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Eve, in genetics

(Encyclopedia)Eve, in genetics, popular term for a theoretical female ancestor of all living people, also known as Mitochondrial Eve. In 1987 biochemist Allan C. Wilson proposed that all living human beings had inh...

Edwards, Jonathan, 1703–58, American theologian and metaphysician

(Encyclopedia)Edwards, Jonathan, 1703–58, American theologian and metaphysician, b. East Windsor (then in Windsor), Conn. He was a precocious child, early interested in things scientific, intellectual, and spirit...

Great Awakening

(Encyclopedia)Great Awakening, series of religious revivals that swept over the American colonies about the middle of the 18th cent. It resulted in doctrinal changes and influenced social and political thought. In ...

academic freedom

(Encyclopedia)academic freedom, right of scholars to pursue research, to teach, and to publish without control or restraint from the institutions that employ them. It is a civil right that is enjoyed, at least in s...

Darwinism

(Encyclopedia)Darwinism, concept of evolution developed in the mid-19th cent. by Charles Robert Darwin. Darwin's meticulously documented observations led him to question the then current belief in special creation ...

Lindbergh, Charles Augustus, 1902–74, American aviator

(Encyclopedia)Lindbergh, Charles Augustus, 1902–74, American aviator who made the first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight, b. Detroit; son of Charles A. Lindbergh (1859–1924). He left the Univ. of Wisconsin (1...

Whistler, James Abbott McNeill

(Encyclopedia)Whistler, James Abbott McNeill, 1834–1903, American painter, etcher, wit, and eccentric, b. Lowell, Mass. Whistler was dismissed from West Point for insufficient knowledge of chemistry and from the ...

biography

(Encyclopedia)biography, reconstruction in print or on film, of the lives of real men and women. Together with autobiography—an individual's interpretation of his own life—it shares a venerable tradition, meeti...

Washington, Booker Taliaferro

(Encyclopedia)Washington, Booker Taliaferro, 1856–1915, American educator, b. Franklin co., Va. Washington was born into slavery; his mother was a mulatto slave on a plantation, his father a white man whom he nev...

Donne, John

(Encyclopedia)Donne, John dŭn, dŏn [key], 1572–1631, English poet and divine. He is considered the greatest of the metaphysical poets. All of Donne's verse—his love sonnets and his religious and philosophic...