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Burbidge, Margaret

(Encyclopedia)Burbidge, Margaret, 1925–2020, Anglo-American astronomer, b. England as Eleanor Margaret Peachey. Burbidge; her husband, Geoffrey Burbidge; William Fowler; and Sir Fred Hoyle showed (1956) how heavi...

Yacine, Kateb

(Encyclopedia)Yacine, Kateb käˈtāb yäˈsēn [key], 1929–89, Algerian author. In 1945 he moved to Paris and afterward traveled in Europe and Asia. His most famous work is the novel Nedjma (1957, tr. 1961, new ...

Blackwell, Antoinette Louisa (Brown)

(Encyclopedia)Blackwell, Antoinette Louisa (Brown), 1825–1921, American Unitarian minister, b. Henrietta, N.Y., grad. Oberlin College, 1847, and Oberlin Theological Seminary, 1850. One of the first women to recei...

Bonheur, Rosa

(Encyclopedia)Bonheur, Rosa bənörˈ [key], 1822–99, French painter, mainly of animals. She was a pupil of her father, Raymond Bonheur. Her paintings were regularly exhibited in the Salon from 1841. Bonheur's in...

monsters and imaginary beasts

(Encyclopedia)monsters and imaginary beasts. The mythologies and legends of ancient and modern cultures teem with an enormous variety of monsters and imaginary beasts. A great number of these are composites of diff...

Medusa, in Greek mythology

(Encyclopedia)Medusa mədo͞oˈsə [key], in Greek mythology, most famous of the three monstrous Gorgon sisters. She was once a beautiful woman, but she offended Athena, who changed her hair into snakes and made he...

mermaid

(Encyclopedia)mermaid, in folklore, sea-dwelling creature commonly represented as having the head and body of a woman and a fishtail instead of legs. Belief in mermaids, and in their counterpart, mermen, has existe...

Aspasia

(Encyclopedia)Aspasia ăspāˈshə, –zhə [key], fl. mid-5th cent. b.c., Athenian courtesan. A woman of great beauty and intelligence, she became the mistress and, according to some poets, adviser of Pericles aft...

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra

(Encyclopedia)Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO), founded 1916. Originally a branch of the city's municipal government, it was reorganized as a private institution in 1942. Its main home is the 2,443-seat Joseph Me...

Viebig, Clara

(Encyclopedia)Viebig, Clara kläˈrä fēˈbĭkh [key], 1860–1952, German novelist of the naturalist school. A skillful and sympathetic portrayer of working-class women, she wrote many novels, among them Das Weib...