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Fletcher v. Peck

(Encyclopedia)Fletcher v. Peck, case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1810, involving the Yazoo land fraud. The court ruled that an act of the Georgia legislature rescinding a land grant was unconstitutional be...

Wisconsin v. Yoder

(Encyclopedia)Wisconsin v. Yoder, case decided in 1972 by the U.S. Supreme Court, which held that Amish children could be exempted from compulsory school-attendance beyond the 8th grade; the Amish (see under Mennon...

Lear, Edward

(Encyclopedia)Lear, Edward, 1812–88, English humorist and artist. At 19 he was employed as a draftsman by the London Zoological Society; the paintings of parrots that he produced for The Family of the Psittacidae...

Legal Tender cases

(Encyclopedia)Legal Tender cases, lawsuits brought to the U.S. Supreme Court involving the constitutionality of the Legal Tender Act of 1862, which was passed to meet currency needs during the Civil War. The act ha...

sea urchin

(Encyclopedia)sea urchin, spherical-shaped echinoderm with movable spines covering the body. The body wall is a firm, globose shell, or test, made of fused skeletal plates and marked by regularly arranged tubercles...

Lamennais, Félicité Robert de

(Encyclopedia)Lamennais or La Mennais, Félicité Robert de fālēsētāˈ rōbĕrˈ də lämənāˈ [key], 1782–1854, French Roman Catholic apologist and liberal, b. Saint-Malo. He was largely self-educated by w...

Fuller, Margaret

(Encyclopedia)Fuller, Margaret, 1810–50, American writer, lecturer, and public intellectual, b. Cambridgeport (now part of Cambridge), Mass. She was one of the most influential personalities in the American liter...

Katz, Alex

(Encyclopedia)Katz, Alex, 1927–, American painter, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., studied Cooper Union, New York City (1946–49), Skowhegan School, Maine (1949–50). At a time when abstract expressionism captured most crit...

Tillman, Benjamin Ryan

(Encyclopedia)Tillman, Benjamin Ryan, 1847–1918, U.S. Senator from South Carolina (1895–1918), b. Edgefield co., S.C. A farmer, he became the leader of the backcountry whites in South Carolina and fostered thei...

Keats, John

(Encyclopedia)Keats, John, 1795–1821, English poet, b. London. He is considered one of the greatest of English poets. The son of a livery stable keeper, Keats attended school at Enfield, where he became the frien...
 

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