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Field, Stephen Johnson

(Encyclopedia)Field, Stephen Johnson, 1816–99, American jurist, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1863–97), b. Haddam, Conn. After practicing law for several years in New York City with his brother D...

sertão

(Encyclopedia)sertão sərˈtouN [key] [Port.,=backlands], semiarid hinterland of NE Brazil; c.250,000 sq mi (647,500 sq km). Its characteristic landscape is the caatinga, or thorny scrub forest. The chief occupati...

Scribe, Augustin Eugène

(Encyclopedia)Scribe, Augustin Eugène ōgüstăNˈ özhĕnˈ skrēb [key], 1791–1861, French dramatist and librettist. He began his prolific and highly successful writing career with vaudeville sketches. One of ...

Rimini

(Encyclopedia)Rimini rēˈmēnē [key], anc. Ariminum, city (1991 pop. 127,960), in Emilia-Romagna, N central Italy, on the Adriatic Sea. It is a highly diversified industrial, commercial, and railroad center and a...

Castagno, Andrea del

(Encyclopedia)Castagno, Andrea del ändrĕˈä dĕl kästäˈnyō [key], c.1423–1457, major Florentine painter of the early Renaissance. His first recorded painting (1440; now destroyed), effigies of hanged men, ...

Francis, Saint

(Encyclopedia)Francis, Saint, or Saint Francis of Assisi əsēˈzē [key], 1182?–1226, founder of the Franciscans, one of the greatest Christian saints, b. Assisi, Umbria, Italy. Two years before his death (122...

Saramago, José

(Encyclopedia)Saramago, José zho͞ozĕˈ särˌämäˈgo͞o [key], 1922–2010, Portuguese novelist and short-story writer. He became a member of the Communist party in 1969 and was a staunch atheist and a strong ...

Ascension, island

(Encyclopedia)Ascension əsĕnˈchən [key], island, 34 sq mi (88 sq km), in the S Atlantic, NW of Saint Helena and belonging to the British St. Helena overseas territory. Georgetown i...

Field, Cyrus West

(Encyclopedia)Field, Cyrus West, 1819–92, American merchant, promoter of the first Atlantic cable, b. Stockbridge, Mass.; brother of David Dudley Field and Stephen J. Field. As head of a paper business, he accumu...

Wilderness Road

(Encyclopedia)Wilderness Road, principal avenue of westward migration for U.S. pioneers from c.1790 to 1840, blazed in 1775 by the American frontiersman Daniel Boone and an advance party of the Transylvania Company...