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War Production Board

(Encyclopedia)War Production Board (WPB), former U.S. government agency, established (Jan., 1942) by executive order to direct war production and the procurement of materials in World War II. The chairman (Donald M...

Wallace, Henry Cantwell

(Encyclopedia)Wallace, Henry Cantwell, 1866–1924, American agricultural leader and cabinet officer, b. Rock Island, Ill., grad. Iowa State College of Agriculture (now Iowa State Univ.), 1892; son of Henry Wallace...

Blake, Eubie

(Encyclopedia)Blake, Eubie (James Hubert Blake), 1887–1983, African-American pianist and composer, b. Baltimore. His career extended from ragtime (see jazz) to Broa...

Symington, William Stuart

(Encyclopedia)Symington, William Stuart, 1901–88, U.S. senator (1953–76), b. Amherst, Mass. He interrupted a successful business career in 1941 to accept a War Department assignment involving a study of airplan...

Sharpe, William Forsyth

(Encyclopedia)Sharpe, William Forsyth, 1934–, American economist, b. Boston, Mass., Ph.D. Univ. of California, Los Angeles, 1961. After working at the Rand Corporation, he taught at the Univ. of Washington (1961�...

Philby, Kim

(Encyclopedia)Philby, Kim (Harold Adrian Russell Philby), 1912–88, British double agent, son of Harry St. John Bridger Philby, studied Trinity College, Cambridge. A longtime high-ranking member of Britain's MI6 i...

Arpad, chief of the Magyars

(Encyclopedia)Arpad ŏrˈpäd [key], c.840–907?, chief of the Magyars. He led his people into Hungary c.895. The leaders of the Magyars and the first dynasty of Hungarian kings (St. Stephen I to Andrew III) were ...

Burleson, Edward

(Encyclopedia)Burleson, Edward, 1798–1851, pioneer of Texas, b. Buncombe co., N.C. After living in Tennessee and serving under Andrew Jackson in the war against the Creek (1813–14), he moved to Texas. He distin...

Brooks, Preston Smith

(Encyclopedia)Brooks, Preston Smith, 1819–57, U.S. Congressman (1852–57), b. Edgefield District, S.C. A lawyer and the nephew of Senator Andrew Pickens Butler, he is remembered as the man who in 1856 caned Char...

Schwab, Charles Michael

(Encyclopedia)Schwab, Charles Michael shwäb [key], 1862–1939, American steel magnate, b. Williamsburg, Pa. He started as a stake driver in Andrew Carnegie's steelworks and rose to become (1897) president of the ...