1664 résultats pour "others"
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Millard Fillmore.
B Vice President of the United States During the first half of 1850, Fillmore as vice president presided over the United States Senate (the upper chamber of Congress) as angry debates raged betweenNorthern and Southern sectionalists over the status of slavery in the recently acquired lands. His fairness and sense of humor in the chair were not enough to restorepeace among the contending senators. The antislavery faction, led by Senator Seward (the former governor of New York) and Senator Salmon...
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Millard Fillmore
B Vice President of the United States During the first half of 1850, Fillmore as vice president presided over the United States Senate (the upper chamber of Congress) as angry debates raged betweenNorthern and Southern sectionalists over the status of slavery in the recently acquired lands. His fairness and sense of humor in the chair were not enough to restorepeace among the contending senators. The antislavery faction, led by Senator Seward (the former governor of New York) and Senator Salmon...
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Somalia - country.
A Agriculture Livestock raising is the principal occupation in Somalia. The size of livestock herds began to recover in the mid-1990s after falling during the country’s civil war. Sheepand goats are the most numerous livestock, with smaller numbers of cattle. The principal crops grown are corn, sorghum, sugarcane, cassava, and bananas. B Forestry and Fishing While most wood is cut for fuel, Somalia’s major forestry export products before the 1990s were frankincense and myrrh. Fish is an import...
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Health Care System in Canada.
With a few exceptions, provincial health plans cover all medically necessary services, so that patients need not pay directly for anything except so-called incidental costs.These incidental costs include items such as a patient’s private hospital room, unless it is specified by a physician, and transportation to the hospital. Provincial healthplans also do not cover some nonessential procedures, such as laser surgery for the eye, cosmetic surgery, procedures to reverse sterilization, and, in mos...
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Ballet
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INTRODUCTION
Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker
The Nutcracker is a classic ballet with music by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
Joffrey Ballet SchoolTraining for classical ballet dancers must begin when the students are very young. Here, teacher Dorothy Lister workswith her pre-ballet class of six-year-olds at the Joffrey Ballet School. These students are learning the five basic positions ofclassical ballet.Susan Kunklin/Photo Researchers, Inc. Different systems of ballet training have evolved, named after countries (Russia, France) or teachers (Italian dancer Enrico Cecchetti, Danish choreographer AugustBournonville). T...
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Québec (city) - Geography.
rotates between the mayors of small, medium, and core municipalities. The QUC is responsible for zoning, regional development, property valuation, waste disposal, andtourism promotion. City planning and public transit are handled in collaboration with the municipalities. Other municipal functions such as public works, libraries, water,parks, fire and police services, street repair, and traffic control are left to the municipalities. VII CONTEMPORARY ISSUES In recent years the St. Lawrence Rive...
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Easter.
Many Easter traditions originated long before the beginning of the Christian era. Like Christmas, which is related to pre-Christian winter festivals, Easter is connected inmany ways with early pagan rituals that accompanied the arrival of spring. Easter is also associated with the Jewish festival of Passover. A Easter Eggs The Easter egg is associated with beliefs of particularly ancient origin. The egg was an important symbol in the mythologies of many early civilizations, including those ofIn...
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New York (city) - geography.
Concourse are particularly prized, because the apartment buildings are well kept and the public parks are easily accessible. City Island retains the charm of a small fishingvillage. Parts of the Bronx, however, fell victim to decay and abandonment, especially between 1970 and 1980, when the population of the borough fell by 20 percent. The low pointoccurred in 1976, when future U.S. president Jimmy Carter compared the South Bronx to the bombed-out German city of Dresden after World War II (1939-...
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Radio Astronomy - astronomy.
equivalent to the apparent angular dimensions of a basketball at the distance of the moon. In 1984, the U.S. government appropriated funds for the construction of aninstallation called the very long baseline array (VLBA), a network of 10 radio antennas spread from the U.S.-Canadian border to Puerto Rico and from Hawaii to the U.S.Atlantic coast. The VLBA is expected to provide angular resolutions in the range of 200-millionths of an arc second. Canada and Australia are both planning similarprogr...
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Buenos Aires (city) - geography.
The city has produced or nurtured many of the most prominent Spanish-language writers of the 20th century, including Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, and ManuelPuig. Buenos Aires has long been one of the primary centers of Spanish-language publishing and printing, and it is home to major publishing companies. It supports theoldest English-language daily newspaper in Latin America, the Buenos Aires Herald, published since 1876. The arts have a long, rich history in Buenos Aires. This is mani...
