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Blow, John

(Encyclopedia)Blow, John, 1649–1708, English composer. He was organist and choirmaster at Westminster Abbey and the Chapel Royal and the teacher of Henry Purcell. He wrote more than 100 anthems and 10 sacred serv...

Updike, John

(Encyclopedia)Updike, John, 1932–2009, American author, one of the nation's most distinguished 20th-century men of letters, b. Shillington, Pa., grad. Harvard, 1954. In his many novels and stories, written in a w...

Wayne, John

(Encyclopedia)Wayne, John, 1907–79, American movie actor, b. Winterset, Iowa, as Marion Michael Morrison. An enduringly popular movie star from his debut in 1930, Wayne combined the toughness necessary to play we...

Webster, John

(Encyclopedia)Webster, John, 1580?–1634, English dramatist, b. London. Although little is known of his life, there is evidence that he worked for Philip Henslowe, collaborating with such playwrights as Dekker and...

Zizka, John

(Encyclopedia)Zizka, John yän zhēshˈkä [key], d. 1424, Bohemian military leader and head of the Hussite forces during the anti-Hussite crusades of Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund. Before the Hussite Wars, which ga...

Berryman, John

(Encyclopedia)Berryman, John bĕrˈēmən [key], 1914–72, American poet and critic, b. McAlester, Okla., as John Allyn Smith, Jr., grad. Columbia, 1936, also studied at Cambridge. His father committed suicide whe...

Wesley, John

(Encyclopedia)Wesley, John, 1703–91, English evangelical preacher, founder of Methodism, b. Epworth, Lincolnshire. After his conversion, Wesley became involved in evangelistic work, in the course of which he is...

Callahan, Harry Morey

(Encyclopedia)Callahan, Harry Morey, 1912–99, American photographer, b. Detroit. Self-taught, he began taking pictures (1938) as a hobby and, inspired by the work of Ansel Adams, began to produce professional-qua...

National Republican party

(Encyclopedia)National Republican party, in U.S. history, a short-lived political party opposed to Andrew Jackson. In the election of 1828, which Jackson won overwhelmingly, some of the supporters of his opponent, ...

dime novels

(Encyclopedia)dime novels, swift-moving, thrilling novels, mainly about the American Revolution, the frontier period, and the Civil War. The books were first sold in 1860 for 10 cents by the firm of Beadle and Adam...