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Wheaton, Henry

(Encyclopedia)Wheaton, Henry, 1785–1848, American jurist and diplomat, b. Providence, R.I., grad. Rhode Island College (now Brown), 1802. After translating the Code Napoléon into English, he practiced law, held ...

Versace, Gianni

(Encyclopedia)Versace, Gianni (Giovanni Maria Versace), 1946–97, Italian fashion designer, b. Reggio Calabria. A dressmaker's son, Versace worked for several Italian designers before opening (1978) his own Milan ...

Bland, Richard Parks

(Encyclopedia)Bland, Richard Parks, 1835–99, American statesman, b. near Hartford, Ky. He taught in rural schools in Kentucky and Missouri before he went to the gold fields of California in 1855. He was a prospec...

Aegean civilization

(Encyclopedia)Aegean civilization ējēˈən [key], term for the Bronze Age cultures of pre-Hellenic Greece. The complexity of those early civilizations was not suspected before the excavations of archaeologists in...

Utah , state, United States

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Utah yo͞oˈtäˌ [key], Rocky Mt. state of the W United States. It is bordered by Idaho and Wyoming (N), Colorado (E), Arizona (S), and Nevada (W), and touches New Mexico in the SE, at the Fou...

constitution, principles of government

(Encyclopedia)constitution, fundamental principles of government in a nation, either implied in its laws, institutions, and customs, or embodied in one fundamental document or in several. In the first category—cu...

Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich

(Encyclopedia)Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich chĕkˈôf, Rus. əntônˈ pävˈləvĭch chĕˈkhəv [key], 1860–1904, Russian short-story writer, dramatist, and physician, b. Taganrog. The son of a grocer and grandson o...

Chomsky, Noam

(Encyclopedia)Chomsky, Noam nōm chŏmˈskē [key], 1928–, educator and linguist, b. Philadelphia. Chomsky, who has taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1955, developed a theory of transforma...

Leiter, Saul

(Encyclopedia)Leiter, Saul lītˈər [key], 1923–2013, American photographer, b. Pittsburgh. A painter in the early 1940s, Leiter switched to photography late in the decade. Along with Robert Frank and Diane Arbu...

Montpensier, Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans, duchesse de

(Encyclopedia)Montpensier, Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans, duchesse de än märēˈ lwēz dôrlāäNˈ düshĕsˈ də mŏpäsyāˈ [key], 1627–93, French princess, called Mademoiselle and La Grande Mademoiselle; da...