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elegy

(Encyclopedia)elegy, in Greek and Roman poetry, a poem written in elegiac verse (i.e., couplets consisting of a hexameter line followed by a pentameter line). The form dates back to 7th cent. b.c. in Greece and poe...

Athelstan

(Encyclopedia)Athelstan or Æthelstan both: ăthˈəlstən, ăthˈĕlstän [key], d. 939, king of Wessex (924–39), son and successor of Edward the Elder. After coming to the throne, he vigorously built up his kin...

Carew, George, Baron Carew of Clopton and earl of Totnes

(Encyclopedia)Carew, George, Baron Carew of Clopton and earl of Totnes kəro͞oˈ, tŏtˈnĭs [key], 1555–1629, English soldier and statesman. He began his military career in Ireland in 1574 and served (1588–92...

Peace

(Encyclopedia)Peace, river, 945 mi (1,521 km) long, formed by the junction of the Finlay and Parsnip rivers at Williston Lake, N central British Columbia, Canada. It flows east through the Rocky Mts., then generall...

Beach, Moses Yale

(Encyclopedia)Beach, Moses Yale, 1800–1868, American journalist, b. Wallingford, Conn. As a young man he invented a rag-cutting machine and a gunpowder engine. In 1838 he bought the New York Sun from his brother-...

Albany Regency

(Encyclopedia)Albany Regency, name given, after 1820, to the leaders of the first political machine, which was developed in New York state by Martin Van Buren. The name derived from the charge that Van Buren's prin...

Hammerstein, Oscar, 2d

(Encyclopedia)Hammerstein, Oscar, 2d, 1895–1960, American lyricist and librettist, b. New York City, grad. Columbia, 1916; grandson of Oscar Hammerstein. His first success was Wildflower (1923), with music by Vin...

Croker, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Croker, Richard, 1841–1922, American politician, head of Tammany Hall from 1886 to 1902, b. Co. Cork, Ireland. He became prominent as Democratic leader of New York City's East Side and as an aide of...

Chancellor, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Chancellor, Richard, d. 1556, English navigator. When, largely under the inspiration of Sebastian Cabot, a group of men in England undertook to finance a search for the Northeast Passage to Asia, Chan...

Munro, H. H.

(Encyclopedia)Munro, H. H. (Hector Hugh Munro), pseud. Saki säˈkē [key], 1870–1916, English author, b. Burma (now Myanmar). He began his career writing political satires for the Westminster Gazette, and from 1...