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Posse Comitatus Act

(Encyclopedia)Posse Comitatus Act, 1878, U.S. federal law that makes it a crime to use the military as a domestic police force in the United States under most circumstances. The law was designed to end the use of f...

navigable water

(Encyclopedia)navigable water, in the broadest sense, a stream or body of water that can be used for commercial transportation. When, as in the early common law, the term is restricted to waters affected by tides, ...

Prohibition party

(Encyclopedia)Prohibition party, in U.S. history, minor political party formed (1869) for the legislative prohibition of the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages. The temperance movement was...

American Indian Movement

(Encyclopedia)American Indian Movement (AIM), Native American civil-rights activist organization, founded in 1968 to encourage self-determination among Native Americans and to establish international re...

extraterritoriality

(Encyclopedia)extraterritoriality or exterritoriality, privilege of immunity from local law enforcement enjoyed by certain aliens. Although physically present upon the territory of a foreign nation, those aliens po...

vocational education

(Encyclopedia)vocational education, training designed to advance individuals' general proficiency, especially in relation to their present or future occupations. The term does not normally include training for the ...

Oromo

(Encyclopedia)Oromo gălˈə [key], traditionally pastoral tribes who live in W and S Ethiopia and N Kenya. They number more than 25 million. About half are Muslim, about a third Ethiopian Orthodox, and about a six...

settlement house

(Encyclopedia)settlement house, neighborhood welfare institution generally in an urban slum area, where trained workers endeavor to improve social conditions, particularly by providing community services and promot...

Norwich University

(Encyclopedia)Norwich University, at Northfield and Montpelier, Vt.; coeducational; founded 1819 as a private military college, opened 1820 at Norwich, Vt.; chartered under present name 1834, moved to Northfield 18...

Hecht, Selig

(Encyclopedia)Hecht, Selig, 1892–1947, American biophysicist, b. Glogow, Austria (now Poland). He moved to the United States in 1898 and was graduated from the College of the City of New York (B.S., 1913) and fro...
 

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