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Churchill, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer, British statesman, soldier, and author

(Encyclopedia)Churchill, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer, 1874–1965, British statesman, soldier, and author; son of Lord Randolph Churchill. Churchill was undoubtedly one of the greatest public figures of the 20t...

Kansas State University

(Encyclopedia)Kansas State University, main campus at Manhattan; coeducational; land-grant and state supported; chartered and opened 1863. There is an additional campus at Salina. Among the university's research fa...

Wallace's line

(Encyclopedia)Wallace's line, imaginary line postulated by A. R. Wallace as the dividing line between Asian and Australian fauna in the Malay Archipelago. It passes between Bali and Lombok islands and between Borne...

More, Sir Thomas

(Encyclopedia)More, Sir Thomas (Saint Thomas More), 1478–1535, English statesman and author of Utopia, celebrated as a martyr in the Roman Catholic Church. He received a Latin education in the household of Cardin...

Williams, Tennessee

(Encyclopedia)Williams, Tennessee (Thomas Lanier Williams), 1911–83, American dramatist, b. Columbus, Miss., grad. State Univ. of Iowa, 1938. One of America's foremost 20th-century playwrights and the author of m...

Smith, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Smith, Joseph, 1805–44, American Mormon leader, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints, b. Sharon, Vt. When he was a boy his family moved to Palmyra, N.Y., where he experienc...

Jerome, Jerome Klapka

(Encyclopedia)Jerome, Jerome Klapka, 1859–1927, English humorist and playwright. His Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886) and Three Men in a Boat (1889) gave him his reputation for genial humor. Of his dramatic...

Lawes, Lewis Edward

(Encyclopedia)Lawes, Lewis Edward, 1883–1947, American penologist, b. Elmira, N.Y. As warden (1920–41) of Sing Sing Prison, a New York state prison located at Ossining, N.Y., he carried out many reforms, advoca...

country music

(Encyclopedia)country music, American popular music form originating in the Southern and Western United States. Country music is directly descended from the folk songs, ballads, and popular songs of the English, Sc...

Cheever, John

(Encyclopedia)Cheever, John, 1912–82, American author, b. Quincy, Mass. His expulsion from Thayer Academy was the subject of his first short story, published by the New Republic when he was 17. Many of his subseq...