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Richard, earl of Cornwall

(Encyclopedia)Richard, earl of Cornwall, 1209–72, second son of King John of England and brother of Henry III. In 1227, following an expedition to Gascony and Poitou, Richard forced Henry to grant him the land an...

Forrest, Nathan Bedford

(Encyclopedia)Forrest, Nathan Bedford, 1821–77, Confederate general, b. Bedford co., Tenn. (his birthplace is now in Marshall co.). At the beginning of the Civil War, Forrest, a wealthy citizen of Memphis, organi...

Frankfurter, Felix

(Encyclopedia)Frankfurter, Felix, 1882–1965, American jurist, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1939–62), b. Vienna, Austria. He emigrated to the United States as a boy and later received (1906) his ...

Hudson, Henry

(Encyclopedia)Hudson, Henry, fl. 1607–11, English navigator and explorer. He was hired (1607) by the English Muscovy Company to find the Northeast Passage to Asia. He failed, and another attempt (1608) to find a ...

Sun Ra

(Encyclopedia) Sun Ra, 1914-1993, African-American jazz composer, bandleader, and keyboard player, b. Birmingham, Al., as Herman Poole Blount. Sun Ra was a leading c...

Basquiat, Jean-Michel

(Encyclopedia)Basquiat, Jean-Michel bäsˌkē-ätˈ [key], 1960–88, American painter, b. Brooklyn, N.Y. Born into a middle-class Haitian and Puerto Rican family, he was a 1980s art star whose rise and fall were r...

Wilson, Lanford

(Encyclopedia)Wilson, Lanford, 1937–2011, American playwright, b. Lebanon, Mo. An important figure in modern drama, he was a master of earthy, realistic dialogue in which monologue, conversation, and direct addre...

Nizhnevartovsk

(Encyclopedia)Nizhnevartovsk nyēzhˌnyĭvärˈtəfsk [key], city (1989 pop. 241,000), N Siberian Russia. The discovery of a huge oil field at nearby Lake Samotlor in 1965 quickly transformed the small village of N...

Leduc

(Encyclopedia)Leduc lədo͞okˈ [key], town (1991 pop. 13,970), central Alta., Canada, S of Edmonton. It is the center of the Leduc oil field (discovered 1947), which is now mostly depleted. The town is an oil stor...

Beers, Clifford Whittingham

(Encyclopedia)Beers, Clifford Whittingham, 1876–1943, American founder of the mental hygiene movement, b. New Haven, Conn., grad. Sheffield Scientific School, Yale, 1897. After the publication of A Mind That Foun...