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Nervous System.
of paralysis and other neurologic complications. Some diseases exhibit peculiar geographic and age distribution. In temperate zones, multiple sclerosis is a commondegenerative disease of the nervous system, but it is rare in the Tropics. The nervous system is subject to infection by a great variety of bacteria, parasites, and viruses. For example, meningitis, or infection of the meninges investing thebrain and spinal cord, can be caused by many different agents. On the other hand, one specific v...
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Whales.
whales travel to cool waters near the Arctic or Antarctica every summer. They feed on krill , small animals that look like shrimp. In the winter, baleen whales head for warmer waters near the equator tobreed. Other whales do not migrate. Narwhals, for instance, live year-round in the cool waters of the Arctic andNorth Atlantic oceans. HAVING BABY WHALES After male and female whales mate, it takes from 10 to 16 months for a baby whale to form. The lengthof time depends on the whale species. A wh...
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Native American Art
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INTRODUCTION
Native American Art, the visual works crafted by indigenous people of North America, starting after their arrival on the continent thousands of years ago and continuing
until the present.
artists in the Ohio area cut delicate flat forms from sheets of mica in the shape of birds, human figures, and large hands. They also carved quite natural-looking birdsand animals on stone platform pipes. These figures sat on the pipe’s flat base, or platform, and on some pipes they were part of the pipe bowl. Prominent people ofthese cultures were buried with a wealth of ornaments, such as jewelry of shells and copper, and headdresses elaborated with animal forms. The period of Mississippian cu...
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Executive Branch.
Popular pressure for increased regulation of businesses increased in the early 20th century. This pressure led to laws such as the Pure Food and Drug Acts, and the1906 Meat Inspection Act. Pressure for reform also led to creation of the Federal Trade Commission in 1914 to prevent unfair business practices. Worldwide depressionin the 1930s brought new demands that government take a more activist role in regulating businesses, protecting workers, and ensuring national economic stability. Aspart of...
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Giraffe - biology.
One of the most striking elements of giraffe behavior is the duel between males fighting for mating privileges. Giraffe duels are among the most extraordinary in theanimal kingdom. They start when two males approach each other and begin to rub and intertwine their necks. This behavior—known as necking—allows the opponentsto assess each other’s size and strength. Often, necking alone is enough to establish seniority. If not, the rivals begin to exchange blows with their heads. Each giraffebraces...
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Quark
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INTRODUCTION
Quark, smallest known building block of matter.
Constituents of MatterMatter is composed of tiny particles called quarks. Quarks come in six varieties: up (u), down (d), charm (c), strange (s),top (t), and bottom (b). Quarks also have antimatter counterparts called antiquarks (designated by a line over the lettersymbol). Quarks combine to form larger particles called baryons, and quarks and antiquarks combine to form mesons.Protons and neutrons, particles that form the nuclei of atoms, are examples of baryons. Positive and negative kaons aree...
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Consciousness
view faces several serious objections. Rival views of introspective consciousness fall into three categories, according to whether they treat introspective access (1) as epistemically looser or less direct than inner perception, (2) as tighter or more direct, or (3) as fundamentally non-epistemic or nonrepresentational. Theories in category (1) explain introspection as always retrospective, or as typically based on self-directed theoretical inferences. Rivals from category (2) maintain that an i...
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Poverty.
economic and demographic trends, and (7) welfare incentives. A Overpopulation Overpopulation, the situation of having large numbers of people with too few resources and too little space, is closely associated with poverty. It can result from highpopulation density (the ratio of people to land area, usually expressed as numbers of persons per square kilometer or square mile) or from low amounts of resources, or from both. Excessively high population densities put stress on available resources....
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Learning.
B1 Acquisition The acquisition phase is the initial learning of the conditioned response—for example, the dog learning to salivate at the sound of the bell. Several factors can affect the speed of conditioning during the acquisition phase. The most important factors are the order and timing of the stimuli. Conditioning occurs most quickly when theconditioned stimulus (the bell) precedes the unconditioned stimulus (the food) by about half a second. Conditioning takes longer and the response is...
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Eukaryote - biology.
The waste is then expelled through a hole in the fused membrane. In complex animals, cells generate wastes such as urea when nutrients are broken down within cells.These wastes are transported by blood to the kidneys. The kidneys process the waste and produce urine, which is removed from the body through the bladder.Undigested food travels through the tubelike intestines and is eliminated through the digestive system. V EVOLUTIONARY ORIGINS Eukaryotes evolved much later than prokaryotes, whose...
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Music
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INTRODUCTION
World Music Tour
Click on the instruments to hear music from around the world.
