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Haig, Douglas Haig, 1st Earl

(Encyclopedia)Haig, Douglas Haig, 1st Earl, 1861–1928, British field marshal. He saw active service in Sudan (1898) and in the South African War (1899–1902) and upon the outbreak of World War I (1914) was given...

American Fur Company

(Encyclopedia)American Fur Company, chartered by John Jacob Astor (1763–1848) in 1808 to compete with the great fur-trading companies in Canada—the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company. Astor's most ...

Mackintosh, Charles Rennie

(Encyclopedia)Mackintosh, Charles Rennie măkˈəntŏshˌ [key], 1868–1928, Scottish architect, artist, and furniture designer. Probably the greatest architect and designer Scotland has produced, he attempted to ...

Ackroyd, Peter

(Encyclopedia)Ackroyd, Peter, 1949–, British author, b. London; studied Clare College, Cambridge (M.A., 1971) and Yale. A literary journalist, he wrote for the Spectator (1973–82), where he was literary and the...

Schliemann, Heinrich

(Encyclopedia)Schliemann, Heinrich hīnˈrĭkh shlēˈmän [key], 1822–90, German archaeologist, discoverer of the ruins of Troy. He accumulated a fortune in the indigo trade and as a military contractor and reti...

Sharif, Nawaz

(Encyclopedia)Sharif, Nawaz näwäzˈ shärēfˈ [key], 1949–, Pakistani politician; grad. Government College, Lahore; Punjab Univ. Law College. Born into a prominent Lahore business family, he was by 1980 direct...

Planck, Max

(Encyclopedia)Planck, Max mäks plängk [key], 1858–1947, German physicist. Seeking to explain the experimental spectrum (distribution of electromagnetic energy according to wavelength) of blackbody radiation, he...

Franklin, John Hope

(Encyclopedia)Franklin, John Hope, 1915–2009, the dean of 20th-century African-American historians, b. Rentiesville, Okla., grad. Fisk Univ. (A.B., 1935), Harvard (M.A., 1936; Ph.D., 1941). Franklin served on the...

Amis, Martin

(Encyclopedia)Amis, Martin āˈmĭs [key], 1949–2023, English novelist; son of Kingsley Amis. The younger Amis, who turned from literary journalism to fiction, invites comparison with...

Johnson, Sir William

(Encyclopedia)Johnson, Sir William, 1715–74, British colonial leader in America, b. Co. Meath, Ireland. He settled (1738) in the Mohawk valley, became a merchant, and gained great power among the Mohawk and other...