(Encyclopedia) Pynchon, ThomasPynchon, Thomaspĭnˈchən [key], 1937–, American novelist, b. Glen Cove, N.Y., grad. Cornell, 1958. Pynchon is noted for his amazingly fertile imagination, his wild sense…
(Encyclopedia) Homer, Winslow, 1836–1910, American landscape, marine, and genre painter. Homer was born in Boston, where he later worked as a lithographer and illustrator. In 1861 he was sent to the…
(Encyclopedia) Smithsonian Institution, research and education center, mainly at Washington, D.C.; founded 1846 under the terms of the will of James Smithson of London, who in 1829 bequeathed his…
(Encyclopedia) Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 1806–61, English poet, b. Durham. A delicate and precocious child, she spent a great part of her early life in a state of semi-invalidism. She read…
(Encyclopedia) Venturi, Robert, 1925–2018, American architect and architectural theorist, b. Philadelphia, grad. Princeton (B.A., 1947; M.F.A., 1950). An important and highly influential theorist,…
(Encyclopedia) equestrianism, art of riding and handling a horse. Horseback riding was practiced as far back as the Bronze Age and was thereafter adapted to commerce, industry, war, sport, and…
U.S. Department of State Background Note Index: People History Government and Political Conditions Economy PEOPLEUnlike other people of the Arabian Peninsula who have historically been nomads…
U.S. Department of State Background Note Index: People History Government Political Conditions Economy Foreign Relations U.S.-Swiss Relations PEOPLESwitzerland sits at the crossroads of…