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Banting, Sir Frederick Grant

(Encyclopedia)Banting, Sir Frederick Grant, 1891–1941, Canadian physician, M.D. Univ. of Toronto, 1922. From 1923 he was professor of medical research at Toronto. Working with C. H. Best under the direction of J....

Pousette-Dart, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Pousette-Dart, Richard, 1916–92, American painter, b. St. Paul, Minn. The son of an artist and a poet and largely self-taught, he was a member of the first generation of abstract expressionism. He l...

Popol Vuh

(Encyclopedia)Popol Vuh pōpōlˈ vo͞oˈ [key] [Quiché,=collection of the council], sacred book of the Quiché. The most important document of the cosmogony, religion, mythology, migratory traditions, and history...

Miller, Arthur

(Encyclopedia)Miller, Arthur, 1915–2005, American dramatist, b. New York City, grad. Univ. of Michigan, 1938. One of America's most distinguished playwrights, he has been hailed as the finest realist of the 20th-...

vaudeville

(Encyclopedia)vaudeville vôdˈvĭl [key], originally a light song, derived from the drinking and love songs formerly attributed to Olivier Basselin and called Vau, or Vaux, de Vire. Similar to the English music ha...

Antonioni, Michelangelo

(Encyclopedia)Antonioni, Michelangelo mëkālänˈjālō äntōnyôˈnē [key], 1912–2007, Italian film director and scriptwriter, b. Ferrara, Italy. In the 1940s he made documentaries that contributed to the dev...

Monroe, Marilyn

(Encyclopedia)Monroe, Marilyn, 1926–62, American movie actress, b. Los Angeles as Norma Jean Baker or Norma Jeane Mortenson. Raised in orphanages after 1935 and first married at 14, Monroe, who began her career a...

Neurath, Otto

(Encyclopedia)Neurath, Otto, 1882–1945, Austrian philosopher, social scientist, and design theorist, b. Vienna. During the 1920s and 30s he was both a Marxist and a member of the Vienna Circle, an exponent of log...

Marshall, George Catlett

(Encyclopedia)Marshall, George Catlett, 1880–1959, American general and cabinet member, b. Uniontown, Pa. A career army officer, Marshall graduated from the Virginia Military Institute. He first distinguished him...

drought

(Encyclopedia)drought, abnormally long period of insufficient rainfall. Drought cannot be defined in terms of inches of rainfall or number of days without rain, since it is determined by such variable factors as th...