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tobacco

(Encyclopedia)tobacco, name for any plant of the genus Nicotiana of the Solanaceae family (nightshade family) and for the product manufactured from the leaf and used in cigars and cigarettes, snuff, and pipe and ch...

McClellan, George Brinton

(Encyclopedia)McClellan, George Brinton, 1826–85, Union general in the American Civil War, b. Philadelphia. After graduating (1846) from West Point, he served with distinction in the Mexican War and later worked ...

Astor, Nancy Witcher (Langhorne) Astor, Viscountess

(Encyclopedia)Astor, Nancy Witcher (Langhorne) Astor, Viscountess, 1879–1964, British politician, b. Virginia. She was first married to Robert Gould Shaw, and after her divorce (1903) from him she went to England...

Maury, Matthew Fontaine

(Encyclopedia)Maury, Matthew Fontaine fŏntānˈ môrˈē [key], 1806–73, American hydrographer and naval officer, b. near Fredericksburg, Va. Appointed a midshipman in 1825, he saw varied sea duty until a stagec...

Manassas

(Encyclopedia)Manassas mənăsˈəs [key], town (1990 pop. 27,957), seat of Prince William co., N Va., in a farm area; inc. 1873, rechartered 1938. Manassas has become a growing residential town with retail shoppin...

Murry, John Middleton

(Encyclopedia)Murry, John Middleton, 1889–1957, English critic and editor. In 1919 he became editor of the Athenaeum and in 1923 founded his own review, the Adelphi, with which he was associated until 1948. He wa...

Auerbach, Erich

(Encyclopedia)Auerbach, Erich, 1892–1957, German-American philologist, literary scholar, and critic, b. Berlin, Ph.D. Univ. of Greifswald, 1921. He is known primarily for Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in...

Hakluyt, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Hakluyt, Richard hăkˈlo͞ot, hăkˈəlwĭt [key], 1552?–1616, English geographer. He graduated in 1574 from Oxford, where he later lectured on geography. A passionate interest in the history of di...

Gilman, Alfred Goodman

(Encyclopedia)Gilman, Alfred Goodman, 1941–2015, American biochemist, b. New Haven, Conn., M.D., Ph.D. Case Western Reserve Univ., 1969. He taught at the Univ. of Virginia (1971–1981) before becoming a professo...

Fort Duquesne

(Encyclopedia)Fort Duquesne dəkānˈ, do͞o– [key], at the junction of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers, on the site of Pittsburgh, SW Pa. Because of its strategic location, it was a major objective in the l...