(Encyclopedia) Freedom Riders, American civil-rights demonstrators who engaged (1961) in nonviolent protests against segregation of public interstate buses and terminals in the South. From the 1940s…
(Encyclopedia) Ellington, Duke (Edward Kennedy Ellington), 1899–1974, American jazz musician and composer, b. Washington, D.C. Ellington made his first professional appearance as a jazz pianist in…
(Encyclopedia) King, B. B., 1925–2015, African-American blues singer and guitarist, b. near Indianola, Miss., as Riley B. King. He grew up poor in the Mississippi Delta region, began playing the…
(Encyclopedia) Pennebaker, D. A. (Donn Alan Pennebaker), 1925–2019, pioneering documentary filmmaker, b. Evanston, Ill. His first film, Daybreak Express (1958), is a five-minute short detailing New…
(Encyclopedia) Smithsonian Institution, research and education center, mainly at Washington, D.C.; founded 1846 under the terms of the will of James Smithson of London, who in 1829 bequeathed his…
World News | Business/Science News Here are the key events in United States news for the month of January, 2009. Richardson Withdraws Nomination for secretary of commerce…
