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Zeami Motokiyo

(Encyclopedia)Zeami Motokiyo zāˈäˈmē mōˈtōˈkēˈyō [key] or Kanze Motokiyo, c.1363–c.1443, Japanese actor, playwright, and drama theorist. Son of the itinerant actor Kanami, at the age of eleven Zeami a...

Baruch, Bernard Mannes

(Encyclopedia)Baruch, Bernard Mannes bəro͞okˈ [key], 1870–1965, U.S. financier and government adviser, b. Camden, S.C. He grew rich through stockmarket speculation before he was 30. In World War I he advised o...

Russell, George William

(Encyclopedia)Russell, George William, pseud. A. E., 1867–1935, Irish author, b. Lurgan, educated in Dublin. An active member of the Irish nationalist movement, he edited the Irish Homestead (1904–23) and the I...

Pfitzner, Hans

(Encyclopedia)Pfitzner, Hans häns pfĭtsˈnər [key], 1869–1949, German conductor and composer, b. Moscow. Pfitzner studied music at Hoch's Conservatory in Frankfurt/ Main. His music, conservative in idiom (Pfit...

Vidocq, Eugène François

(Encyclopedia)Vidocq, Eugène François ûzhĕnˈ fräNswäˈ vēdôkˈ [key], 1775–1857, French detective. After a career of crime for which he had been imprisoned, he joined the Paris Sûreté (security police)...

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm

(Encyclopedia)Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm frēˈdrĭkh vĭlˈhĕlm nēˈchə [key], 1844–1900, German philosopher, b. Röcken, Prussia. The son of a clergyman, Nietzsche studied Greek and Latin at Bonn and Leipz...

Updike, John

(Encyclopedia)Updike, John, 1932–2009, American author, one of the nation's most distinguished 20th-century men of letters, b. Shillington, Pa., grad. Harvard, 1954. In his many novels and stories, written in a w...

Wordsworth, William

(Encyclopedia)Wordsworth, William, 1770–1850, English poet, b. Cockermouth, Cumberland. One of the great English poets, he was a leader of the romantic movement in England. Wordsworth's personality and poetry ...

Cuban Missile Crisis

(Encyclopedia)Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962, major cold war confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. In response to the Bay of Pigs Invasion and other American actions against Cuba as well as to P...

Adams, John, 2d President of the United States

(Encyclopedia)Adams, John, 1735–1826, 2d President of the United States (1797–1801), b. Quincy (then in Braintree), Mass., grad. Harvard, 1755. John Adams and his wife, Abigail Adams, founded one of the most di...