Duke EllingtonAmerican composer, bandleader, and pianist Duke Ellington endures as perhaps the most important pioneer in big-bandjazz. Ellington and his orchestra shared a special interdependent relationship: Using the band as his musical workshop,Ellington derived his orchestra’s tone coloring from the unique sound qualities of the group’s individual players. Thisparticular style was later dubbed the “Ellington Effect” by jazz arranger Billy Strayhorn, who also wrote one of the band’ssignature...
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Japanese Music
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INTRODUCTION
Shamisen Performance
The shamisen is a Japanese instrument with three strings.
utilizes six modes, or scales, of Chinese origin, all derived from two basic pentatonic (five-note) scales: ryo, D E-flat G A B-flat, plus F and C as auxiliary pitches; and ritsu, D F G A C, plus auxiliary pitches E-flat and B-flat. The meters in gagaku music are basically duple (in twos). IV DRAMATIC MUSIC Classical Nō Drama of JapanInspired both spiritually and artistically by Zen Buddhism, the Japanese n ō theater is composed of four main components:music (voices, instruments), choreogra...
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Vitamin.
Vitamin B 1, or thiamine, promotes the metabolism of carbohydrates, enabling these nutrients to release their energy. Thiamine also plays a role in the functioning of the nervous system, muscles, and heart. The body does not store thiamine and people who are malnourished may develop thiamine deficiency. Mild thiamine deficiency cancause fatigue, muscle weakness, and loss of appetite. Severe thiamine deficiency causes beriberi, a disease characterized by muscle weakness, swelling of the heart,and...
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Connecticut - geography.
The state’s shoreline, when all the bays and inlets are taken into account, has a total length of 995 km (618 mi). The coastline is deeply indented by long estuaries androcky inlets, and there are many sandy beaches and stretches of tidal marsh. There are several good harbors along the coast, the most important of which is at NewHaven. A few small islands lie offshore in Long Island Sound. D Climate Connecticut has long, hot summers and cold winters. The climate does not vary greatly from place...
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Connecticut - USA History.
The state’s shoreline, when all the bays and inlets are taken into account, has a total length of 995 km (618 mi). The coastline is deeply indented by long estuaries androcky inlets, and there are many sandy beaches and stretches of tidal marsh. There are several good harbors along the coast, the most important of which is at NewHaven. A few small islands lie offshore in Long Island Sound. D Climate Connecticut has long, hot summers and cold winters. The climate does not vary greatly from place...
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Network (computer science).
computer. Since there is only one token in the network, only one computer can transmit information at a time. Token Ring networks are now quite rare. Most LANs nowuse Ethernet technology. International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), the company that invented Token Ring in the early 1980s, no longer promotes thetechnology. In the mid-1990s a new protocol called Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) was introduced. This protocol encodes data in fixed-sized packets called cells rather thanvariable...
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Earth (planet).
Milky Way to complete one revolution around the Galaxy’s center. Earth’s axis of rotation is inclined (tilted) 23.5° relative to its plane of revolution around the Sun. This inclination of the axis creates the seasons and causes the height of the Sun in the sky at noon to increase and decrease as the seasons change. The Northern Hemisphere receives the most energy from the Sun when it is tiltedtoward the Sun. This orientation corresponds to summer in the Northern Hemisphere and winter in the S...
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Earth (planet) - astronomy.
Milky Way to complete one revolution around the Galaxy’s center. Earth’s axis of rotation is inclined (tilted) 23.5° relative to its plane of revolution around the Sun. This inclination of the axis creates the seasons and causes the height of the Sun in the sky at noon to increase and decrease as the seasons change. The Northern Hemisphere receives the most energy from the Sun when it is tiltedtoward the Sun. This orientation corresponds to summer in the Northern Hemisphere and winter in the S...
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Florida - USA History.
accidentally introduced into the region in the 1880s, and it spread with alarming rapidity throughout the upper reaches of the river. The plant is very difficult toeradicate, and it has also clogged the channels of other Florida rivers. To increase drainage of the Everglades, which drain naturally to Florida Bay and the Gulf ofMexico, a number of drainage channels and canals have been built across southern Florida. Among the rivers flowing from the peninsula to the Gulf of Mexico are the Suwanne...
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Comedy
Socrates suffered in the comedy of Aristophanes. Throughout history, opposition to comedy and laughter has been strongest in societies which emphasize physical restraint, decorum and conformity. Many medieval monastic orders had statutes forbidding laughter. The Puritan and Victorian eras saw many condemnations of comedy and laughter. The more authoritarian the regime, the greater its suppression of comedy. Hitler even set up ‘joke courts' to punish those who made fun of his regime - one Berl...
