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Beria
Soviet politician and director of the Soviet secret police. He worked in intelligence and counterintelligence activities from 1921. As Communist Party head of the Transcaucasian republics (1932-38), he personally oversaw the political purges initiated by J. Stalin (see Purge Trials). He was head of the Soviet secret police 1938-53, and after Stalin's death he became one of four deputy prime ministers and the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. After attempting to succeed Stalin as sole dictator, he was arrested and executed.


Neri
Roman Catholic mystic. Born in Florence, he went to Rome to pursue religious studies in 1533. In 1548 he cofounded a society of laymen dedicated to the care of pilgrims, the poor, and the sick. After his ordination in 1551 he moved to the community of San Girolamo della Caritg in Rome. From 1564 to 1575 he was rector of the church of San Giovanni, and in 1575 Gregory XIII granted him Santa Maria in Vallicella, where he established his Congregation of the Oratory, a group of priests and clerics engaged in devotion and charitable activities. One of the outstanding mystics of the Counter-Reformation, he was noted for his eloquence as a preacher.


Aesir
In Germanic religion, one of the two main groups of deities, the other being the Vanir. Odin, his wife Frigg, Tyr (the god of war), and Thor were the four Aesir common to the Germanic nations. Balder and Loki were considered Aesir by other peoples. The Aesir were a warlike race and were originally dominant over the Vanir, but after numerous defeats in battle they were forced to grant the Vanir equal status. The poet-god Kvasir was born out of the peace ritual in which the two races mingled their saliva in the same vessel.


Africa
Second-largest continent on earth. It is bounded by the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean; it is divided almost equally by the equator. Area: 11,724,300 sq mi (30,365,700 sq km). Population (1994 est.): 683,000,000. Africa is composed largely of a rigid platform of ancient rocks that underlies vast plateau regions in the interior. Its average elevation is about 2,200 ft (670 m), but elevations range from 19,340 ft (5,895 m) at Mt. Kilimanjaro to 515 ft (157 m) below sea level at Lake Assal. The Sahara, the world's largest contiguous desert, occupies more than one-fourth of the total land area. The continent's hydrology is dominated by the Nile River in the north and the Congo in central Africa. Only about 6% of the continent is arable, while nearly one-fourth is forested or wooded. The peoples of Africa probably speak more languages than those of any other continent. Arabic is predominant from Egypt to Mauritania and in the Sudan. The sub-Sahara is inhabited by peoples speaking a number of languages known collectively as Bantu, while a smaller number use languages from the Khoisan language family of SW Africa. Peoples of ...

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