(Encyclopedia) Shannon, Wilson, 1802–77. American political leader, Mount Olivet, Ohio. A lawyer, he entered politics and was governor of Ohio (1838–40, 1842–44), minister to Mexico (1844–45), and a…
(Encyclopedia) Wilson, Alexander, 1766–1813, American ornithologist, b. Scotland. He came to the United States c.1794, taught in rural New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and became a citizen in 1804.…
(Encyclopedia) Wilson, August, 1945–2005, American playwright and poet, b. Pittsburgh as Frederick August Kittel, Jr. Largely self-educated, Wilson first attracted wide critical attention with his…
(Encyclopedia) Wilson, Benjamin, 1721–88, English portrait painter and electrician who opposed Benjamin Franklin's theory of positive and negative electricity. Instead, Wilson supported Newton's…
(Encyclopedia) Wilson, Colin, 1931–2013, English writer, b. Leicester. Born into a working-class family and largely self-educated, Wilson in many of his books exhorts humankind to expand its powers…
(Encyclopedia) Wilson, Edmund, 1895–1972, American critic and author, b. Red Bank, N.J. grad. Princeton, 1916. He is considered one of the most important American literary and social critics of the…
(Encyclopedia) Wilson, Harold (James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx), 1916–95, British statesman. A graduate of Oxford, he became an economics lecturer there (1937) and a fellow of…
(Encyclopedia) Wilson, Henry, 1812–75, American politician, Vice President of the United States (1873–75), b. Farmington, N.H. At 21 he legally changed his name from Jeremiah Jones Colbath, and as…
