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Kennedy, Joseph Patrick

(Encyclopedia)Kennedy, Joseph Patrick, 1888–1969, U.S. ambassador to Great Britain (1937–40), b. Boston, grad. Harvard, 1912. The founder of an American dynasty, he was the father of nine children, including Jo...

Kissinger, Henry Alfred

(Encyclopedia)Kissinger, Henry Alfred kĭsˈənjər [key], 1923–2023, American political scientist and U.S. secretary ...

Borglum, Gutzon

(Encyclopedia)Borglum, Gutzon (John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum) gŭtˈsən dĕ lˈə mät bôrˈgləm [key], 1867–1941, American sculptor, b. Idaho; son of a Danish immigrant physician and rancher. He studied at ...

quasicrystal

(Encyclopedia)quasicrystal kwāˈzīkrĭsˌtəl, kwäzˈē– [key] or quasiperiodic solid, solid body that exhibits such crystalline features as symmetry and repeating patterns of unit cells (regular arrangements ...

decadents

(Encyclopedia)decadents, in literature, name loosely applied to those 19th-century, fin-de-siècle European authors who sought inspiration, both in their lives and in their writings, in aestheticism and in all the ...

Chandler, Raymond Thornton

(Encyclopedia)Chandler, Raymond Thornton, 1888–1959, American author, b. Chicago, educated in England. After World War I, he entered the oil business in California. Bankrupt during the Depression, he published hi...

Hauser, Kaspar

(Encyclopedia)Hauser, Kaspar käsˈpär houˈzər [key], 1812?–1833, mysterious German foundling. He appeared in Nuremberg in 1828 in a state of semi-idiocy, producing dubious documents and giving an incoherent a...

New Madrid

(Encyclopedia)New Madrid măˈdrĭd [key], city (2000 pop. 3,334), seat of New Madrid co., extreme SE Mo., on Mississippi River at the sweeping New Madrid Bend; inc. 1808. A river port, the city is protected by hig...

Yan'an

(Encyclopedia)Yan'an or Yenan both: yĕn-än [key], city (1991 pop. 115,900), N Shaanxi prov., China, on the Yen River. Now a market and tourist center, it is famed as the terminus of the long march and the de fact...

Weil, Simone

(Encyclopedia)Weil, Simone sēmônˈ vīl [key], 1909–43, French philosopher and mystic. After receiving her baccalauréat with honors at 15, she studied philosophy for four years, then entered (1928) the prestig...