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Gottfried von Strassburg

(Encyclopedia)Gottfried von Strassburg gôtˈfrēt fən shträsˈbo͝orkh [key], fl. 13th cent., German poet, also called Godfrey of Strasbourg. He is thought to have been official scribe of Strasbourg, but little ...

Girard, Stephen

(Encyclopedia)Girard, Stephen jĭrärdˈ [key], 1750–1831, American merchant, banker, and philanthropist, b. Bordeaux, France. Girard went to sea and at the age of 23 was a captain. In 1776 he settled in Philadel...

Frohman, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Frohman, Charles frōˈmən [key], 1860–1915, American theatrical manager and producer, b. Sandusky, Ohio. Starting his career as a box-office clerk in Brooklyn, N.Y., Frohman became a successful pr...

Fry, Christopher

(Encyclopedia)Fry, Christopher, 1907–2005, English dramatist, b. Bristol as Christopher Fry Harris. Like his friend and mentor, T. S. Eliot, he was one of the few 20th-century dramatists to write successfully in ...

Kahn, Otto Hermann

(Encyclopedia)Kahn, Otto Hermann kän [key], 1867–1934, American banker and patron of the arts, born and educated in Germany. He emigrated to the United States in 1893 and in 1897 joined the banking firm of Kuhn,...

Empedocles

(Encyclopedia)Empedocles ĕmpĕdˈəklēz [key], c.495–c.435 b.c., Greek philosopher, b. Acragas (present Agrigento), Sicily. Leader of the democratic faction in his native city, he was offered the crown, which h...

Sholokhov, Mikhail Aleksandrovich

(Encyclopedia)Sholokhov, Mikhail Aleksandrovich mēkhəyĕlˈ əlyĭksänˈdrəvĭch shôˈləkhŏf [key], 1905–84, Russian novelist. Sholokhov won international fame for an epic novel of his native land, The Sil...

perestroika

(Encyclopedia)perestroika pərˈĕstroyˈkə [key], Soviet economic and social policy of the late 1980s. Perestroika [restructuring] was the term attached to the attempts (1985–91) by Mikhail Gorbachev to transfo...

Soutine, Chaïm

(Encyclopedia)Soutine, Chaïm khīˈyĭm so͞otēnˈ [key], 1893–1943, French expressionist painter, b. near Minsk, Russia (now Belarus). He went to Paris in 1913 and joined the bohemian society of the school of ...

Beadle, George Wells

(Encyclopedia)Beadle, George Wells, 1903–89, American geneticist, b. Wahoo, Nebr., grad. Univ. of Nebraska (B.S., 1926; M.S., 1927), Ph.D. Cornell, 1931. Beadle taught (1931–36) biology at the California Instit...