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Burnett, James

(Encyclopedia)Burnett, James: see Monboddo, James Burnett, Lord. ...

Butler, James

(Encyclopedia)Butler, James: see Ormonde, James Butler, 12th earl and 1st duke of. ...

Bolger, James

(Encyclopedia)Bolger, James bōlˈjər [key], 1935–, New Zealand political leader. A sheep rancher, he entered Parliament in 1972 as a member of the National party. In Robert Muldoon's government, he served as mi...

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 ...

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...

Blair, James

(Encyclopedia)Blair, James, 1656–1743, Church of England clergyman, missionary to colonial Virginia, and founder of the College of William and Mary, b. Scotland. At the request of the bishop of London, Blair trav...

Stephens, James

(Encyclopedia)Stephens, James, 1882–1950, Irish poet and fiction writer, b. Dublin. One of the leading figures of the Irish literary renaissance, Stephens is best known for his fanciful and highly colored prose w...