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Wyss, Johann David

(Encyclopedia)Wyss, Johann David yōˈhän däˈvĭt vēs [key], 1743–1818, Swiss author. His Swiss Family Robinson (1813, tr. 1814), an internationally popular classic for children, relates the adventures of a s...

Böttger, Johann Friedrich

(Encyclopedia)Böttger, Johann Friedrich yōˈhän frēˈdrĭkh bötˈgər [key], 1682–1719, German chemist and originator of Dresden china. When the Swedish invasion of Saxony occurred (1706), Böttger and his a...

Basedow, Johann Bernhard

(Encyclopedia)Basedow, Johann Bernhard yōhänˈ bĕrnˈhärt bäˈzədō [key], 1723–90, German educator, b. Hamburg, educated in Hamburg and at the Univ. of Leipzig. Later he taught in Denmark (1753) and German...

Struensee, Johann Friedrich

(Encyclopedia)Struensee, Johann Friedrich yōˈhän frēˈdrĭkh shtro͞oˈənzā, stro͞oˈ– [key], 1737–72, Danish politician, b. Germany. As physician to Christian VII he gained complete mastery over the ins...

Zeuss, Johann Caspar

(Encyclopedia)Zeuss, Johann Caspar yōˈhän käsˈpär tsois [key], 1806–56, German philologist. Zeuss's principal scholarly achievement was his establishment of the basis for the study of Celtic in his Grammati...

Burckhardt, Johann Ludwig

(Encyclopedia)Burckhardt, Johann Ludwig or John Lewis bo͝orkˈhärt [key], 1784–1817, European explorer, b. Switzerland, educated in Germany. Supported by an English association for promoting African discovery,...

Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich

(Encyclopedia)Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich yōhänˈ frēˈdrĭkh blo͞oˈmənbäkh [key], 1752–1840, German naturalist and anthropologist. He introduced and developed the science of comparative anatomy in German...

Bluntschli, Johann Kaspar

(Encyclopedia)Bluntschli, Johann Kaspar yōˈhän käsˈpär blo͝onchˈlē [key], 1808–81, Swiss jurist and political scientist. Trained at the Univ. of Berlin, he taught law at Zürich, Munich, and Heidelberg. ...

Bode, Johann Elert

(Encyclopedia)Bode, Johann Elert yōˈhän āˈlĕrt bōˈdə [key], 1747–1826, German astronomer. From 1772 to 1825 he was astronomer of the Academy of Science, Berlin, and from 1786, director of the Berlin Obse...

Bodmer, Johann Jakob

(Encyclopedia)Bodmer, Johann Jakob yōˈhän yäˈkôp bōdˈmər [key], 1698–1783, Swiss critic, poet, and editor. He translated Milton's Paradise Lost and Middle High German poetry. Inspired by the Spectator, B...