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George V, king of Great Britain and Ireland

(Encyclopedia)George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert), 1865–1936, king of Great Britain and Ireland (1910–36), second son and successor of Edward VII. At the age of 12 he commenced a naval career, but this en...

Newton, John

(Encyclopedia)Newton, John, 1725–1807, English clergyman and hymn writer, b. London. Until 1755, his life was spent chiefly at sea, where he eventually became the captain of a slave ship plying the waters between...

Newton, cities, United States

(Encyclopedia)Newton. 1 City (1990 pop. 16,700), seat of Harvey co., S central Kans., in an agricultural area; inc. 1872. It is a railroad division point with railroad shops and has a large mobile home industry in ...

Olduvai Gorge

(Encyclopedia)Olduvai Gorge ōlˈdəwāˌ, –vāˌ [key], a feature of the E African Rift Valley in Tanzania. Erosional processes have exposed geological strata in the gorge dating to the lower Pleistocene epoch, ...

Mantel, Dame Hilary

(Encyclopedia)Mantel, Dame Hilary, 1952–, English novelist, b. Hilary Mary Thompson. After working as a social worker, she moved to Botswana with her geologist husband and later to Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, where she...

Melville, Andrew

(Encyclopedia)Melville, Andrew, 1545–1622, Scottish religious reformer and scholar. He studied abroad, came under the influence of Theodore Beza, and was a professor at Geneva. He was principal (1574–80) of the...

Meredith, George

(Encyclopedia)Meredith, George, 1828–1909, English novelist and poet. One of the great English novelists, Meredith wrote complex, often comic yet highly cerebral works that contain striking psychological characte...

Rolle of Hampole, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Rolle of Hampole, Richard rōl [key], c.1300–c.1349, English religious writer, a Yorkshire hermit. He wrote mainly in Latin, but his English works are important for the history of the language. Some...

bull, papal letter

(Encyclopedia)bull [Lat. bulla=leaden seal], papal letter. As the diplomatic organization of the papal chancery progressed in the Middle Ages, the papal bull came to be more solemn than the papal brief or encyclica...

Adams, Abigail

(Encyclopedia)Adams, Abigail, 1744–1818, wife of President John Adams and mother of President John Quincy Adams, b. Weymouth, Mass., as Abigail Smith. A lively, intelligent woman, she married John Adams in 1764 a...