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Thousand and One Nights

(Encyclopedia)Thousand and One Nights or Arabian Nights, series of anonymous stories in Arabic, considered as an entity to be among the classics of world literature. The cohesive plot device concerns the efforts of...

Olmsted, Frederick Law

(Encyclopedia)Olmsted, Frederick Law, 1822–1903, American landscape architect and writer, b. Hartford, Conn. Although his Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England had appeared in 1852, Olmsted first attai...

Jordan, Camille

(Encyclopedia)Jordan, Camille kämēˈyə zhôrdäNˈ [key], 1771–1821, French writer and political figure. A moderate supporter of the French Revolution, he fled France during the Reign of Terror and again after...

Stubbs, George

(Encyclopedia)Stubbs, George, 1724–1806, English painter known for his studies of horses. Self-taught, Stubbs was interested in comparative anatomy and published his Anatomy of the Horse (1766), which is still ad...

Smith, Stevie

(Encyclopedia)Smith, Stevie (Margaret Florence Smith), 1902–71, English poet and novelist, b. Hull, Yorkshire. At first unnoticed as a poet, she worked in a London publisher's office until 1953. Steadily gaining ...

Zechariah, book of the Bible

(Encyclopedia)Zechariah zĕkˌərīˈə [key], prophetic book of the Bible, which dates from 520 b.c.–518 b.c. at Jerusalem. The prophet was associated with Haggai in a movement to restore the Temple. The book, a...

Cumberland Gap

(Encyclopedia)Cumberland Gap, natural passage through the Cumberland Mts., near the point where Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee meet. The gap was formed by the erosive action of a stream that once flowed there. I...

Chamberlin, Thomas Chrowder

(Encyclopedia)Chamberlin, Thomas Chrowder, 1843–1928, American geologist, b. Mattoon, Ill., grad. Beloit College, 1866. He was professor of geology at Beloit (1873–82), president of the Univ. of Wisconsin (1887...

Hooker, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Hooker, Thomas, 1586–1647, Puritan clergyman in the American colonies, chief founder of Hartford, Conn., b. Leicestershire, England. A clergyman, he was ordered to appear before the court of high co...

Boyer, Paul Delos

(Encyclopedia)Boyer, Paul Delos, 1918–2018, American biochemist, b. Provo, Utah, Ph.D. Univ. of Wisconsin–Madison, 1943. Boyer taught at the Univ. of Minnesota, first in Saint Paul (1946–56) and then in Minne...