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Smith, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Smith, Joseph, 1805–44, American Mormon leader, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints, b. Sharon, Vt. When he was a boy his family moved to Palmyra, N.Y., where he experienc...

Vendôme, Louis Joseph, duc de

(Encyclopedia)Vendôme, Louis Joseph, duc de dük də väNdōmˈ [key], 1654–1712, marshal of France; grandson of César de Vendôme and son of Laura Mancini. He fought in the War of the Grand Alliance. In the W...

Bellomont, Richard Coote, earl of

(Encyclopedia)Bellomont, Richard Coote, earl of bĕlˈəmŏntˌ [key], 1636–1701, colonial governor of New York, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, b. Ireland. He arrived (1698) in New York at a time when a more u...

Von Sternberg, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Von Sternberg, Joseph (Jo Sternberg), 1894–1969, Austrian-American film director and screenwriter. Von Sternberg, who worked in the United States from 1925, made films that were noted for their dazz...

Swan, Sir Joseph Wilson

(Encyclopedia)Swan, Sir Joseph Wilson, 1828–1914, English chemist and physicist. He made an incandescent lamp using a carbon filament (1860), 20 years before Edison's lamp. Noted for important contributions to ph...

Linklater, Richard Stuart

(Encyclopedia)Linklater, Richard Stuart, 1960–, American screenwriter, director, and actor, b. Houston. He dropped out of college and worked on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, then moved to Austin (1983), where...

Gobineau, Joseph Arthur, comte de

(Encyclopedia)Gobineau, Joseph Arthur, comte de zhôzĕfˈ ärtürˈ kôNt də gōbēnōˈ [key], 1816–82, French diplomat and man of letters. The chief early French proponent of the theory of Nordic supremacy, h...

Lalande, Joseph Jérôme Lefrançais de

(Encyclopedia)Lalande, Joseph Jérôme Lefrançais de läläNdˈ [key], 1732–1807, French astronomer. Under the direction of the French Academy of Science, he went to Berlin in 1751 to make observations on the p...

Des Barres, Joseph Frederick Wallet

(Encyclopedia)Des Barres or Desbarres, Joseph Frederick Wallet dābärˈ [key], 1721?–1824, British army officer, surveyor, and artist. He was born of French parents (probably in Switzerland), was educated at Bas...

Richard of Saint Victor

(Encyclopedia)Richard of Saint Victor, d. 1173, Scottish monk and mystic, prior of the Abbey of St. Victor, Paris. His principal importance is in the history of mystical theology, in which he is a successor to Hugh...