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Ames, Oakes

(Encyclopedia)Ames, Oakes, 1804–73, American manufacturer, railroad promoter, and politician, b. Easton, Mass. With his brother Oliver he managed the family's well-known shovel factory at Easton. The business gre...

Downing, Sir George

(Encyclopedia)Downing, Sir George, 1623–84, English diplomat. A nephew of Gov. John Winthrop of Massachusetts, he was educated at Harvard. He returned (1646) to England, joined the parliamentarians, and was appoi...

Petty, Sir William

(Encyclopedia)Petty, Sir William, 1623–87, English statistician and physician. He was a founder of the Royal Society and was physician general to the army of Ireland in 1652. Petty's survey of the Irish estates a...

Roland

(Encyclopedia)Roland rōˈlənd [key], the great French hero of the medieval Charlemagne cycle of chansons de geste, immortalized in the Chanson de Roland (11th or 12th cent.). Existence of an early Roland poem is ...

bustard

(Encyclopedia)bustard bŭsˈtərd [key], a heavy-bodied, ground-running bird of the family Otididae. Various species are found throughout the arid regions of Africa, Asia, Australia, and S Europe. Bustards range in...

Lerwick

(Encyclopedia)Lerwick lûrˈwĭk, lĕrˈĭk [key], island town (1991 est. pop. 7,336), Shetland Islands, extreme N Scotland. Lerwick is the northernmost town in Great Britain. Located on the southeastern coast of M...

Holmström, Bengt

(Encyclopedia)Holmström, Bengt, 1949–, Finnish economist, b. Helsinki, Ph.D. Stanford, 1978. He has spent almost all his career in academia, at Northwestern Univ. (1979–83), Yale (1983–94), and the Massachus...

Digby, Sir Kenelm

(Encyclopedia)Digby, Sir Kenelm, 1603–65, English author and man of affairs. In 1628 he conducted a highly successful privateering raid against a French and Venetian fleet at Scanderoon (now Iskenderun, Turkey). ...

Seventh-Day Baptists

(Encyclopedia)Seventh-Day Baptists, Protestant church holding the same doctrines as other Calvinistic Baptists but observing the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath. In the Reformation in England the observance ...