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apocalypse

(Encyclopedia)apocalypse əpŏkˈəlĭps [key] [Gr.,=uncovering], genre represented in early Jewish and in Christian literature in which the secrets of the heavenly world or of the world to come are revealed by ang...

Fowles, John

(Encyclopedia)Fowles, John, 1926–2005, English writer, b. Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, grad. Oxford, 1950. A complex, cerebral writer and a superb storyteller, Fowles was interested in manipulating the novel as a genre. ...

Euler, Leonhard

(Encyclopedia)Euler, Leonhard lāˈônhärt oiˈlər [key], 1707–83, Swiss mathematician. Born and educated at Basel, where he knew the Bernoullis, he went to St. Petersburg (1727) at the invitation of Catherine ...

minstrel show

(Encyclopedia)minstrel show, stage entertainment by white performers made up as blacks. Thomas Dartmouth Rice, who gave (c.1828) the first solo performance in blackface and introduced the song-and-dance act Jim Cro...

Kibaki, Mwai

(Encyclopedia)Kibaki, Mwai (Emilio Mwai Kibaki), 1931–, Kenyan political leader. An economist educated at the London School of Economics, he was elected to Kenya's first parliament (1963) as a member of the Kenya...

Armstrong, Louis

(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 cornet in ...

Johns Hopkins University

(Encyclopedia)Johns Hopkins University, mainly at Baltimore. Johns Hopkins in 1867 had a group of his associates incorporated as the trustees of a university and a hospital, endowing each with $3.5 million. Daniel ...

Shays's Rebellion

(Encyclopedia)Shays's Rebellion, 1786–87, armed insurrection by farmers in W Massachusetts against the state government. Debt-ridden farmers, struck by the economic depression that followed the American Revolutio...

chansons de geste

(Encyclopedia)chansons de geste shäNsôNˈ də zhĕst [key] [Fr.,=songs of deeds], a group of epic poems of medieval France written from the 11th through the 13th cent. Varying in length from 1,000 to 20,000 lines...

O'Brien, William Smith

(Encyclopedia)O'Brien, William Smith, 1803–64, Irish revolutionary. He entered Parliament from Ireland in 1828 and worked for Catholic Emancipation, Irish poor relief, and state support of the Irish Catholic cler...