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Whittaker, Charles Evans

(Encyclopedia)Whittaker, Charles Evans, 1901–73, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1957–62), b. Troy, Kans. He received his law degree from the Univ. of Kansas City in 1924 and practiced law for many...

Akasaki, Isamu

(Encyclopedia)Akasaki, Isamu, 1929–2021, Japanese physicist, b. Chiran, Japan, Kyoto Univ. (BA, 1942), Nagoya Univ. (Ph.D., 1964). Aftger graduating from college, Akasaki worked as an engineer before ...

Cornell, Ezra

(Encyclopedia)Cornell, Ezra, 1807–74, American financier and founder of Cornell Univ., b. Westchester Landing, N.Y. Cornell, who began life as a laborer, was of an ingenious mechanical bent and had a shrewd busin...

minstrel show

(Encyclopedia)minstrel show, stage entertainment by white performers made up as blacks. Thomas Dartmouth Rice, who gave (c.1828) the first solo performance in blackface and introduced the song-and-dance act Jim Cro...

onager

(Encyclopedia)onager ŏnˈəjər [key] or Persian wild ass, wild ass of central Asia, Equus hemonius onager. Formerly classified as a separate species, it is one of the several subspecies of Asian wild ass (E. hemo...

Père David's deer

(Encyclopedia)Père David's deer pĕr dävēdzˈ [key], Asian deer, Elaphurus davidianus, known only in a semidomesticated state. Also known as milu and elaphure, it has a bulky, donkeylike body, reaching a shoulde...

Malevich, Casimir

(Encyclopedia)Malevich, Casimir or Kasimir both: käˈsĭmēr mälyāˈvĭch [key], 1878–1935, Russian painter. Moving to Moscow in 1906, he became involved in avant-garde artistic circles. He worked first in a s...

kudu

(Encyclopedia)kudu ko͞oˈdo͞o [key], either of two oshort-haired African antelopes of genus Tragelaphus. The greater kudu, T. strepsiceros, has a reddish brown coat with thin vertical white stripes on its sides. ...

halo, in meteorology

(Encyclopedia)halo, in meteorology, short-lived circles or arcs, and less commonly spikes and crosses, of colored or whitish light surrounding the moon or sun or in clouds as seen from above. A halo occurs when the...

Black Hills

(Encyclopedia)Black Hills, rugged mountains, c.6,000 sq mi (15,540 sq km), enclosed by the Belle Fourche and Cheyenne rivers, SW S.Dak. and NE Wyo., and rising c.2,500 ft (760 m) above the surrounding Great Plains;...