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Houston Grand Opera

(Encyclopedia)Houston Grand Opera, opera company in Houston, Tex., founded 1955 by the German-American impresario and conductor Walter Herbert, who was general director and conductor until 1972. The company perform...

Minton

(Encyclopedia)Minton, English family of potters. The first important member of the family was Thomas Minton, 1765–1836, who founded a small pottery at Stoke-on-Trent. He first engraved the famous willow-pattern w...

Erlanger, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Erlanger, Joseph ûrˈlăng-ər [key], 1874–1965, American scientist, b. San Francisco, grad. Univ. of California (B.S., 1895), M.D. Johns Hopkins, 1899. For his contributions to physiology, especia...

Schmoller, Gustav

(Encyclopedia)Schmoller, Gustav go͝osˈtäf shmôlˈər [key], 1838–1917, German economist. He was the leader of the younger school of German historical economists, who tried to interrelate economics with the ot...

Bannu

(Encyclopedia)Bannu bənˈno͞o [key], town (1981 pop. 35,170), N Pakistan. It is a district administrative center and an important road junction and market town. The major industries are cloth weaving and the manu...

Butler, Alban

(Encyclopedia)Butler, Alban, 1710–73, English Roman Catholic priest, compiler of lives of the saints. He was educated at Douai and was president of the English seminary at Saint-Omer. His monumental work, The Liv...

Hart, H. L. A.

(Encyclopedia)Hart, H. L. A. (Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart), 1907–92, British legal philosopher. A lawyer and trained philosopher—he was a legal positivist—Hart subjected legal concepts to scrutiny in such wo...

Derwent Water

(Encyclopedia)Derwent Water, lake, 3 mi (4.8 km) long and 1 mi (1.6 km) wide, Cumbria, NW England, formed by a widening of the River Derwent. It is surrounded by wooded hills, with the Lodore (c.90 ft/27 m) and Bar...

Agricola, Georgius

(Encyclopedia)Agricola, Georgius gāˈôrk bouˈər [key], 1494–1555, German physician and scientist, known as the father of mineralogy. He was a pioneer in physical geology and the first to classify minerals sci...

agnosticism

(Encyclopedia)agnosticism ăgnŏsˈtĭsĭzəm [key], form of skepticism that holds that the existence of God cannot be logically proved or disproved. Among prominent agnostics have been Auguste Comte, Herbert Spenc...