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Clemens, Roger

(Encyclopedia)Clemens, Roger (William Roger Clemens) klĕmˈənz [key], 1962–, American baseball player, b. Dayton, Ohio. Noted for his competitive fire and nicknamed “Roger the Rocket,” Clemens became one of...

harmony

(Encyclopedia)harmony, in music, simultaneous sounding of two or more tones and, especially, the study of chords and their relations. Harmony was the last in the development of what may be considered the basic elem...

Shaw, George Bernard

(Encyclopedia)Shaw, George Bernard, 1856–1950, Irish playwright and critic. He revolutionized the Victorian stage, then dominated by artificial melodramas, by presenting vigorous dramas of ideas. The lengthy pref...

Ginsburg, Ruth Bader

(Encyclopedia)Ginsburg, Ruth Bader, 1933–2020, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1993–2020), b. Brooklyn, N.Y., as Joan Ruth Bader. A graduate (1954) of Cornell, she attended Harvard Law School, then...

London, Jack

(Encyclopedia)London, Jack (John Griffith London), 1876–1916, American author, b. San Francisco. The illegitimate son of William Chaney, an astrologer, and Flora Wellman, a seamstress and medium, he had a poverty...

Hoover, J. Edgar

(Encyclopedia)Hoover, J. Edgar (John Edgar Hoover), 1895–1972, American administrator, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), b. Washington, D.C. Shortly after he was admitted to the bar, he enter...

Gilgamesh

(Encyclopedia)Gilgamesh gĭlˈgəmĕsh [key], in Babylonian legend, king of Uruk. He is the hero of the Gilgamesh epic, written on 12 tablets c.2000 b.c. and discovered among the ruins at Nineveh. The epic was lost...

Edward the Black Prince

(Encyclopedia)Edward the Black Prince, 1330–76, eldest son of Edward III of England. He was created duke of Cornwall in 1337, the first duke to be created in England, and prince of Wales in 1343. Joining his fath...

Hartley, Marsden

(Encyclopedia)Hartley, Marsden, 1877–1943, American painter widely considered the first great American modernist of the 20th cent., b. Lewiston, Maine. He was educated in Cleveland, but early in his career (1899)...

Ahern, Bertie

(Encyclopedia)Ahern, Bertie (Bartholomew Patrick Ahern) əhûrnˈ [key], 1951–, Irish politician, prime minister of the Republic of Ireland (1997–2008). Born into a working-class family, he studied accounting a...