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Colorado - geography.
Although the rivers of Colorado are navigable only by small boats, they are important as a source of irrigation water for use in Colorado and adjoining states. However,the water level of the rivers fluctuates seasonally and from year to year. The level is generally low in winter and high in spring and summer, during the runoff of meltedsnow from the mountains. Colorado has no large lakes of natural origin, but there are numerous small lakes in the mountains. The largest bodies of water in Colora...
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Colorado - USA History.
Although the rivers of Colorado are navigable only by small boats, they are important as a source of irrigation water for use in Colorado and adjoining states. However,the water level of the rivers fluctuates seasonally and from year to year. The level is generally low in winter and high in spring and summer, during the runoff of meltedsnow from the mountains. Colorado has no large lakes of natural origin, but there are numerous small lakes in the mountains. The largest bodies of water in Colora...
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Colonialism and Colonies.
by plundering the riches of existing civilizations in the Americas and by seizing the area’s mineral wealth through mining. These practices were promoted by the policy of mercantilism that many European colonial powers adopted. Those who advocated mercantilism believed that exports toforeign countries were preferable both to trade within a country and to imports because exports brought more money into the country. They also believed that thewealth of a nation depended primarily on the possession...
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Colonialism and Colonies .
by plundering the riches of existing civilizations in the Americas and by seizing the area’s mineral wealth through mining. These practices were promoted by the policy of mercantilism that many European colonial powers adopted. Those who advocated mercantilism believed that exports toforeign countries were preferable both to trade within a country and to imports because exports brought more money into the country. They also believed that thewealth of a nation depended primarily on the possession...
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Native American Religions.
In the worldview of most of the indigenous peoples of North America, there were also spiritual beings to be avoided. Native Americans of the Southwest in particular,such as the Navajo and Apache, dreaded contact with ghosts, who were believed to resent the living. These peoples disposed of the bodies of deceased relativesimmediately and attempted to distance themselves from the spirits of the dead, avoiding their burial sites, never mentioning their names, and even abandoning thedwellings in whi...
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Interstellar Matter - astronomy.
silhouette of a cloud of dust. At other times, it blocks only a percentage of the light from behind it, a process known by astronomers as extinction . The long, narrow dark lanes in the Milky Way as seen from Earth are examples of extinction. The amount of extinction is different for different wavelengths of light. A2 Reddening Starlight that does not get completely absorbed by interstellar dust can still be changed by the dust’s effects. As light passes through less dense patches of interstel...
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Globalization.
higher living standard for their people. The World Bank made loans to developing countries for dams and other electrical-generating plants, harbor facilities, and otherlarge projects. These projects were intended to lower costs for private businesses and to attract investors. Beginning in 1968 the World Bank focused on low-cost loansfor health, education, and other basic needs of the world’s poor. B International Monetary Fund The IMF makes loans so that countries can maintain the value of thei...
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Stock Exchange.
A Example of a Trade In an example of a trade, an investor wanting to buy 200 shares—also known as two round lots, of 100 shares each—of IBM stock will telephone or e-mail the order to abrokerage firm. This communication is normally made to an individual called a stockbroker. The investor might desire to buy the shares at the market, or current, price.On the other hand, the investor may choose to pay no more than a set amount per share. The brokerage firm then contacts one of its floor brokers...
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African Literature
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INTRODUCTION
African Literature, oral and written literature produced on the African continent.
that few scholars of African culture know any African languages, and few Africans know an African language other than their own. The best-known literatures in Africanlanguages include those in Yoruba and Hausa in West Africa; Sotho, Xhosa, and Zulu in southern Africa; and Amharic, Somali, and Swahili in East Africa. In West Africa, Yoruba writing emerged after Bishop Ajayi Crowther, a former slave, developed a script for the language and in 1900 published the first Yorubatranslation of the Bible...
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Religion.
By the end of the 19th century, scholars were making religion an object of systematic inquiry. Müller’s comparative approach was adopted in many European andJapanese universities, and as a result the common features of world religions (such as gods, prayer, priesthood, and creation myths) were the subjects of sustainedscholarly investigation. In addition, field anthropologists had begun to compile firsthand accounts of the religions of peoples who previously had been dismissed assavages. The stu...
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Alcoholism.
