Independence, b. Ireland. Taken to America as a child, he studied medicine and in 1740 began p...
 

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