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Williams, Ted

(Encyclopedia)Williams, Ted (Theodore Samuel Williams), 1918–2002, American baseball player, b. San Diego, Calif. At the age of 17 he began playing professional ball with the San Diego Padres of the Pacific Coast...

criticism

(Encyclopedia)criticism, the interpretation and evaluation of literature and the arts. It exists in a variety of literary forms: dialogues (Plato, John Dryden), verse (Horace, Alexander Pope), letters (John Keats),...

Columbia University

(Encyclopedia)Columbia University, mainly in New York City; founded 1754 as King's College by grant of King George II; first college in New York City, fifth oldest in the United States; one of the eight Ivy League ...

democracy

(Encyclopedia)democracy [Gr.,=rule of the people], term originating in ancient Greece to designate a government where the people share in directing the activities of the state, as distinct from governments controll...

symbol

(Encyclopedia)symbol, sign representing something that has an independent existence. The most important use of symbols is in language. To say so, however, does not solve the perennial philosophical questions as to ...

surgery

(Encyclopedia)surgery, branch of medicine concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of injuries and the excision and repair of pathological conditions by means of operative procedures (see also anesthesia; medicin...

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

(Encyclopedia)Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 1807–82, American poet, b. Portland, Maine, grad. Bowdoin College, 1825. He wrote some of the most popular poems in American literature, in which he created a new body o...

muckrakers

(Encyclopedia)muckrakers, name applied to American journalists, novelists, and critics who in the first decade of the 20th cent. attempted to expose the abuses of business and the corruption in politics. The term d...

LaGuardia, Fiorello Henry

(Encyclopedia)LaGuardia, Fiorello Henry fēərĕlˈō, ləgwärˈdēə [key], 1882–1947, U.S. public official, congressman, and mayor of New York City (1934–45), b. New York City. He spent his early years in Ar...

Fielding, Henry

(Encyclopedia)Fielding, Henry, 1707–54, English novelist and dramatist. Born of a distinguished family, he was educated at Eton and studied law at Leiden. Settling in London in 1729, he began writing comedies, fa...