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David, Saint

(Encyclopedia)David, Saint, d.588?, patron saint of Wales, first abbot of Menevia (present-day Saint David's). He apparently established a strict rule and was a zealous missionary, founding 12 monasteries. His cult...

Fallen Timbers

(Encyclopedia)Fallen Timbers, battle fought in 1794 between tribes of the Northwest Territory and the U.S. army commanded by Anthony Wayne; it took place in NW Ohio at the rapids of the Maumee River just southwest ...

Eridu

(Encyclopedia)Eridu āˈrĭdo͞o [key], ancient city of Sumer, Mesopotamia, near the Euphrates, S of Ur (in present-day S Iraq). Excavations conducted from 1946 to 1949 revealed that Eridu was the earliest known se...

Greenaway, Kate

(Encyclopedia)Greenaway, Kate, 1846–1901, English illustrator and watercolorist. She is famous for her fanciful, humorous, delicately colored drawings of child life. She influenced children's clothing and the ill...

Andrews, Lorrin

(Encyclopedia)Andrews, Lorrin, 1795–1868, American missionary to the Hawaiian Islands, b. present-day Vernon, Conn., grad. Princeton Theological Seminary, 1825. He founded (1831) on Maui a training school for tea...

acre, measure of land area

(Encyclopedia)acre, measure of land area used in the English units of measurement. The acre was originally the area a yoke of oxen could plow in a day and therefore differed in size from one locality to another. It...

Paine, John Knowles

(Encyclopedia)Paine, John Knowles, 1839–1906, American composer, organist, and educator, b. Portland, Maine, studied in Berlin. In 1862 he began to teach music at Harvard and held (from 1875) the first chair of m...

Babbage, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Babbage, Charles băbˈĭj [key], 1792–1871, English mathematician and inventor. He devoted most of his life and expended much of his private fortune and a government subsidy in an attempt to perfec...

Hicks, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Hicks, Thomas, 1823–90, American portrait painter, b. Newtown, Pa. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and abroad, where he lived for several years. He settled in New York City i...

Horatius

(Encyclopedia)Horatius (Horatius Cocles) hōrāˈshəs, hə– [key], legendary Roman hero. With two companions he held Lars Porsena's Etruscan army at bay while the Romans cut down the Sublician Bridge (connecting...