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National Gallery of Art

(Encyclopedia)National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, established by an act of Congress, 1937. Andrew W. Mellon donated funds for construction of the building as well...

Opper, Frederick Burr

(Encyclopedia)Opper, Frederick Burr, 1857–1937, American cartoonist and illustrator, b. Madison, Ohio. He began as a contributor to comic papers and was associated with Frank Leslie's publications for three years...

Oliphant, Margaret Oliphant (Wilson)

(Encyclopedia)Oliphant, Margaret Oliphant (Wilson), 1828–97, Scottish author. She was widowed at the age of 31 and subsequently supported her own three children and her brother and his family. Astonishingly proli...

Wilson, Charles Thomson Rees

(Encyclopedia)Wilson, Charles Thomson Rees, 1869–1959, Scottish physicist, educated at Manchester and Cambridge universities. He was Jacksonian professor of natural philosophy at Cambridge from 1925 to 1934. Note...

Wilson, James, American jurist

(Encyclopedia)Wilson, James, 1742–98, American jurist, signer of the Declaration of Independence, b. near St. Andrews, Scotland. He studied at the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh and, after emigrating to Pe...

Wilson, Robert Butler, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)Wilson, Robert Butler, Jr., 1973–, American economist, b. Geneva, Nebr., D.B.A. Harvard, 1963. A faculty member at the Stanford Graduate School of Business since 1964 (emeritus from 2004), he is a s...

Swan, Sir Joseph Wilson

(Encyclopedia)Swan, Sir Joseph Wilson, 1828–1914, English chemist and physicist. He made an incandescent lamp using a carbon filament (1860), 20 years before Edison's lamp. Noted for important contributions to ph...

Martin, Paul Edgar Philippe, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)Martin, Paul Edgar Philippe, Jr., 1938–, Canadian politician, prime minister (2003–6) of Canada, b. Windsor, Ont. The scion of a politically active family (his father served in parliament and ran ...

Adrian, Edgar Douglas Adrian, Baron

(Encyclopedia)Adrian, Edgar Douglas Adrian, Baron, 1889–1977, English physiologist, M.D. Trinity College, Cambridge, 1915. He was research professor (1929–37) of the Royal Society and professor of physiology (1...

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