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Beerbohm, Sir Max

(Encyclopedia)Beerbohm, Sir Max bērˈbōm [key], 1872–1956, English essayist, caricaturist, and parodist. He contributed to the famous Yellow Book while still an undergraduate at Oxford. In 1898 he succeeded G. ...

roentgenium

(Encyclopedia)roentgenium, artificially produced radioactive chemical element; symbol Rg; at. no. 111; mass number of most stable isotope 280; m.p., b.p., sp. gr., and valence unknown. Situated in Group 11 of the p...

Scottsboro Case

(Encyclopedia)Scottsboro Case. In 1931 nine black youths were indicted at Scottsboro, Ala., on charges of having raped two white women in a freight car passing through Alabama. In a series of trials the youths were...

Stowe, Harriet Beecher

(Encyclopedia)Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 1811–96, American novelist and humanitarian, b. Litchfield, Conn. With her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, she stirred the conscience of Americans concerning slavery and thereby inf...

Hitchcock, Sir Alfred

(Encyclopedia)Hitchcock, Sir Alfred, 1899–1980, English-American film director, writer, and producer, b. London. Hitchcock began his career as a director in 1925 and became prominent with The 39 Steps (1935) and ...

parody

(Encyclopedia)parody, mocking imitation in verse or prose of a literary work. The following poem by Robert Southey was parodied by Lewis Carroll: “You are old, Father William,” the young man cried; “The few l...

Tubman, Harriet

(Encyclopedia)Tubman, Harriet, c.1820–1913, American abolitionist, b. Dorchester co., Md. Born into slavery, she escaped to Phildelphia in 1849, and subsequently became one of the most successful “conductors”...

Brethren

(Encyclopedia)Brethren, German Baptist religious group. They were popularly known as Dunkards, Dunkers, or Tunkers, from the German for “to dip,” referring to their method of baptizing. The Brethren evolved fro...

Robbins, Jerome

(Encyclopedia)Robbins, Jerome, 1918–98, American choreographer and dancer, b. New York City as Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz. Robbins began his career dancing in musicals (1937). In 1940 he joined the Ballet Theatre a...

Coen Brothers

(Encyclopedia)Coen Brothers, American filmmakers Joel Coen, 1955–, and Ethan Coen, 1958–, both b. St. Louis Park, Minn. Joel studied at New York Univ. Film School (B.A., 1978), Ethan at Princeton (B.A., 1979). ...