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Shaffer, Sir Peter

(Encyclopedia)Shaffer, Sir Peter shăfˈər [key], 1926–2016, English playwright, b. Liverpool, grad. Cambridge, 1950. Before turning to the stage he wrote for radio and television and was the author of several m...

Balboa, Vasco Núñez de

(Encyclopedia)Balboa, Vasco Núñez de bălbōˈə, Span. väˈskō no͞oˈnyāth dā bälbōˈä [key], c.1475–1519, Spanish conquistador, discoverer of the Pacific Ocean. After sailing with Bastidas in 1501, Ba...

Bactria

(Encyclopedia)Bactria băkˈtrēə [key], ancient Greek kingdom in central Asia. Its capital was Bactra, present-day Balkh in N Afghanistan. Before the Greek conquest, the region was an eastern province of the Pers...

Carroll, John

(Encyclopedia)Carroll, John, 1735–1815, American Roman Catholic churchman, b. Maryland. He studied as a child with Jesuits at Bohemia, Md., and later at Saint-Omer in Flanders, since Catholic secondary education ...

Starr, Belle

(Encyclopedia)Starr, Belle, 1848?–89, American outlaw, b. near Carthage, Mo. Her original name was Myra Belle (or Maybelle) Shirley. Her family members were Confederate sympathizers, and her father was a farmer w...

Burney, Fanny

(Encyclopedia)Burney, Fanny, later Madame D'Arblay därblāˈ [key], 1752–1840, English novelist, daughter of Charles Burney, the composer, organist, and music scholar. Although she received no formal education, ...

Wharton, Edith Newbold Jones

(Encyclopedia)Wharton, Edith Newbold Jones, 1862–1937, American novelist, b. New York City, noted for her subtle, ironic, and superbly crafted fictional studies of New York society at the turn of the 20th cent. T...

Drake, Sir Francis

(Encyclopedia)Drake, Sir Francis, 1540?–1596, English navigator and admiral, first Englishman to circumnavigate the world (1577–80). In 1585, Drake commanded a fleet that sacked Vigo in Spain and burned São ...

Pollock, Jackson

(Encyclopedia)Pollock, Jackson, 1912–56, American painter, b. Cody, Wyo. He studied (1929–31) in New York City, mainly under Thomas Hart Benton, but he was more strongly influenced by A. P. Ryder and the Mexica...

Ashbery, John

(Encyclopedia)Ashbery, John, 1927–2017, American poet, b. Rochester, N.Y., grad. Harvard (B.A., 1949), Columbia (M.A., 1951). Among the most acclaimed and influential American poets of his era, he was (1960s–70...