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Eleanor of Provence

(Encyclopedia)Eleanor of Provence prôväNsˈ [key], d. 1291, queen consort of Henry III of England. The daughter of Raymond Berengar, count of Provence, she was married to Henry in 1236. She was a vigorous and inc...

Brain Trust

(Encyclopedia)Brain Trust, the group of close advisers to Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he was governor of New York state and during his first years as President. The name was applied to them because the members o...

Orosius, Paulus

(Encyclopedia)Orosius, Paulus ōrōˈshēəs [key], c.385–420, Iberian priest, theologian, and historian, b. Tarragona, Spain or Braga, Portugal. He went to see St. Augustine (c.413) and wrote, on request, a summ...

Lleida

(Encyclopedia)Lleida lāˈrēᵺä [key], city (1990 pop. 111,825), capital of Lleida prov., NE Spain, in Catalonia, on the Segre River. Lleida is the center of a fertile farm area and has a limited variety of manu...

Kroc, Ray

(Encyclopedia)Kroc, Ray (Raymond Albert Kroc), 1902–84, American fast-food restauranteur and franchiser, b. Chicago. Kroc held several jobs before becoming (1937) the distributor for a blender that simultaneously...

Weaver, Sigourney

(Encyclopedia) Weaver, Sigourney , 1949- , American actress, b. New York, N.Y., as Susan Alexandra Weaver, Stanford Univ. (B.A., 1972), Yale Univ. (M.F.A., 1974). Wea...

stonework

(Encyclopedia)stonework, term applied to various types of work—that of the lapidary who shapes, cuts, and polishes gemstones or engraves them for seals and ornaments; of the jeweler or artisan who mounts or encru...

Cradle of Humankind

(Encyclopedia)Cradle of Humankind, extensive archaeological site, c.180 sq mi (470 sq km), encompassing dolomitic limestone caves containing numerous hominin fossils, Gauteng and North West prov., South Africa, c.3...

McPherson, James Birdseye

(Encyclopedia)McPherson, James Birdseye, 1828–64, Union general in the American Civil War, b. Sandusky co., Ohio. After teaching (1853–54) at West Point, he worked on various engineering projects. In the Civil ...

Koshiba, Masatoshi

(Encyclopedia)Koshiba, Masatoshi, 1926–2020, Japanese physicist, Ph.D. Univ. of Rochester, 1955. He was a professor at the Univ. of Tokyo from 1958 (emeritus from 1987) and at the Univ. of Tokai from 1987 to 1997...