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atomic weight

(Encyclopedia)atomic weight, mean (weighted average) of the masses of all the naturally occurring isotopes of a chemical element, as contrasted with atomic mass, which is the mass of any individual isotope. Althoug...

Knights of Columbus

(Encyclopedia)Knights of Columbus, American Roman Catholic society for men, founded (1882) at New Haven, Conn. (where its headquarters are still located), by Father Michael J. McGivney. Its mission is to encourage ...

Palmer, Daniel David

(Encyclopedia)Palmer, Daniel David, 1845–1913, American founder of chiropractic, b. near Toronto, Canada. He practiced and taught chiropractic, chiefly in Davenport, Iowa. His work was carried on and extended by ...

Bishop, Sir Henry Rowley

(Encyclopedia)Bishop, Sir Henry Rowley, 1786–1855, English operatic conductor, composer or arranger of 120 dramatic works. He is known today for a setting of Shakespeare's “Lo, here the gentle lark” and the m...

Lowell, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Lowell, Robert (Robert Traill Spence Lowell 4th), 1917–77, American poet and translator, widely considered the preeminent American poet of the mid-20th cent., b. Boston, grad. Kenyon College (B.A., ...

Johnson, Philip Cortelyou

(Encyclopedia)Johnson, Philip Cortelyou, 1906–2005, American architect, museum curator, and historian, b. Cleveland, grad. Harvard Univ. (B.A., 1927). One of the first Americans to study modern European architect...

Darrow, Clarence Seward

(Encyclopedia)Darrow, Clarence Seward, 1857–1938, American lawyer, b. Kinsman, Ohio. He first practiced law in Ashtabula, Ohio. In 1887 he moved to Chicago, where he was corporation counsel for several years and ...

Pius XII

(Encyclopedia)Pius XII, 1876–1958, pope (1939–58), an Italian named Eugenio Pacelli, b. Rome; successor of Pius XI. Ordained a priest in 1899, he entered the Vatican's secretariat of state. He became (1912) und...

Pre-Raphaelites

(Encyclopedia)Pre-Raphaelites prēˌ-răfˈēəlītsˌ [key], brotherhood of English painters and poets formed in 1848 in protest against what they saw as the low standards and decadence of British art. The princip...

Brecht, Bertolt

(Encyclopedia)Brecht, Bertolt bĕrˈtôlt brĕkht [key], 1898–1956, German dramatist and poet, b. Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht. His brilliant wit, his outspoken Marxism, and his revolutionary experiments in th...