Although a consensus is growing among health professionals that alcohol dependence is a disease, society’s attitudes toward individuals with drinking problems remainambivalent and confused. Until the mid-20th century, the typical picture of the alcoholic was of someone without steady employment, unable to sustain familyrelationships and most likely in desperate financial straits. But this stereotype was largely dispelled when highly respected people publicly admitted their alcoholdependence and...
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California - geography.
The Basin and Range province is an arid area of mountain ranges, basins, and deserts. In California it is represented primarily by parts of the Great Basin and SonoranDesert sections. Within the Great Basin lies Death Valley, whose lowest elevation, 86 m (282 ft) below sea level, is the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere. TheSonoran Desert section is characterized by numerous flat plains separated by low but rugged ranges. It includes the extensive Mojave, or Mohave, Desert. Also in thisprov...
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California - USA History.
The Basin and Range province is an arid area of mountain ranges, basins, and deserts. In California it is represented primarily by parts of the Great Basin and SonoranDesert sections. Within the Great Basin lies Death Valley, whose lowest elevation, 86 m (282 ft) below sea level, is the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere. TheSonoran Desert section is characterized by numerous flat plains separated by low but rugged ranges. It includes the extensive Mojave, or Mohave, Desert. Also in thisprov...
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Ancient Egypt - history.
The Nile River runs through the ancient city of Thebes in eastern Egypt. For a time, beginning in 2040 bc, Thebes was the capital ofEgypt.Farrell Grehan/Photo Researchers, Inc. According to inscriptions and documents found by archaeologists, the Egyptians called their country Kemet, meaning “the Black Land,” a reference to the dark, fertile soil that remained after the Nile floodwaters had receded. They also used another term, Deshret, or “the Red Land,” a designation for the desert sands th...
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Respiratory System.
rapidly, or laughs while swallowing, the swallowing reflex may not work, and food or fluid can enter the larynx. Food, fluid, or other substances in the larynx initiate acough reflex as the body attempts to clear the larynx of the obstruction. If the cough reflex does not work, a person can choke, a life-threatening situation. TheHeimlich maneuver is a technique used to clear a blocked larynx ( see First Aid). A surgical procedure called a tracheotomy is used to bypass the larynx and get air to...
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American Literature: Poetry
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INTRODUCTION
Phyllis McGinley
American poet and author Phyllis McGinley composed light, witty verse, much of which deals with family life.
Taylor, a poet of great technical skill, wrote powerful meditative poems in which he tested himself morally and sought to identify and root out sinful tendencies. In“God's Determinations Touching His Elect” (written 1680?), one of Taylor’s most important works, he celebrates God's power in the triumph of good over evil in thehuman soul. All of Taylor’s poetry and much of Bradstreet’s served generally personal ends, and their audience often consisted of themselves and their family andclosest frie...
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Africa.
The highest elevations in Africa are found in the various ranges of East Africa. After Kilimanjaro, the next highest peaks are Mount Kenya (5,199 m/17,057 ft), north ofKilimanjaro in central Kenya; Margherita Peak (5,109 m/ 16,762 ft) in the Ruwenzori Range on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo(DRC); Ras Dashen (4,620 m/ 15,157 ft) in the Ethiopian Highlands of northern Ethiopia; Mount Meru (4,565 m/ 14,977 ft), close to Kilimanjaro in Tanzania; and MountElgon (4,...
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Law.
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INTRODUCTION
Law, body of official rules and regulations, generally found in
their rules are reviewable by the courts. U.S. constitutional law is the most extensive and pervasive of any country in the world. It is embodied in the Constitution and in the opinions of the U.S. Supreme Courtrendered over time. Through its power of judicial review, the Supreme Court may invalidate any legislation or other governmental actions that it finds to be in violationof the Constitution. Constitutional courts in some civil-law countries have similar powers. In the United Kingdom no equ...
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First Americans.
bones and artifacts helped 19th-century archaeologists establish the age of ancient human encampments in Europe. Yet, search as they might, American archaeologists found no comparable evidence of a Pleistocene-era human presence. But several sites revealed stone artifacts thatsome scholars believed looked similar to the ancient stone tools found in Europe. On the basis of this similarity, these experts claimed the American artifacts must be asold. By the 1890s, however, other scholars had challe...
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First Americans - Canadian History.
bones and artifacts helped 19th-century archaeologists establish the age of ancient human encampments in Europe. Yet, search as they might, American archaeologists found no comparable evidence of a Pleistocene-era human presence. But several sites revealed stone artifacts thatsome scholars believed looked similar to the ancient stone tools found in Europe. On the basis of this similarity, these experts claimed the American artifacts must be asold. By the 1890s, however, other scholars had challe...