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Muggleton, Lodowicke

(Encyclopedia)Muggleton, Lodowicke, 1609–98, English religious leader, a journeyman tailor. With his cousin John Reeve, also a tailor, he founded a new sect, whose adherents were known as Muggletonians. In 1652, ...

McDonald, Arthur Bruce

(Encyclopedia)McDonald, Arthur Bruce, 1943–, Canadian astrophysicist, Ph.D. California Institute of Technology, 1969. McDonald was a researcher at the Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories in Ottawa, Canada, from 1970...

sidereal time

(Encyclopedia)sidereal time (ST), time measured relative to the fixed stars; thus, the sidereal day is the period during which the earth completes one rotation on its axis so that some chosen star appears twice on ...

Cirque du Soleil

(Encyclopedia)Cirque du Soleil, [Fr.,=circus of the sun], innovative Canadian circus, est. 1984, with headquarters in Montreal. The best-known exemplar of cirque nouveau, Cirque du Soleil is a mixture of spectacle,...

Deneb

(Encyclopedia)Deneb dĕnˈĕb [key], brightest star in the constellation Cygnus; Bayer designation Alpha Cygni; 1992 position R.A. 20h41.2m, Dec. +45°15′. It is a white supergiant of spectral class A2 Ia; its in...

Poston, Charles Debrill

(Encyclopedia)Poston, Charles Debrill pōsˈtən [key], 1825–1902, American explorer and author, b. Hardin co., Ky. After practicing law in Tennessee, he moved to California in 1850 and from there led a party to ...

‘Oumuamua

(Encyclopedia)‘Oumuamua ōmo͞oˈəmo͞oˈə [key], officially 1I/2017 U1 (‘Oumuamua), interstellar object, the first to be discovered in the solar system. Highly variable in brightness, it also is highly and u...

Fry, Christopher

(Encyclopedia)Fry, Christopher, 1907–2005, English dramatist, b. Bristol as Christopher Fry Harris. Like his friend and mentor, T. S. Eliot, he was one of the few 20th-century dramatists to write successfully in ...

Hobby, Oveta Culp

(Encyclopedia)Hobby, Oveta Culp, 1905–95, American public official and newspaper publisher, U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare (1953–55), b. Killeen, Tex. She served as parliamentarian of the Texas...

Jerusalem artichoke

(Encyclopedia)Jerusalem artichoke, tuberous-rooted perennial (Helianthus tuberosus) of the family Asteraceae (aster family), native to North America, where it was early cultivated by the indigenous inhabitants. In ...