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Thomson, Mortimer Neal

(Encyclopedia)Thomson or Thompson, Mortimer Neal, 1831–75, American journalist and humorist who used the pseudonym Q. K. Philander Doesticks, P.B., b. Riga, N.Y. He joined the staff of the New York Tribune in 185...

Ross, Betsy

(Encyclopedia)Ross, Betsy, 1752–1836, American seamstress, b. Philadelphia. Her full name was Elizabeth Griscom Ross Ashburn Claypoole. She is known to have made flags during the American Revolution, although the...

Challenger expedition

(Encyclopedia)Challenger expedition, British oceanographic expedition under the direction of the Scottish professor Charles Wyville Thompson and the British naturalist Sir John Murray. Taking place from 1872 to 187...

Greenaway, Kate

(Encyclopedia)Greenaway, Kate, 1846–1901, English illustrator and watercolorist. She is famous for her fanciful, humorous, delicately colored drawings of child life. She influenced children's clothing and the ill...

Monod, Jacques

(Encyclopedia)Monod, Jacques zhäk mônōˈ [key], 1910–76, French biologist, educated at the Univ. of Paris (D.Sc., 1941). He was a leader of the French resistance in World War II. He shared the 1965 Nobel Prize...

Solvay process

(Encyclopedia)Solvay process [for Ernest Solvay], commercial process for the manufacture of sodium carbonate (washing soda). Ammonia and carbon dioxide are passed into a saturated sodium chloride solution to form s...

Chadwick, Sir James

(Encyclopedia)Chadwick, Sir James, 1891–1974, English physicist, grad. Manchester Univ., 1908. He worked at Manchester under Ernest Rutherford on radioactivity. He was assistant director of radioactive research i...

Ferdinand, czar of Bulgaria

(Encyclopedia)Ferdinand, 1861–1948, czar of Bulgaria (1908–18), after being ruling prince (1887–1908). A grandnephew of Ernest I of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, he was chosen prince of Bulgaria after the enforced abdic...

Filson, John

(Encyclopedia)Filson, John, c.1753–1788, Kentucky pioneer, b. Chester co., Pa. In 1783 he acquired land in Kentucky, taught school, and wrote Discovery, Settlement, and Present State of Kentucke (1784). This firs...

Mitford, Nancy

(Encyclopedia)Mitford, Nancy, 1904–73, English novelist and biographer, b. London. She managed a London bookshop during World War II and moved to Paris in 1945. Mitford and her five celebrated and politically div...