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minimum wage

(Encyclopedia)minimum wage, lowest wage legally permitted in an industry or in a government or other organization. The goal in establishing minimum wages has been to assure wage earners a standard of living above t...

William IV, king of Great Britain and Ireland

(Encyclopedia)William IV, 1765–1837, king of Great Britain and Ireland (1830–37), third son of George III. He went to sea in 1779, served under Admiral George Rodney in action off Cape St. Vincent (1780), and b...

Redmond, John Edward

(Encyclopedia)Redmond, John Edward, 1856–1918, Irish nationalist leader. He was elected to Parliament as a Home Rule member in 1881 at the height of the obstructionist program of Charles Parnell. When the Irish n...

Chamberlain, Wilt

(Encyclopedia)Chamberlain, Wilt (Wilton Norman Chamberlain), 1936–99, American basketball player, b. Philadelphia. At the Univ. of Kansas he was a two-time All-American center. During 14 seasons in the National B...

Grey, Charles Grey, 2d Earl

(Encyclopedia)Grey, Charles Grey, 2d Earl, 1764–1845, British statesman. Elected to Parliament in 1786, he was one of those appointed to manage the impeachment of Warren Hastings. From 1792 he was a leader of the...

Gideon v. Wainwright

(Encyclopedia)Gideon v. Wainwright, case decided in 1963 by the U.S. Supreme Court. Clarence Earl Gideon was convicted of a felony in a Florida court. He had defended himself after being denied a request for free c...

Williams, William Sherley

(Encyclopedia)Williams, William Sherley, 1787–1849, American trader and trapper, known as Old Bill Williams, b. Rutherford co., N.C. Much of his early life was spent in Missouri, where he was a traveling preacher...

WAC

(Encyclopedia)WAC (Women's Army Corps), U.S. army organization created (1942) during World War II to enlist women as auxiliaries for noncombatant duty in the U.S. army. Before 1943 it was known as the Women's Auxil...

Calamity Jane

(Encyclopedia)Calamity Jane kəlămˈĭtē jānˈ [key], c.1852–1903, American frontier character, b. Princeton, Mo. Her real name was Martha Jane Canary, and the origin of her nickname is obscure. Little is know...

Buckner, Simon Bolivar

(Encyclopedia)Buckner, Simon Bolivar, 1823–1914, Confederate general, b. Hart co., Ky., grad. West Point, 1844. In 1860, Buckner, a Louisville businessman, secured passage of a bill creating a large Kentucky mili...