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Grimaldi, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Grimaldi, Joseph grĭmălˈdē [key], 1779–1837, English pantomime actor and clown. He made his debut at the age of three in Robinson Crusoe at Sadler's Wells, London. For many years he performed th...

grape hyacinth

(Encyclopedia)grape hyacinth, any plant of the genus Muscari of the family Liliaceae (lily family), low plants with dense spikelike clusters of small, nodding flowers that are usually deep blue. Of more than 50 Old...

Olives, Mount of

(Encyclopedia)Olives, Mount of, or Olivet ŏlˈĭvĕt [key], ridge, E of Jerusalem, mentioned in the Old Testament as the scene of David's flight from the city, Ezekiel's theophany, and Zechariah's prophecy, and in...

Melba, Dame Nellie

(Encyclopedia)Melba, Dame Nellie, 1861–1931, Australian soprano, whose name originally was Helen Porter Mitchell. After study with Mathilde Marchesi in Paris, she made her operatic debut in Brussels in 1887. Famo...

Tyler

(Encyclopedia)Tyler, city (1990 pop. 75,450), seat of Smith co., E Tex.; inc. 1850. In the heart of the rich East Texas oil field, Tyler has refineries and other oil-based industries. The administrative headquarter...

Wiggin, Kate Douglas (Smith)

(Encyclopedia)Wiggin, Kate Douglas (Smith), 1856–1923, American author and educator, b. Philadelphia. In San Francisco she organized the first free kindergartens on the Pacific coast (1878) and with her sister es...

Wadsworth, Louis Fenn

(Encyclopedia)Wadsworth, Louis Fenn, 1825–1908, American baseball player, b. Litchfield, Conn., grad. Washington College (now Trinity College), Hartford, 1844. After practicing law in New York City and presiding ...

Walafrid Strabo

(Encyclopedia)Walafrid Strabo (Walafrid the Squinter), c.809–849, German scholar, b. Swabia. Educated at the abbey of Reichenau, he wrote, at 18, a Latin verse account of a journey to the hereafter, Visio Wettini...

Burnett, Frances Eliza Hodgson

(Encyclopedia)Burnett, Frances Eliza Hodgson bərnĕtˈ [key], 1849–1924, American author, b. Manchester, England. In 1865 she went to Knoxville, Tenn., with her family. She wrote several adult novels, but is fam...

butterfly flower

(Encyclopedia)butterfly flower, fringeflower, or poor-man's-orchid, any of the showy plants of the genus Schizanthus of the family Solanaceae (nightshade family), native to Chile but grown elsewhere as garden or g...