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Davy, Sir Humphry

(Encyclopedia)Davy, Sir Humphry, 1778–1829, English chemist and physicist. The son of a woodcarver, he received his early education at Truro and was apprenticed (1795) to a surgeon-apothecary at Penzance. While d...

Hawkins, Sir Richard

(Encyclopedia)Hawkins, Sir Richard, 1562?–1622, English admiral, son of Sir John Hawkins. He served under Sir Francis Drake in the 1585–86 expedition to the West Indies, commanded the Swallow in the defeat of t...

Rattle, Sir Simon

(Encyclopedia)Rattle, Sir Simon, 1955–, British conductor, b. Liverpool, studied Royal Academy of Music, London. Originally a percussionist, he became part of the Merseyside Youth Orchestra at 11 and of the Royal...

Kit-Cat Club

(Encyclopedia)Kit-Cat Club, London political and literary club, active c.1700–1720. The membership of some four dozen included leading Whig politicians and London's best young writers. Among them were Charles Sey...

Alsop, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Alsop, Joseph ôlˈsəp [key], 1910–89, and Alsop, Stewart, 1914–74, American political journalists, b. Avon, Conn. Joseph joined (1932) the New York Herald Tribune as a staff reporter and moved (...

Dennie, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Dennie, Joseph, 1768–1812, American Federalist journalist, b. Boston. As editor, he made the Farmer's Weekly Museum at Walpole, N.H., an influential paper, particularly because of the “Lay Preache...

Cornell, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Cornell, Joseph, American artist, 1903–72, b. Nyack, N.Y. Cornell is best known for his surrealist-flavored shadow boxes. These are relatively small constructions, within glass-fronted shallow boxes...

Conrad, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Conrad, Joseph, 1857–1924, English novelist, b. Berdichev, Russia (now Berdychiv, Ukraine), originally named Jósef Teodor Konrad Walecz Korzeniowski. Born of Polish parents, he is considered one of...

Erlanger, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Erlanger, Joseph ûrˈlăng-ər [key], 1874–1965, American scientist, b. San Francisco, grad. Univ. of California (B.S., 1895), M.D. Johns Hopkins, 1899. For his contributions to physiology, especia...

Ames, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Ames, Joseph, 1689–1759, English bibliographer. He compiled Typographical Antiquities (1749), a valuable list of English books printed before 1600. ...