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Wallace, Sir Richard

(Encyclopedia)Wallace, Sir Richard, 1818–90, English art collector. The illegitimate son of the marquess of Hertford, he inherited in 1871 his father's superb collection of continental art, which he had helped to...

Steele, Joel Dorman

(Encyclopedia)Steele, Joel Dorman, 1836–86, American educator and textbook writer, b. Lima, N.Y., grad. Genesee College (now Syracuse Univ.), 1858. While serving as principal of the Elmira (N.Y.) Free Academy (18...

Leonard, Elmore

(Encyclopedia)Leonard, Elmore (John Elmore Leonard), 1925–2013, American novelist, b. New Orleans, grad. Univ. of Detroit (1950). “Dutch” Leonard began publishing Western tales in the early 1950s, the best kn...

Mansfield, Katherine

(Encyclopedia)Mansfield, Katherine, 1888–1923, British author, b. New Zealand, regarded as one of the masters of the short story. Her original name was Kathleen Beauchamp. A talented cellist, she did not turn to ...

honey badger

(Encyclopedia)honey badger or ratel rātˈəl [key], carnivore, Mellivora capensis, of the forest and brush country of Africa, the Middle East, and India; it is a member of the badger and skunk family. Related to t...

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

(Encyclopedia)Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, collective name given several English monastic chronicles in Anglo-Saxon, all stemming from a compilation made from old annals and other sources c.891. Although the work was tho...

Haneke, Michael

(Encyclopedia)Haneke, Michael häˈnəkə [key], 1942–, Austrian film director and screenwriter, b. Munich, Germany. In the 1970s and 80s, he wrote and directed for television and the theater. His first film, The...

Earhart, Amelia

(Encyclopedia)Earhart, Amelia ârˈhärt [key], 1897–1937, American aviator, b. Atchison, Kans. She was the first woman to cross the Atlantic by airplane (1928) and the first woman to make a solo flight across th...

drought

(Encyclopedia)drought, abnormally long period of insufficient rainfall. Drought cannot be defined in terms of inches of rainfall or number of days without rain, since it is determined by such variable factors as th...

Comstock Lode

(Encyclopedia)Comstock Lode, richest known U.S. silver deposit, W Nevada, on Mt. Davidson in the Virginia Range. It is said to have been discovered in 1857 by Ethan Allen Grosh and Hosea Ballou Grosh, sons of a Pen...