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  • 111Australia — /aw strayl yeuh/, n. 1. a continent SE of Asia, between the Indian and the Pacific oceans. 18,438,824; 2,948,366 sq. mi. (7,636,270 sq. km). 2. Commonwealth of, a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, consisting of the federated states and… …

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  • 112Byzantine Empire — the Eastern Roman Empire after the fall of the Western Empire in A.D. 476. Cap.: Constantinople. * * * Empire, southeastern and southern Europe and western Asia. It began as the city of Byzantium, which had grown from an ancient Greek colony… …

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  • 113Islam — Islamic /is lam ik, lah mik, iz /, Islamitic /is leuh mit ik, iz /, adj. /is lahm , iz , is leuhm, iz /, n. 1. the religious faith of Muslims, based on the words and religious system founded by the prophet Muhammad and taught by the Koran, the… …

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  • 114Judaism — /jooh dee iz euhm, day , deuh /, n. 1. the monotheistic religion of the Jews, having its ethical, ceremonial, and legal foundation in the precepts of the Old Testament and in the teachings and commentaries of the rabbis as found chiefly in the… …

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  • 115Romance languages — romance1 (def. 8). [1770 80] * * * Group of related languages derived from Latin, with nearly 920 million native speakers. The major Romance languages French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian are national languages. French is probably… …

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  • 116Spain — /spayn/, n. a kingdom in SW Europe. Including the Balearic and Canary islands, 39,244,195; 194,988 sq. mi. (505,019 sq. km). Cap.: Madrid. Spanish, España. * * * Spain Introduction Spain Background: Spain s powerful world empire of the 16th and… …

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  • 117tennis — /ten is/, n. a game played on a rectangular court by two players or two pairs of players equipped with rackets, in which a ball is driven back and forth over a low net that divides the court in half. Cf. lawn tennis. See illus. under racket2.… …

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  • 118Military Affairs — ▪ 2009 Introduction        Russia and Georgia fought a short, intense war in 2008, fueling global fears of a new Cold War. On August 7 Georgia launched an aerial bombardment and ground attacks against its breakaway province of South Ossetia.… …

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  • 119agriculture, origins of — Introduction  the active production of useful plants or animals in ecosystems that have been created by people. Agriculture has often been conceptualized narrowly, in terms of specific combinations of activities and organisms wet rice production… …

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  • 120MASORAH — This article is arranged according to the following outline: 1. THE TRANSMISSION OF THE BIBLE 1.1. THE SOFERIM 1.2. WRITTEN TRANSMISSION 1.2.1. Methods of Writing 1.2.1.1. THE ORDER OF THE BOOKS 1.2.1.2. SEDARIM AND PARASHIYYOT …

    Encyclopedia of Judaism