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Linacre, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Linacre or Lynaker, Thomas both: lĭˈnəkər [key], 1460?–1524, English humanist and physician. He took the degree of doctor of medicine at the Univ. of Padua, returned to England c.1492, and becam...

Sylvester, James Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Sylvester, James Joseph, 1814–97, English mathematician. He studied at Cambridge for four years after 1831, but because degrees were limited to members of the Church of England and he was a Jew, he ...

Zimmermann note

(Encyclopedia)Zimmermann note, secret telegram sent on Jan. 16, 1917, by German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmermann to Count Johann von Bernstorff, the German ambassador to the United States. In it Zimmermann said ...

minstrel show

(Encyclopedia)minstrel show, stage entertainment by white performers made up as blacks. Thomas Dartmouth Rice, who gave (c.1828) the first solo performance in blackface and introduced the song-and-dance act Jim Cro...

Boston Public Library

(Encyclopedia)Boston Public Library, founded in 1848, chiefly through the gift of Joshua Bates, and opened to the public in 1854. It is the oldest free public city library supported by taxation in the world and the...

Enron Corporation

(Encyclopedia)Enron Corporation, U.S. company that in 2001 became the largest bankruptcy and stock collapse in U.S. history up to that time. The company was formed in 1985 when InterNorth purchased Houston Natural ...

Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron

(Encyclopedia)Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron tĕnˈĭsən [key], 1809–92, English poet. The most famous poet of the Victorian age, he was a profound spokesman for the ideas and values of his times. Tenny...

Eight, the

(Encyclopedia)Eight, the, group of American artists in New York City, formed in 1908 to exhibit paintings. They were men of widely different tendencies, held together mainly by their common opposition to academism....

crossword puzzle

(Encyclopedia)crossword puzzle, word game in which words corresponding to numbered clues are put into a grid of horizontal and vertical squares to form intersecting words. The puzzle is solved when a player supplie...

Horton, Lester

(Encyclopedia)Horton, Lester, 1906–53, American modern dancer, choreographer, and teacher, b. Indianapolis. Moving to California in 1928, Horton formed his own company in Los Angeles and also performed in theater...