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Walpole, Horace, 4th earl of Orford

(Encyclopedia)Walpole, Horace or Horatio, 4th earl of Orford, 1717–97, English author; youngest son of Sir Robert Walpole. Educated at Eton and Cambridge, he toured the Continent with his friend Thomas Gray from ...

Cumberland Gap

(Encyclopedia)Cumberland Gap, natural passage through the Cumberland Mts., near the point where Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee meet. The gap was formed by the erosive action of a stream that once flowed there. I...

Gordon setter

(Encyclopedia)Gordon setter, breed of large sporting dog developed over centuries in Scotland and brought to prominence there by the fourth duke of Gordon in the early 1800s. It stands from 23 to 27 in. (58.4–68....

Gist, Christopher

(Encyclopedia)Gist, Christopher gĭst [key], c.1706–1759, American frontiersman, b. Maryland. Commissioned by the Ohio Company to explore their western lands. In 1750 he descended the Ohio River, explored E Kentu...

MF DOOM

(Encyclopedia)MF DOOM, 1971-2020, African-American rap artist, b. London, England, as Daniel Dumile. Although born in London, Dumile was raised on Long Island. He for...

Laughlin, Robert Betts

(Encyclopedia)Laughlin, Robert Betts, 1950–, American physicist, b. Visalia, Calif., Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1979. Laughlin was a researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory from 198...

Washington, Martha

(Encyclopedia)Washington, Martha, 1731–1802, wife of George Washington, b. New Kent co., Va. The daughter of John Dandridge and Frances Jones Dandridge, she first married (1749) Daniel Parke Custis. She bore him ...

World's Columbian Exposition

(Encyclopedia)World's Columbian Exposition, held at Chicago, May–Nov., 1893, in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. Authorized (1890) by Congress, it was pl...

Egham

(Encyclopedia)Egham ĕgˈəm [key], city, Surrey, SE England. Light engineering and gravel working are the ...

Colorado–Big Thompson project

(Encyclopedia)Colorado–Big Thompson project, constructed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to divert water from the headstreams of the Colorado River to irrigate c.720,000 acres (291,400 hectares) of land in NE C...