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Midrash

(Encyclopedia)Midrash mĭdˈräsh [key] [Heb.,=to examine, to investigate], verse by verse interpretation of Hebrew Scriptures, consisting of homily and exegesis, by Jewish teachers since about 400 b.c. Distinction...

Moody, Dwight Lyman

(Encyclopedia)Moody, Dwight Lyman, 1837–99, American evangelist, b. Northfield, Mass. He became successful in business in Chicago, where he settled in 1856. His activities there as a Sunday-school teacher and sup...

Barthelme, Donald

(Encyclopedia)Barthelme, Donald bärtˈəlmē [key], 1931–89, American writer, b. Philadelphia. The son of an architect, he grew up in Texas, moved (1962) to New York City, worked as a curator and an editor, and ...

Seymour, Horatio

(Encyclopedia)Seymour, Horatio sēˈmôr, sēˈmər [key], 1810–86, American politician, b. Pompey Hill, N.Y. He studied law at Utica, N.Y. and was admitted to the bar in 1832. A Democrat, he was military secreta...

Ch'ien-lung

(Encyclopedia)Ch'ien-lung chyĕnˈ-lo͞ongˈ [key], 1711–99, reign title of the fourth emperor (1735–96) of the Ch'ing dynasty, whose given name was Hung-li. Under his vigorous military policy, China attained i...

Cole, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Cole, Thomas, 1801–48, American landscape painter, b. England. He arrived in the United States in 1818 and moved to Ohio, where he was impressed by the beauty of the countryside. In 1825 he went to ...

Gray, Asa

(Encyclopedia)Gray, Asa, 1810–88, one of America's leading botanists and taxonomists, b. Oneida co., N.Y. As professor of natural history at Harvard from 1842, he was the teacher of many eminent botanists. Throug...

Haggai

(Encyclopedia)Haggai hăgˈāī [key], prophetic book of the Bible. Dated 520 b.c., it is a collection of five oracles addressed to Jews, newly returned from the Babylonian exile. The prophet summons the people to ...

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...

Berlin, Irving

(Encyclopedia)Berlin, Irving bərlĭnˈ [key], 1888–1989, American songwriter, b. Russia as Israel Baline; his Jewish family fled a pogrom in 1893 and settled in New York's Lower East Side. Alexander's Ragtime Ba...