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Birrell, Augustine

(Encyclopedia)Birrell, Augustine bĭrˈəl [key], 1850–1933, English essayist and public official. As chief secretary for Ireland (1907–16) his failure to end the plotting that resulted in the Easter Rebellion ...

Ndebele

(Encyclopedia)Ndebele mătəbēˈlē [key], Bantu-speaking people inhabiting Matabeleland North and South, W Zimbabwe. The Ndebele, now numbering close to 2 million, originated as a tribal following in 1823, when M...

Bush, Vannevar

(Encyclopedia)Bush, Vannevar vănˈəvər [key], 1890–1974, American electrical engineer and physicist, b. Everett, Mass., grad. Tufts College (B.S., 1913). He went to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) ...

McLane, Louis

(Encyclopedia)McLane, Louis, 1786–1857, American statesman, b. Smyrna, Del. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1817–27) and in the Senate (1827–29), resigning to become minister to England (1829â...

Key, David McKendree

(Encyclopedia)Key, David McKendree, 1824–1900, American politician and jurist, b. Greene co., Tenn. He practiced law in Chattanooga, Tenn., from 1853 to 1870, except during the Civil War, when he was an officer i...

Anne, British princess

(Encyclopedia)Anne (Anne Elizabeth Alice Louise), 1950–, British princess, only daughter of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, duke of Edinburgh. She was educated at Benenden School. In 1973 she married a Brit...

hyperbole

(Encyclopedia)hyperbole hīpûrˈbəlē [key], a figure of speech in which exceptional exaggeration is deliberately used for emphasis rather than deception. Andrew Marvell employed hyperbole throughout To His Coy M...

Dyk, Viktor

(Encyclopedia)Dyk, Viktor vĭkˈtôr dĭk [key], 1877–1931, Czech writer and nationalist. Dyk considered his novels, satires, short stories, plays, and poems as weapons in the struggle to free his country from Au...

Allen, William

(Encyclopedia)Allen, William, 1704–80, American jurist, b. Philadelphia. He and his father-in-law, Andrew Hamilton, decided the choice of Philadelphia instead of Chester as provincial capital, and he helped finan...

Feller, Bob

(Encyclopedia)Feller, Bob (Robert William Andrew Feller), 1918–2010, American baseball player, b. Van Meter, Iowa. Famous for his blazing fastball, he also had extraordinary curveballs and sinkers in his repertoi...