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Laski, John

(Encyclopedia)Laski, John yän lăsˈkē [key], Latin Johannes Alasco, 1499–1560, Polish Protestant reformer. A learned priest, he went in 1523 to Basel, where he was a close friend of Erasmus. After returning to...

John George

(Encyclopedia)John George, 1585–1656, elector of Saxony (1611–56). A drunkard, he nonetheless ruled the leading German Protestant state during the Thirty Years War. He vacillated in his policy between support o...

Clark, George Rogers

(Encyclopedia)Clark, George Rogers, 1752–1818, American Revolutionary general, conqueror of the Old Northwest, b. near Charlottesville, Va.; brother of William Clark. A surveyor, he was interested in Western land...

English art and architecture

(Encyclopedia)English art and architecture, the distinctive national art and architecture that art may be said to have evolved in the 12th cent. with the Norman style. Building before that time was in what is commo...

Latimer, Hugh

(Encyclopedia)Latimer, Hugh lătˈəmər [key], 1485?–1555, English bishop and Protestant martyr. Latimer was educated at Cambridge, entered the church, and came under the influence of the Reformation. He first b...

John of Nepomuk, Saint

(Encyclopedia)John of Nepomuk, Saint nāˈpōmo͝ok [key], d. 1393, patron saint of Bohemia, a martyr. He is also called John Nepomucen. He was vicar general of Bohemia under King Wenceslaus IV (later Holy Roman Em...

Dryden, John

(Encyclopedia)Dryden, John, 1631–1700, English poet, dramatist, and critic, b. Northamptonshire, grad. Cambridge, 1654. He went to London about 1657 and first came to public notice with his Heroic Stanzas (1659),...

Hancock, John

(Encyclopedia)Hancock, John, 1737–93, political leader in the American Revolution, signer of the Declaration of Independence, b. Braintree, Mass. From an uncle he inherited Boston's leading mercantile firm, and n...

English Channel

(Encyclopedia)English Channel, Fr. La Manche [the sleeve], arm of the Atlantic Ocean, c.350 (560 km) long, between France and Great Britain. It is 112 mi (180 km) wide at its west entrance, between Land's End, Engl...

English language

(Encyclopedia)English language, member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages). Spoken by about 470 million people throughout the world...