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Smith, Kirby

(Encyclopedia)Smith, Kirby: see Smith, Edmund Kirby. ...

Ellsworth, Lincoln

(Encyclopedia)Ellsworth, Lincoln, 1880–1951, American explorer, b. Chicago, Ill. He was a surveyor and engineer in railroad building and later a prospector and mining engineer in NW Canada. He became the financia...

Dunstan, Saint

(Encyclopedia)Dunstan, Saint dŭnsˈtən [key], c.910–88, English monk, archbishop of Canterbury (960–88), b. near Glastonbury. He lived as a monk until called (940) to court by King Edmund of Wessex. He became...

Nootka Sound

(Encyclopedia)Nootka Sound, inlet of the Pacific Ocean and natural harbor on the west coast of Vancouver Island, SW British Columbia, Canada, lying between the mainland and Nootka Island (206 sq mi/534 sq km). The ...

Percy, Sir Henry

(Encyclopedia)Percy, Sir Henry, 1366–1403, English nobleman, called Hotspur or Henry Hotspur; son of Henry Percy, 1st earl of Northumberland. In 1388 he participated in the famous battle of Otterburn, or Chevy Ch...

Escalante, Silvestre Vélez de

(Encyclopedia)Escalante, Silvestre Vélez de sēlvāˈstrā vāˈlāth dā āskälänˈtā [key], fl. 1769–79, Spanish explorer in the American Southwest and Far West, a Franciscan missionary. He was in charge of...

Smibert, John

(Encyclopedia)Smibert or Smybert, John both: smīˈbərt [key], 1688–1751, American portrait painter, b. Scotland, the first skillful painter in New England. After his apprenticeship to an Edinburgh house painter...

Mather, John Cromwell

(Encyclopedia)Mather, John Cromwell, 1946–, American astrophysicist, b. Roanoke, Va., Ph.D. Univ. of California, Berkeley, 1974. He has been a researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., s...

O'Higgins, Ambrosio

(Encyclopedia)O'Higgins, Ambrosio ōhĭgˈĭnz, Span. ämbrōˈsyō ōēˈgēns [key], 1720?–1801, Spanish colonial administrator, b. Ballinary, Co. Sligo, Ireland. Educated at Cádiz, Spain, under the care of hi...

Stanley, Sir Henry Morton

(Encyclopedia)Stanley, Sir Henry Morton, 1841–1904, Anglo-American journalist, explorer, and empire builder, b. Denbigh, Wales. He grew up in poverty and came to America as a worker on a ship, which he jumped (18...