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Selkirk, Alexander

(Encyclopedia)Selkirk, Alexander sĕlˈkərk [key], 1676–1721, Scottish sailor whose adventures suggested to Daniel Defoe the story of Robinson Crusoe (1719). In 1704, as a sailing master, Selkirk quarreled with ...

Waterloo, city, United States

(Encyclopedia)Waterloo, city (1990 pop. 66,467), seat of Black Hawk co., NE Iowa, on the Cedar River; inc. 1868. Originally a center for sawmills and flour mills, Waterloo is a trade and industrial center in a farm...

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

(Encyclopedia)Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 1807–82, American poet, b. Portland, Maine, grad. Bowdoin College, 1825. He wrote some of the most popular poems in American literature, in which he created a new body o...

Arber, Werner

(Encyclopedia)Arber, Werner vĕrˈnər ärˈbər [key], 1929–, Swiss microbiologist. A professor at the Univ. of Geneva (1960–70) and later at the Univ. of Basel (1971–), Arber worked with Daniel Nathans and ...

Islington

(Encyclopedia)Islington ĭzˈlĭngtən [key], inner borough of Greater London, SE England. Islington, in the ...

Choate, Rufus

(Encyclopedia)Choate, Rufus chōt [key], 1799–1859, American lawyer and Congressman, b. Essex co., Mass.; uncle of Joseph Hodges Choate. Admitted to the bar in 1823, Rufus Choate gained national reputation as a l...

Manicouagan Reservoir

(Encyclopedia)Manicouagan Reservoir mănĭkwägˈən [key], annular artifical lake, 750 sq mi (1,942 sq km), SE Que., Canada, in a heavily forested area of the Canadian Shield. It has a maximum depth of 1,150 ft (3...

Gabriel

(Encyclopedia)Gabriel gāˈbrēəl [key], archangel, the divine herald. In the Bible he appears to Daniel (twice), to Zacharias, and to the Virgin Mary in the Annunciation (Dan. 8.16; 9.21; Luke 1.19,26,27). Christ...

Jean, Michaëlle

(Encyclopedia)Jean, Michaëlle, 1957–, Canadian journalist, filmmaker, and women's rights activist, b. Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Her family immigrated to Canada in 1968. After studying languages and literature at th...

Cockburn, Sir Alexander James Edmund

(Encyclopedia)Cockburn, Sir Alexander James Edmund, 1802–80, British jurist. He was called to the bar in 1829, and a volume of reports on election cases (1832) brought him into national prominence as a trial lawy...