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spoils system

(Encyclopedia)spoils system, in U.S. history, the practice of giving appointive offices to loyal members of the party in power. The name supposedly derived from a speech by Senator William Learned Marcy in which he...

Sydney, city, Australia

(Encyclopedia)Sydney, city (2016 pop. 208,374, Greater Sydney 2016 pop. 4,823,991), capital of New South Wales, SE Australia, surrounding Port Jackson inlet on the Pacific Ocean. Sydney is Australia's largest metro...

breakfast cereal

(Encyclopedia)breakfast cereal, a food made from grain, commonly eaten in the morning. The oldest type of cereal, known as porridge or gruel, requires cooking in water or milk. The modern breakfast cereals, however...

nullification

(Encyclopedia)nullification, in U.S. history, a doctrine expounded by the advocates of extreme states' rights. It held that states have the right to declare null and void any federal law that they deem unconstituti...

Baldwin, Simeon Eben

(Encyclopedia)Baldwin, Simeon Eben, 1840–1927, American jurist and politician, b. New Haven, Conn., grad. Yale, 1861. He taught at Yale from 1869 to 1919, serving as a professor of law after 1872. His teaching an...

Grey, Zane

(Encyclopedia)Grey, Zane, 1872–1939, American writer of Western stories, b. Zanesville, Ohio, as Pearl Zane Gray, grad. Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1896. His melodramatic tales of the West and Southwest are vivid in t...

Harrisonburg

(Encyclopedia)Harrisonburg, city (2020 pop. 51,814), seat of Rockingham co., NW Va., in the Shenandoah Valley; settled 1739, inc. 1916. It is a processing center in a...

Seven Days battles

(Encyclopedia)Seven Days battles, in the American Civil War, the week-long Confederate counter-offensive (June 26–July 2, 1862) near Richmond, Va., that ended the Peninsular campaign. After the battle of Fair Oak...

Reed, James Alexander

(Encyclopedia)Reed, James Alexander, 1861–1944, American political leader, b. near Mansfield, Ohio. He moved to Iowa and was admitted (1885) to the bar, practicing there and later in Missouri. He was (1898–1900...
 

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