2,407 articles
Rarámuri
Rarámuri (Ralámuli, Tarahumara): indigenous people of the Sierra Tarahumara, Chihuahua, Mexico, about 120,000 strong, known for long-distance running, Jesuit-era cargo government, and recent land restitutions.
Rat control in Alberta
Rat control in Alberta: the provincial Rat Control Program, established 1950, keeps Alberta essentially free of Norway rats via a 600 by 29 km border control zone, mandatory pest law, and annual inspections.
Rationalist community
Rationalist community, also rationality community or rationalsphere: social movement formed around Overcoming Bias and LessWrong (Eliezer Yudkowsky, Robin Hanson) from 2006-2009, centered on Bayesian reasoning, cognitive bias, and AI risk, overlapping with effective altruism.
Redbone (ethnicity)
Redbone (ethnicity): label for mixed-ancestry tri-racial isolate communities of the Louisiana Neutral Strip and east Texas, also a pejorative for light-skinned Black people; distinct from the Redbone rock band and the coonhound breed.
Reddy (రెడ్డి)
Reddy (రెడ్డి), also spelled Reddi, is a Telugu-speaking dominant landowning caste of southern India, historically village headmen and medieval chiefs under the Kakatiyas; distinct from the tribal Reddis of the Eastern Ghats.
Redneck
Redneck: slang, usually derogatory, term for a poor rural white Southerner, from the sunburned necks of field laborers; first recorded 1830 (Presbyterians, Fayetteville NC); later a coalfield badge of class solidarity and a reclaimed identity.
Redskin
Redskin is an English slur for a Native American; originally a self-referential term (1769, via French peau-rouge), it became pejorative, drew trademark cancellations against Washington's NFL team, and was retired by the franchise in 2020.
Reform Club
The Reform Club is a private members' club at 104 Pall Mall, London, founded in 1836 by Radicals and Whigs after the Great Reform Act; Charles Barry built its 1841 Italian Renaissance clubhouse, and Jules Verne set Phileas Fogg's wager there.
Refugees in Uganda
Uganda hosts more refugees than any other African country, over 2 million by mid-2026, mainly South Sudanese and Congolese, governed through rural settlements with land allocations rather than camps.
Refusenik
Refusenik (отказник): a Soviet Jew denied an exit visa after applying to emigrate, mostly to Israel, from the late 1960s; organized dissident movement, Jackson-Vanik pressure, Shcharansky case, mass departures after 1987.
Reinaldo Herrera
Reinaldo Herrera Guevara (1933-2025), Venezuelan aristocrat, fifth Marqués de la Torre Casa, Vanity Fair special-projects editor, and husband of designer Carolina Herrera; secured interviews with Marcos, Arafat, Gaddafi, and Noriega and guarded the Best Dressed List.
Repatriation
Repatriation is the return of a person to their country of origin or nationality, most prominently of refugees and prisoners of war, whose right of return is protected under international law.
Rescue of Jessica McClure
Rescue of Jessica McClure ("Baby Jessica"), the October 1987 recovery of an 18-month-old girl trapped 22 feet deep in an 8-inch-wide abandoned well in Midland, Texas, for about 58 hours, freed via a parallel shaft on live television.
Reservation in India
Reservation in India, or the quota system for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, OBCs, and EWS, sets aside legislative seats, government posts, and educational places, capped at 50 percent for caste quotas under Indra Sawhney with a separate 10 percent EWS quota.
Reservation policy in Tamil Nadu
Reservation policy in Tamil Nadu is a system of caste-based quotas in education and public services, reserving 69 percent of seats and posts for specific communities since 1990.
Resettlement and villagization in Ethiopia
Resettlement and villagization were related programs of state-directed population relocation in Ethiopia, implemented most extensively under the Marxist Derg military government from 1974 to 1991.
Resettlement of Thracian refugees in Bulgaria
The resettlement of Thracian refugees in Bulgaria was the settlement of Bulgarian refugees from Thrace, mainly after the 1913 Ottoman expulsions and the 1920 cession to Greece.
Retirement home
Retirement home, also called senior living or old age home, is residential housing for older adults with services from independent living through assisted living to nursing care; shaped by the 1935 Social Security Act, 1965 Medicare/Medicaid, and 1987 reform law.
Richard Fuisz
Richard C. Fuisz, American physician-inventor, founder of Fuisz Pharma LLC with son Joseph Fuisz; known for oral drug delivery patents (shearform tablet, thin film protecting Suboxone) and the 2011 Theranos patent litigation.
Richard Oakes (activist)
Richard Oakes (1942–1972), Akwesasne Mohawk activist and Red Power leader, organized the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz Island, led Fort Lawton and Pit River campaigns, and was killed in 1972.
Richard Proenneke
Richard (Dick) Proenneke, American naturalist and craftsman (1916-2003), built a spruce-log cabin by hand at Upper Twin Lake in Lake Clark National Park, Alaska, and lived there about 30 years, documenting his life in 255 journals and 16 mm film.
Robert Swan
Robert Swan OBE, British polar explorer, first person to walk to both the South Pole (1986) and North Pole (1989); founder of the 2041 Foundation for Antarctic preservation.
Roberta McCain
Roberta Wright McCain (1912–2020), Oklahoma-born oil heiress, Washington socialite, and Navy wife, mother of Senator John McCain; eloped in 1933, campaigned at 95/96 in 2008, died at 108.
Robin Cavendish
Robin Cavendish (1930-1994), British polio survivor and disability advocate, respirator-dependent from 1958, co-developed the first wheelchair-mounted ventilator with Teddy Hall, founded Netley Waterside House, received an MBE, and is the subject of the 2017 film Breathe.
Rod Ansell
Rod Ansell (Rodney William Ansell, 1954–1999) was an Australian bushman and buffalo hunter in the Northern Territory whose 1977 outback survival ordeal inspired the film Crocodile Dundee.
Rohingya people
The Rohingya are a stateless Muslim minority from Rakhine State, Myanmar, denationalized by the 1982 Citizenship Law; over 700,000 fled in 2017, and around 1.2 million now live in Bangladesh camps while The Gambia's ICJ genocide case proceeds.
Roko Camaj
Roko Camaj (1941–2001), Albanian immigrant from Montenegro, WTC window washer for ABM Industries from 1973; hand-washed the South Tower's wide 107th-floor panes at 1,300 feet; died trapped on the 105th floor on 9/11, called the patron saint of window washers.
Romanda Hombir
Romanda Hombir, South African clinical audiologist from Mpumalanga, Miss World South Africa 2026; finished Top 6 at Miss World 2026 in Vietnam and was crowned Miss World Africa 2026, South Africa's best placement since 2014 or 2017.
Romani Americans
Romani Americans, also called American Roma or American Gypsies, are US residents of Romani descent from groups such as the Vlax Kalderasha, Machwaya, and Romanichal; present since 1498, numbering roughly one million by Hancock's estimate, largely invisible to the census.
Romani people
Romani people: an ethnic minority of Indian origin, largest in Europe (up to 10 million), speaking Romani, with subgroups Roma, Sinti, Kale; history of slavery, Nazi genocide, and ongoing antigypsyism.