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Antirent War

(Encyclopedia)Antirent War, in U.S. history, tenant uprising in New York state. When Stephen Van Rensselaer, owner of Rensselaerswyck, died in 1839, his heirs attempted to collect unpaid rents. Tenants on the estat...

Cocteau, Jean

(Encyclopedia)Cocteau, Jean zhäN kôktōˈ [key], 1889–1963, French writer, visual artist, and filmmaker. He experimented audaciously in almost every artistic medium, becoming a leader of the French avant-garde ...

Feuerbach, Ludwig Andreas

(Encyclopedia)Feuerbach, Ludwig Andreas foiˈərbäkh [key], 1804–72, German philosopher, educated at Heidelberg and Berlin; son of Paul Johann Anselm von Feuerbach. At first a Hegelian, he abandoned absolute id...

Tippett, Sir Michael

(Encyclopedia)Tippett, Sir Michael, 1905–98, English composer, b. London. Tippett studied at the Royal College of Music. During World War II he was briefly imprisoned as a conscientious objector. His strongly hel...

parallel processing

(Encyclopedia)parallel processing, the concurrent or simultaneous execution of two or more parts of a single computer program, at speeds far exceeding those of a conventional computer. Parallel processing requires ...

Skelton, John

(Encyclopedia)Skelton, John, 1460–1529, English poet and humanist. Tutor to Prince Henry (later Henry VIII), he later (c.1502) became rector of Diss, Norfolk. In 1512 he began to call himself royal orator, a posi...

Stewart, Martha

(Encyclopedia)Stewart, Martha, 1941–, American entrepeneur and tastemaker, b. Jersey City, N.J., as Martha Helen Kostyra, grad. Barnard College (1963). Moving to Westport, Conn., she started (1976) a successful c...

Urdu

(Encyclopedia)Urdu o͞orˈdo͞o [key], language belonging to the Indic group of the Indo-Iranian subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. The official tongue of Pakistan, Urdu is also one of the 15 langu...

Scorsese, Martin

(Encyclopedia)Scorsese, Martin skôrsāˈzē, –sĕzˈē [key], 1942–, American film director; b...

Synge, John Millington

(Encyclopedia)Synge, John Millington sĭng [key], 1871–1909, Irish poet and dramatist, b. near Dublin, of Protestant parents. He was an important figure in the Irish literary renaissance. As a young man he studie...