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Cullen, Countee

(Encyclopedia)Cullen, Countee kounˈtēˈ [key], 1903–46, American poet, b. New York City, grad. New York Univ. 1925, M.A. Harvard, 1926. A major writer of the Harlem Renaissance—a flowering of black artistic a...

Elion, Gertrude Belle

(Encyclopedia)Elion, Gertrude Belle ĕlˈēən [key], 1918–99, American pharmacologist, b. New York City, B.S. Hunter College, 1937. Unable to find research work (largely because she was a woman), she taught high...

Abrahams, Peter

(Encyclopedia)Abrahams, Peter, 1919–2017, South African novelist and journalist, b. Peter Henry Abrahams Deras. Though he lived mostly in exile, he exposed the injustices of the apartheid system and the politics ...

Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan

(Encyclopedia)Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan so͝obˌrəmänˈyən chŭnˌdrəsāˈkər [key], 1910–95, American astrophysicist, b. Lahore, India (now Pakistan). He became a professor at the Univ. of Chicago in 1938...

rosewood

(Encyclopedia)rosewood, popular name for the ornamental wood of several species of tropical trees, especially for the heartwood of certain leguminous trees of the genus Dalbergia of the family Leguminosae (pulse fa...

onager

(Encyclopedia)onager ŏnˈəjər [key] or Persian wild ass, wild ass of central Asia, Equus hemonius onager. Formerly classified as a separate species, it is one of the several subspecies of Asian wild ass (E. hemo...

Wright, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Wright, Richard, 1908–60, American author. An African American born on a Mississippi plantation, Wright struggled through a difficult childhood and worked to educate himself. He moved to Chicago in ...

Thames , river, England

(Encyclopedia)Thames tĕmz [key], Rom. Tamesis, principal river of England, c.210 mi (340 km) long. It rises in four headstreams (the Thames or Isis, Churn, Coln, and Leach) in the Cotswold Hills, E Gloucestershire...

Baraka, Amiri

(Encyclopedia)Baraka, Amiri amērē bəräˈkə [key], 1934–2014, American poet, playwright, and political activist, b. Newark, N.J., as Everett LeRoy Jones, studied at Rutgers Univ., Howard Univ. In college he a...

lampblack

(Encyclopedia)lampblack: see carbon black.