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Boyle, Richard, 1st earl of Cork

(Encyclopedia)Boyle, Richard, 1st earl of Cork, 1566–1643, English settler in Ireland. He first went to Ireland in 1588 and in 1602 purchased for a small sum Sir Walter Raleigh's large landholdings in Cork, Water...

Prime Ministers of Great Britain (table)

(Encyclopedia)Prime Ministers of Great Britain 1 The modern party system did not evolve until the end of the 18th cent. ...

Mackenzie, William Lyon

(Encyclopedia)Mackenzie, William Lyon, 1795–1861, Canadian journalist and insurgent leader, b. Scotland; grandfather of William Lyon Mackenzie King. Emigrating to Upper Canada in 1820, he published (1824–34), f...

Samuel

(Encyclopedia)Samuel, two books of the Bible, originally a single work, called First and Second Samuel in modern Bibles, and First and Second Kingdoms in the Septuagint. They are considered part of “Deuteronomist...

Villehardouin

(Encyclopedia)Villehardouin vēlärdwăNˈ [key], French noble family that ruled the Peloponnesus from 1210 to 1278. Geoffroi I de Villehardouin, d. 1218, nephew of the historian and marshal of Champagne and Romani...

gunpowder

(Encyclopedia)gunpowder, explosive mixture; its most common formula, called “black powder,” is a combination of saltpeter, sulfur, and carbon in the form of charcoal. Historically, the relative amounts of the c...

Evarts, William Maxwell

(Encyclopedia)Evarts, William Maxwell ĕvˈərts [key], 1818–1901, American lawyer and statesman, b. Boston; grandson of Roger Sherman. After attending Harvard Law School he began (1841) to practice law in New Yo...

Campin, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Campin, Robert kämˈpĭn [key], 1378–1444, Flemish painter who with the van Eycks ranks as a founder of the Netherlandish school. He has been identified as the Master of Flémalle on the basis of t...

Constitutional Convention

(Encyclopedia)Constitutional Convention, in U.S. history, the 1787 meeting in which the Constitution of the United States was drawn up. The convention at Philadelphia drew up one of the most influential document...

Moore, Michael

(Encyclopedia)Moore, Michael, 1954–, American documentary filmmaker, author, and activist, b. Flint, Mich. A highly personal, populist, and frequently controversial and polarizing documentary filmmaker, he made h...