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Babbage, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Babbage, Charles băbˈĭj [key], 1792–1871, English mathematician and inventor. He devoted most of his life and expended much of his private fortune and a government subsidy in an attempt to perfec...

Bent, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Bent, Charles, 1799–1847, American frontiersman, b. St. Louis. He entered the fur trade of the Missouri River and became one of the mountain men. His interests turned to the Southwest, and he led ex...

Churchill, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Churchill, Charles chûrˈchĭl [key], 1731–64, English poet and satirist. Upon his family's insistence he took religious orders in 1756, but life as a London dandy suited him more, and he resigned ...

Charles, Eugenia

(Encyclopedia)Charles, Eugenia (Mary Eugenia Charles), 1919–2005, Dominican politician, first female prime minister of Dominica (1980–95). A lawyer, she was a founder (1968) of the Dominica Freedom party (DFP) ...

Charles, Ray

(Encyclopedia)Charles, Ray (Ray Charles Robinson), 1930–2004, African-American musician and composer, b. Albany, Ga. Blinded at age seven, he was raised in Florida and at 16 began singing in a local hillbilly gro...

Charles, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Charles, Thomas, 1755–1814, Welsh nonconformist clergyman. He was brought up under Methodist influence, attended Oxford (1775–78), and was ordained in the Church of England. He held curacies in So...

Charles, William

(Encyclopedia)Charles, William, 1776–1820, American cartoonist, etcher, and engraver, b. Edinburgh, Scotland. He probably came to the United States to avoid prosecution for his satirical drawings. He is best know...

Charles Albert

(Encyclopedia)Charles Albert, 1798–1849, king of Sardinia (1831–49, see Savoy, house of). Because he had not been entirely unsympathetic to the revolutionary movement of 1821 in Sardinia, Charles Albert develop...

Charles Augustus

(Encyclopedia)Charles Augustus, 1757–1828, duke and, after 1815, grand duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach; friend and patron of Goethe, Schiller, and Herder. Though his duchy was small, he was important in German polit...

Charles Emmanuel I

(Encyclopedia)Charles Emmanuel I, 1562–1630, duke of Savoy (1580–1630), son and successor of Emmanuel Philibert. He continued his father's efforts to recover territories lost to the duchy, but his reckless, alt...

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