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Saxe-Coburg

(Encyclopedia)Saxe-Coburg săks-kōbərg [key], Ger. Sachsen-Coburg, former duchy, central Germany. A possession of the Ernestine branch of the house of Wettin, it was given by Ernest the Pious (d. 1675) of Saxe-Go...

Couthon, Georges

(Encyclopedia)Couthon, Georges zhōrzh ko͞otôNˈ [key], 1755?–1794, French revolutionary. An able lawyer, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly (1791) and to the Convention (1792). He became (1793) an impo...

Albert I, king of the Belgians

(Encyclopedia)Albert I, 1875–1934, king of the Belgians (1909–34), nephew and successor of Leopold II. He married (1900) Elizabeth, a Bavarian princess. In World War I his heroic resistance (1914) to the German...

Blackwell, Elizabeth

(Encyclopedia)Blackwell, Elizabeth, 1821–1910, American physician, b. England; sister of Henry Brown Blackwell. She was the first woman in the United States to receive a medical degree, which was granted (1849) t...

Roland de la Platière, Jeanne Manon Philipon

(Encyclopedia)Roland de la Platière, Jeanne Manon Philipon (Mme Roland) rôläNˈ də lä plätyĕrˈ [key], 1754–93, French revolutionary. Imbued with classical ideals and with the philosophy of Rousseau, she ...

Romanus II

(Encyclopedia)Romanus II, 939–63, Byzantine emperor (959–63), son and successor of Constantine VII. A profligate, he came under the domination of his second wife, Theophano. She, along with the eunuch Joseph Br...

Peter III, king of Portugal

(Encyclopedia)Peter III, 1717–86, king of Portugal (1777–86), younger brother of Joseph. He married his niece Maria I and was joint ruler with her, though she generally was the dominant figure. ...

Cooper, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Cooper, Thomas, 1759–1839, American scientist, educator, and political philosopher, b. London, educated at Oxford. His important works include Political Essays (1799); the appendixes to the Memoirs ...

Charles Augustus

(Encyclopedia)Charles Augustus, 1757–1828, duke and, after 1815, grand duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach; friend and patron of Goethe, Schiller, and Herder. Though his duchy was small, he was important in German polit...

monitorial system

(Encyclopedia)monitorial system, method of elementary education devised by British educators Joseph Lancaster and Andrew Bell during the 19th cent. to furnish schooling to the underprivileged even under conditions ...