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Zaharoff, Sir Basil

(Encyclopedia)Zaharoff, Sir Basil (Basileios Zacharias) zăˈhərŏfˌ [key], 1850–1936, international financier and munitions manufacturer, b. Anatolia, Turkey, probably of Greek-Russian parents, educated in Eng...

Steiner, Rudolf

(Encyclopedia)Steiner, Rudolf ro͞oˈdôlf shtīnˈər [key], 1861–1925, German occultist and social philosopher. He was a leader in the founding of the German Theosophic Association (see theosophy). In time he a...

Thóroddsen, Jón

(Encyclopedia)Thóroddsen, Jón yōn tōˈrôtsĕn [key], 1818–68, Icelandic novelist and poet. He studied law in Copenhagen intermittently from 1841 to 1850, fought in the Danish army, and after his return to Ic...

Simpson, George Gaylord

(Encyclopedia)Simpson, George Gaylord, 1902–84, American paleontologist and zoologist, b. Chicago, Ph.D. Yale, 1926. He became assistant curator of vertebrate paleontology at the American Museum of Natural Histor...

publican

(Encyclopedia)publican [Lat.,=state employee], in ancient Rome, man who was employed by the state government under contract. As early as c.200 b.c. there was a class of men in Rome accustomed to undertaking contrac...

Quellinus, Artus

(Encyclopedia)Quellinus or Quellin, Artus ärˈtəs kvĕlēˈnəs, kvĕlˈĭn [key], 1609–68, Flemish sculptor. His allegorical figures decorating the royal palace of Amsterdam are famous. Quellinus was the outst...

Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur Thomas kwĭlˈər-ko͞ochˌ [key], pseud. Q, 1863–1944, English author. Among the novels of his native Cornwall are Dead Man's Rock (1887) and Hetty Wesley (1903), which ar...

Bahadur Shah II

(Encyclopedia)Bahadur Shah II bähäˈdo͝or shä [key], 1775–1862, last Mughal emperor of India (1837–57). A political figurehead, he was completely controlled by the British East India Company, who found it c...

Bandelier, Adolph Francis Alphonse

(Encyclopedia)Bandelier, Adolph Francis Alphonse băndəlērˈ [key], 1840–1914, American anthropologist and historian, b. Bern, Switzerland. He was a disciple of Lewis Henry Morgan. An expert on Spanish colonial...

marriage

(Encyclopedia)marriage, socially sanctioned union that reproduces the family. In all societies the choice of partners is generally guided by rules of exogamy (the obligation to marry outside a group); some societie...