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micromechanics

(Encyclopedia)micromechanics, the combination of minuscule electrical and mechanical components in a single device less than 1 mm across, such as a valve or a motor. Although micromechanical production processes an...

Nightingale, Florence

(Encyclopedia)Nightingale, Florence, 1820–1910, English nurse, the founder of modern nursing, b. Florence, Italy. Her life was dedicated to the care of the sick and war wounded and to the promotion of her vision ...

Merwin, W. S.

(Encyclopedia)Merwin, W. S. (William Stanley Merwin), 1927–2019, American poet and translator, b. New York City. After graduating from Princeton in 1948, he traveled in Europe, working as a tutor and studying Rom...

Le Nôtre, André

(Encyclopedia)Le Nôtre, André äNdrāˈ lənōˈtrə [key], 1613–1700, the most famous landscape architect in French history, b. near the Tuileries; studied drawing with Simon Vouet at the Louvre. Le Nôtre's f...

Kino, Eusebio Francisco

(Encyclopedia)Kino, Eusebio Francisco āo͞osāˈbyō fränsēsˈkō kēˈnō [key], c.1644–1711, missionary explorer in the American Southwest, b. Segno, in the Tyrol. He was in 1669 admitted to the Jesuit order...

art history

(Encyclopedia)art history, the study of works of art and architecture. In the mid-19th cent., art history was raised to the status of an academic discipline by the Swiss Jacob Burckhardt, who related art to its cul...

Welty, Eudora

(Encyclopedia)Welty, Eudora, 1909–2001, American author, b. Jackson, Miss., grad. Univ. of Wisconsin, 1929. One of the important American regional writers of the 20th cent. and one of the finest short-story write...

Bright, John

(Encyclopedia)Bright, John, 1811–89, British statesman and orator. He was the son of a Quaker cotton manufacturer in Lancashire. A founder (1839) of the Anti-Corn Law League, he rose to prominence on the strength...

rare-earth metals

(Encyclopedia)rare-earth metals, in chemistry, group of metals including those of the lanthanide series and actinide series and usually yttrium, sometimes scandium and thorium, and rarely zirconium. Promethium, whi...

Stimson, Henry Lewis

(Encyclopedia)Stimson, Henry Lewis, 1867–1950, American statesman, b. New York City. A graduate of Yale and of Harvard, he became associated with Elihu Root in law practice in New York City. Stimson was (1906–9...