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Biddle, Nicholas, American naval officer

(Encyclopedia)Biddle, Nicholas, 1750–78, American naval officer, b. Philadelphia. Biddle left the British navy in 1773. In the American Revolution he became captain in the patriot navy and daringly raided British...

Wiseman, Nicholas Patrick Stephen

(Encyclopedia)Wiseman, Nicholas Patrick Stephen, 1802–65, English prelate, cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, b. Seville, Spain, of Irish-English parentage. In 1836 he founded (with Daniel O'Connell) the Dubl...

Biddle, Nicholas, American financier

(Encyclopedia)Biddle, Nicholas, 1786–1844, American financier, b. Philadelphia. After holding important posts in the American legations in France and England, he returned to the United States in 1807 and became o...

Rheticus

(Encyclopedia)Rheticus (Georg Joachim von Lauchen) rāˈtēko͝os, gāˈôrk yōäˈkhĭm fən louˈkhən [key], 1514–76, German astronomer, mathematician, and first disciple of Copernicus. In 1540 he printed a s...

Mountbatten, Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma

(Encyclopedia)Mountbatten, Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma mountbătˈən [key], 1900–1979, British admiral; great-grandson of Queen Victoria and uncle of Philip Mountbatten, d...

Copernican system

(Encyclopedia)Copernican system, first modern European theory of planetary motion that was heliocentric, i.e., that placed the sun motionless at the center of the solar system with all the planets, including the ea...

copernicium

(Encyclopedia)copernicium, artificially produced radioactive chemical element; symbol Cn; at. no. 112; mass number of most stable isotope 285; m.p., b.p., sp. gr., and valence unknown. Situated in Group 12 of the p...

Eudoxus of Cnidus

(Encyclopedia)Eudoxus of Cnidus yo͞odŏkˈsəs, nīˈdəs [key], 408?–355? b.c., Greek astronomer, mathematician, and physician. From the accounts of various ancient writers, he appears to have studied with Plat...

Ptolemy

(Encyclopedia)Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemaeus), fl. 2d cent. a.d., celebrated Greco-Egyptian mathematician, astronomer, and geographer. He made his observations in Alexandria and was the last great astronomer of ancie...

Dodge, Mary Mapes

(Encyclopedia)Dodge, Mary Mapes, 1831–1905, American writer of children's stories, b. New York City. During her lifetime she was the acknowledged leader in the field of juvenile fiction. Her story Hans Brinker; o...