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Boswell, James

(Encyclopedia)Boswell, James, 1740–95, Scottish author, b. Edinburgh; son of a distinguished judge. At his father's insistence the young Boswell reluctantly studied law. Admitted to the bar in 1766, he practiced ...

Bowdoin, James

(Encyclopedia)Bowdoin, James bōˈdən [key], 1726–90, American political leader, b. Boston. He was elected to the Massachusetts General Court in 1753 and served until 1774. Illness prevented him (1774) from taki...

Bowie, James

(Encyclopedia)Bowie, James bo͞oˈē, bōˈē [key], c.1796–1836, American frontiersman, b. Logan co., Ky. With his brother, Rezin, he engaged in land speculation in Louisiana and Arkansas. In Texas from 1828, Bo...

Bradley, James

(Encyclopedia)Bradley, James, 1693–1762, English astronomer. His discovery of the aberration of light, announced in 1728, provided an important line of evidence for the motion of the earth around the sun. In 1742...

Braid, James

(Encyclopedia)Braid, James, 1795?–1860, English surgeon and writer on hypnotism and magic. The first to use the term hypnotism instead of mesmerism or animal magnetism, he also demonstrated that it was achieved b...

Bruce, James

(Encyclopedia)Bruce, James, 1730–94, Scottish explorer in Africa. He explored Roman ruins in N Africa (1755) from Tunis to Tripoli and visited Crete, Rhodes, and Asia Minor. In 1768 he traveled down the Red Sea a...

Buchanan, James

(Encyclopedia)Buchanan, James, 1791–1868, 15th President of the United States (1857–61), b. near Mercersburg, Pa., grad. Dickinson College, 1809. Buchanan was nominated as a Democratic candidate for the pres...

Agee, James

(Encyclopedia)Agee, James āˈjē [key], 1909–55, American writer, b. Knoxville, Tenn., grad. Harvard, 1932. He soon joined the literary and journalistic life of New York City, becoming (1932) a writer for Fortun...

Bridger, James

(Encyclopedia)Bridger, James, 1804–81, American fur trader, one of the most celebrated of the mountain men, b. Virginia. He was working as a blacksmith in St. Louis when he joined the Missouri River expedition of...

Brown, James

(Encyclopedia)Brown, James, 1933–2006, African-American rhythm-and-blues singer known as the “godfather of soul,” b. Barnwell, S.C., as James Joe Brown, Jr. Abandoned by his parents, he left school in the sev...