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John Birch Society

(Encyclopedia)John Birch Society, ultraconservative, anti-Communist organization in the United States. It was founded in Dec., 1958, by manufacturer Robert Welch, headquartered in Belmont, Mass., and named after Jo...

Pentagon Papers

(Encyclopedia)Pentagon Papers, government study of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. Commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara in June, 1967, the 47-volume, top secret study covered the period from ...

Thurmond, Strom

(Encyclopedia)Thurmond, Strom (James Strom Thurmond) thûrˈmənd [key], 1902–2003, U.S. senator from South Carolina (1954–2003), b. Edgefield, S.C. He read law while teaching school (1923–29) and was admitte...

Beowulf

(Encyclopedia)Beowulf bāˈəwo͝olf [key], oldest English epic, probably composed in the early 8th cent. by an Anglian bard in the vicinity of Northumbria. It survives in only one manuscript, written c.a.d. 1000 b...

Nobel Prizes (table)

(Encyclopedia)Nobel Prizes

Kennedy, Ted

(Encyclopedia)Kennedy, Ted (Edward Moore Kennedy), 1932–2009, U.S. senator from Massachusetts (1962–2009), b. Boston, Mass., youngest son of Joseph P. Kennedy and the last survivor of brothers Joseph P. Kennedy...

Lowell, Josephine Shaw

(Encyclopedia)Lowell, Josephine Shaw, 1843–1905, American political reformer, b. Roxbury, Mass. Lowell, brother of Robert Gould Shaw and widow of Colonel Charle...

Murad, Ferid

(Encyclopedia)Murad, Ferid, 1936–, American pharmacologist, b. Whiting, Ind., M.D., Ph.D. Western Reserve Univ. (now Case Western Reserve Univ.), 1965. Murad taught at the Univ. of Virginia (1975–81), Stanford ...

Lunt, Alfred, and Lynn Fontanne

(Encyclopedia)Lunt, Alfred, 1893–1977, b. Milwaukee, and Lynn Fontanne fŏntănˈ [key], 1887?–1983, b. Essex, England, American acting couple. Lunt made his debut in Boston (1913), toured in vaudeville, and wo...

Stephen

(Encyclopedia)Stephen, 1097?–1154, king of England (1135–54). The son of Stephen, count of Blois and Chartres, and Adela, daughter of William I of England, he was brought up by his uncle, Henry I of England, wh...