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Walter, Thomas Ustick

(Encyclopedia)Walter, Thomas Ustick, 1804–87, American architect, b. Philadelphia. In 1819 he entered the office of William Strickland in Philadelphia as a student. In 1830 he began practice, the county prison (1...

Winchell, Walter

(Encyclopedia)Winchell, Walter, 1897–1972, journalist and broadcaster, b. New York City as Walter Winchel. He performed in vaudeville, and adopted a marquee's misspelling of his surname. After serving two years i...

Cavendish, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Cavendish, Thomas, 1560–92, English navigator. He commanded a ship in the flotilla under Sir Richard Grenville sent (1585) by Sir Walter Raleigh to establish the first colony in Virginia. In 1586, i...

Harriot, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Harriot, Thomas hârˈēət [key], 1560–1621, English mathematician and astronomer. He was tutor to Sir Walter Raleigh, who sent him in 1585 to Virginia as surveyor with Sir Richard Grenville. Retur...

Lippmann, Walter

(Encyclopedia)Lippmann, Walter, 1889–1974, American essayist and editor, b. New York City. He was associate editor of the New Republic in its early days (1914–17), but at the outbreak of World War I he left to ...

Map, Walter

(Encyclopedia)Map or Mapes, Walter, c.1140–c.1210, English author, b. Wales. A favorite of Henry II, he traveled with the king and became archdeacon of Oxford. The one work indubitably his, De nugis curialium [co...

Kohn, Walter

(Encyclopedia)Kohn, Walter, 1923–2016, American physicist, b. Vienna, Austria, Ph.D. Harvard, 1948. The son of Austrian Jews, he was transported to England in a rescue convoy after Nazi Germany absorbed (1938) Au...

Mosley, Walter

(Encyclopedia)Mosley, Walter, 1952–, African-American author, b. Los Angeles. He was a computer programmer until his first novel, the best-selling mystery Devil in a Blue Dress (1990; film, 1995), was published. ...

Heller, Walter

(Encyclopedia)Heller, Walter, 1915–87, American economist, b. Buffalo, N.Y., grad. Oberlin College (A.B., 1935), Univ. of Wisconsin (M.A. 1938, Ph.D. 1941). He worked for the U.S. Treasury before joining the Univ...

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