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Rush, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Rush, Richard, 1780–1859, Amercian statesman and diplomat, b. Philadelphia; son of Benjamin Rush. He studied law and became (1811) attorney general of Pennsylvania, resigning the same year to become...

Sutter, John Augustus

(Encyclopedia)Sutter, John Augustus, 1803–80, American pioneer, b. Kandern, Baden, of Swiss parents. His original name was Johann August Suter. He emigrated to the United States in 1834, went to St. Louis, then t...

Watkins, Carleton Eugene

(Encyclopedia)Watkins, Carleton Eugene, 1829–1916, America's premier 19th-century landscape photographer, b. Oneonta, N.Y. Watkins created images that helped define the American West for his contemporaries and th...

Kearny, Stephen Watts

(Encyclopedia)Kearny, Stephen Watts kärˈnē [key], 1794–1848, American general in the Mexican War, b. Newark, N.J. At the beginning of the Mexican War he was made commander of the Army of the West with the rank...

Johnson, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Johnson, Robert, 1911–38, African-American blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter, b. Hazelhurst, Miss. A sharecropper's son, he grew up absorbing the music of Delta bluesmen, learning the harmonic...

anise

(Encyclopedia)anise ănˈĭs [key], annual plant (Pimpinella anisum) of the family Umbelliferae (parsley family), native to the Mediterranean region but long cultivated elsewhere for its aromatic and medicinal qual...

Abilene

(Encyclopedia)Abilene ăbˈĭlēn [key]. 1 City (2020 pop. 6,460), seat of Dickinson co., central Kans., on the Smoky Hill River; inc. 1869. It was (1867–71) a railhead for a large ca...

Foster, Jodie

(Encyclopedia)Foster, Jodie (Alicia Christian Foster), 1962–, American actress and film director, b. Los Angeles, Yale Univ. (B.A., 1985). A child model, she began ...

Newton, cities, United States

(Encyclopedia)Newton. 1 City (1990 pop. 16,700), seat of Harvey co., S central Kans., in an agricultural area; inc. 1872. It is a railroad division point with railroad shops and has a large mobile home industry in ...

spark chamber

(Encyclopedia)spark chamber, in physics, device for recording the passage of elementary particles produced by reactions in a particle accelerator. Particles pass through a stack of metal plates or wire grids that a...