(Encyclopedia) Sedgwick, Adam, 1785–1873, English geologist. He was a professor at Cambridge from 1818. His most important work was a study, made with R. I. Murchison, of the rock formation of…
(Encyclopedia) Green, Hetty, 1835–1916, American financier, b. Henrietta Howland Robinson, New Bedford, Mass. She inherited a large fortune from her father and invested it so shrewdly that she was…
(Encyclopedia) HiawathaHiawathahīˈəwäˈthə [key], fl. c.1550, legendary chief of the Onondaga of North America. He is credited with founding the Iroquois Confederacy. He is the hero of the well-known…
(Encyclopedia) Buckland, William, 1784–1856, English geologist. He was dean of Westminster from 1845. First to note in England the action of glacial ice on rocks, he did much to bring physical and…
(Encyclopedia) Birkbeck, George, 1776–1841, English educator. He established (1800–1804) in Glasgow a popular course of lectures for workingmen, which led to the founding of the Glasgow Mechanics'…
(Encyclopedia) Armstrong, Louis (Daniel Louis Armstrong), known as “Satchmo” and “Pops,” 1901–1971, American jazz trumpet virtuoso, singer, and bandleader, b. New Orleans. He learned to play the…
(Encyclopedia) Merton, Thomas, 1915–68, American religious writer and poet, b. France. He grew up in France, England, and the United States and studied at Cambridge and at Columbia (B.A., 1938; M.A…
(Encyclopedia) laetrilelaetrilelāˈətrĭlˌ [key], name given to the chemical amygdalin, a substance derived from an extract of the kernels of many fruits, notably apricots, bitter almonds, and peaches…
(Encyclopedia) MacNeice, LouisMacNeice, Louisməknēsˈ [key], 1907–63, Irish poet b. Belfast. Educated at Oxford, he became a classical scholar and teacher and later was a producer and traveled the…
(Encyclopedia) Rhys, JeanRhys, Jeanrēs [key], pseud. of Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams, 1894–1979, English novelist, b. Dominica. Her novels written in the 1930s mercilessly exploit her own emotional…
