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Ford, John, English dramatist

(Encyclopedia)Ford, John, 1586–c.1640, English dramatist, b. Devonshire. He went to London to study law but was never called to the bar. The early part of his playwriting career was taken up with collaborations, ...

Exeter Book

(Encyclopedia)Exeter Book, manuscript volume of Old English religious and secular poetry, of various dates of composition, compiled c.975 and given to Exeter Cathedral by Bishop Leofric (d. 1072). See edition by G...

Palestine, city, United States

(Encyclopedia)Palestine pălˈəstēn [key], city (1990 pop. 18,042), seat of Anderson co., E Tex.; inc. 1871. It is a market, processing, and rail center for a rich oil area and for the truck crops, livestock, and...

Boise project

(Encyclopedia)Boise project, in the Boise, Payette, and Snake river valleys, SW Idaho and E Oregon; developed in 1905 by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation for irrigation, hydroelectricity, flood control, and recreatio...

Floyd, John Buchanan

(Encyclopedia)Floyd, John Buchanan, 1807–63, U.S. Secretary of War (1857–60) and Confederate general, b. Smithfield, Va. After failing as a lawyer and cotton planter in Arkansas, he returned to Virginia and pra...

Stout, Rex

(Encyclopedia)Stout, Rex, 1886–1975, American writer, b. Noblesville, Ind. He served in the navy and worked in New York City as founder and director of the Vanguard Press. His best-known works are nearly 70 myste...

Macarthur, Mary Reid

(Encyclopedia)Macarthur, Mary Reid, 1880–1921, British labor organizer, b. Glasgow, Scotland. Working in her father's draper's shop, she became prominent in the shop assistants' union. As the representative of th...

mechanism

(Encyclopedia)mechanism, philosophical theory about the nature of organic systems, holding that organisms are machines in the sense that they are material systems. Mechanism seeks to explain biological processes, i...

Daughters of the American Revolution

(Encyclopedia)Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), a Colonial patriotic society in the United States, open to women having one or more ancestors who aided the cause of the Revolution. The society was organiz...

Smart, Christopher

(Encyclopedia)Smart, Christopher, 1722–71, English poet. A graduate of Cambridge, he lived in London writing poems, editing a humorous magazine, and producing plays. His one great poem, Song to David (1763), an i...