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Hansberry, Lorraine

(Encyclopedia)Hansberry, Lorraine, 1930–65, American playwright, b. Chicago, studied Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, the New School, New York City. She grew up in a middle-class family on Chicago's South Side. In 19...

Gruenther, Alfred Maximilian

(Encyclopedia)Gruenther, Alfred Maximilian, 1899–1983, U.S. general, b. Platte Center, Nebr. A brilliant staff officer, during World War II he was deputy chief of staff to Dwight D. Eisenhower in London (1942–4...

Brown, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Brown, Robert, 1773–1858, Scottish botanist and botanical explorer. In 1801 he went as a naturalist on one of Matthew Flinders's expeditions to Australia, returning (1805) to England with valuable c...

Vassar College

(Encyclopedia)Vassar College văsˈər [key], at Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; coeducational; chartered 1861 by Matthew Vassar, opened 1865 as Vassar Female College, renamed 1867. A leading institution of higher education fo...

Sherman, Stuart Pratt

(Encyclopedia)Sherman, Stuart Pratt, 1881–1926, American critic and editor, b. Anita, Iowa, grad. Williams, 1900, Ph.D. Harvard, 1906. Professor of English at the Univ. of Illinois from 1907 to 1924, he resigned ...

San Mateo

(Encyclopedia)San Mateo săn mətāˈō [key], city (1990 pop. 85,486), San Mateo co., W Calif., on San Francisco Bay; inc. 1894. It is a commercial and retail center with some high-technology manufacturing. San Ma...

Erie, Lake

(Encyclopedia)Erie, Lake, 9,940 sq mi (25,745 sq km), 241 mi (388 km) long and from 30 to 57 mi (48–92 km) wide, bordered on the N by S Ont., Canada, on the E by W N.Y., on the S by NW Pa. and N Ohio, and on the ...

Ness, Eliot

(Encyclopedia)Ness, Eliot, 1903–57, American law enforcement officer, b. Chicago, grad. Univ. of Chicago (1925), famous as the leader of the “Untouchables,” the Justice Dept. squad who fought the gangster Al ...

Lord's Prayer

(Encyclopedia)Lord's Prayer or Our Father, the principal Christian prayer that Jesus in the New Testament (Mat. 6.9–13; Luke 11.2–4) taught his followers, beginning, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your na...

Wandering Jew, in legend

(Encyclopedia)Wandering Jew, in literary and popular legend, a Jew who mocked or mistreated Jesus while he was on his way to the cross and who was condemned therefore to a life of wandering on earth until Judgment ...