See J. T. Noonan, Jr., Learned Hand (1994).
Art of entertaining by giving the illusion of performing impossible feats. The conjurer is an actor who combines psychology, manual dexterity, and mechanical aids to effect the desired illusion. The form was established by the medieval era, when traveling conjurers performed at fairs and in the homes of the nobility. In the 19th–20th centuries, conjuring was performed on stage by magicians such as Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, Harry Houdini, and Harry Blackstone. In the late 20th century magicians such as Doug Henning and David Copperfield performed colourful spectacles on television, while the postmodern team Penn and Teller offered a quieter brand of magic that emphasized irony and illusion.
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Small explosive, chemical, or gas bomb used at short range. Invented in the 15th century, it became so important that 17th-century European armies had specially trained grenade throwers, or grenadiers. After circa 1750 grenades were largely abandoned because the increasing range and accuracy of firearms had lessened opportunities for close combat. They returned to widespread use in the 20th century, when their effectiveness in World War I trench warfare made them a standard part of the combat infantryman's equipment, which they have remained. Most common is the explosive grenade, with a core of TNT or another high explosive encased in an iron jacket and a fuse that detonates it either on impact or after a brief (usually four-second) delay. Chemical and gas grenades generally burn rather than explode.
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End part of the arm, consisting of the wrist joint, palm, thumb, and fingers. The hand has great mobility and flexibility to carry out precise movements. Bipedal locomotion in humans frees the hands for grasping and manipulation. The opposable thumb allows them to pick up small items and grip objects from both sides. Dexterity in the hands and increased brain size are believed to have evolved together in humans.
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(born Jan. 27, 1872, Albany, N.Y., U.S.—died Aug. 18, 1961, New York, N.Y.) U.S. jurist. He attended Harvard University, where he studied philosophy (under William James, Josiah Royce, and George Santayana) and law; thereafter he practiced law in Albany and New York City. In 1909 he was appointed a federal district judge, and in 1924 he was elevated to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, becoming chief judge in 1939. He sat in many cases after his official retirement in 1951. His 52-year tenure on the federal bench (from 1909 to his death in 1961) represents a record. Several of his decisions, especially in the antitrust suit known as the Alcoa case (1945) and in a 1950 case involving charges of communist conspiracy, are considered landmarks. Although he never reached the Supreme Court of the United States, his reputation surpasses that of all but a few who have sat there.
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Secret Serbian society formed in 1911 primarily by army officers, which used terrorist methods to promote the liberation of Serbs outside Serbia from Habsburg or Ottoman rule. It conducted propaganda campaigns, organized armed bands in Macedonia, and established revolutionary cells throughout Bosnia. Within Serbia it dominated the army and wielded tremendous influence over the government. It gained its greatest notoriety with the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand in 1914. After a trial in 1917, three leaders were executed and more than 200 were imprisoned. The name also referred to several extortion rackets run by immigrant Sicilian and Italian gangsters in the Italian communities of many large U.S. cities circa 1890–1920. Local merchants and wealthy individuals would receive threatening notes printed with black hands, daggers, or other menacing symbols that demanded money on pain of death or destruction of property. It declined with the beginning of Prohibition and large-scale bootlegging.
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The community was founded in 1734. The legend of the naming of Bird-in-Hand concerns the time when the Old Philadelphia Pike was surveyed between Lancaster and Philadelphia. According to legend two road surveyors discussed whether they should stay at their present location or go on to the town of Lancaster. One of them supposedly said, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," and so they stayed. By 1734, road surveyors were making McNabb’s hotel their headquarters rather than returning to Lancaster every day. The sign in front of the inn is known to have once "portrayed a man with a bird in his hand and a bush nearby, in which two birds were perched," and was known as the Bird-in-Hand Inn. Variations of this sign appear throughout the town today.
In 1834 construction began on the 86-mile Pennsylvania Railroad line between Philadelphia and Columbia. Bird-in-Hand, featuring tanneries, feed mills, coal and lumber yards, was the most important stop on the Lancaster to Coatesville section.
In 1836 the village post office was established as the Enterprise Post Office, as the village was then officially called, until the name officially changed to Bird-in-Hand in 1873.
The town remained relatively unknown until a musical called Plain and Fancy opened in New York in 1955. The play was set in the village of Bird-in-Hand and is often credited as a catalyst for the boom in Pennsylvania Dutch Country tourism in the mid-twentieth century. The Plain & Fancy Restaurant opened in 1960, and is the oldest "family-style restaurant" in the area.
In 1968 the Smucker family opened a small 30-room motel called the Bird-in-Hand Motor Inn, with an adjacent coffee shop, in hopes of capitalizing on the growing tourist trade in the area. The coffee shop was turned into a larger 145 seat restaurant in 1970 and renamed the Bird-in-Hand Family Restaurant. A larger, additional building with an indoor swimming pool was built in the early 1980s and the motel changed its name to the Bird-in-Hand Family Inn. In the 1990s a buffet was added to the restaurant. In 2005 the restaurant was expanded further and a larger buffet was added and the name was changed to the Bird-in-Hand Family Restaurant and Smorgasbord.
In 1976 the Bird-in-Hand Farmers Market opened adjacent to the Bird-in-Hand Motor Inn.