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Wooster, David

(Encyclopedia)Wooster, David wo͝osˈtər [key], 1711–77, American Revolutionary officer, b. Fairfield co., Conn. He served as an officer in the British army during the last of the French and Indian Wars. Wooster...

Wakefield, city, England

(Encyclopedia)Wakefield, city and metropolitan borough (1991 pop. 74,764), N central England, on the Calder River. Wakefield has been a center of the cloth industry from the 14th cent. Other manufactures include wo...

Boonesboro

(Encyclopedia)Boonesboro bo͞onzˈbərə, –bûrō [key], former settlement, central Ky., on the Kentucky River. It was named for Daniel Boone, who in 1775 built a small fort there under orders from the Transylvan...

Booth, Junius Brutus

(Encyclopedia)Booth, Junius Brutus, 1796–1852, Anglo-American actor. After experience in the provinces, he appeared at Covent Garden. In 1817, with his portrayal of Richard III, he established himself as a rival ...

Bayreuth Festival

(Encyclopedia)Bayreuth Festival, also called the Richard Wagner Festival, annual season of performances of Wagner's works, held in the Bavarian town of Bayreuth. Around 1851, Wagner began to visualize a festival th...

Stillingfleet, Edward

(Encyclopedia)Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635–99, English prelate and author. A fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, he became (1657) rector of Sutton, Bedfordshire. In 1661 he published Irenicum, a treatise on c...

Stans, Maurice Hubert

(Encyclopedia)Stans, Maurice Hubert môrēsˈ hyo͞oˈbərt stănz [key], 1908–98, U.S. government official, b. Shakopee, Minn. He worked as an accountant for many years before serving in the Eisenhower administr...

soliloquy

(Encyclopedia)soliloquy, the speech by a character in a literary composition, usually a play, delivered while the speaker is either alone addressing the audience directly or the other actors are silent. It is most ...

Schlesinger, James Rodney

(Encyclopedia)Schlesinger, James Rodney, 1929–2014, U.S. secretary of defense (1973–75) and secretary of energy (1977–79), b. New York City. After graduating from Harvard (A.B., 1950; A.M., 1952; Ph.D., 1956)...

Sharp, Phillip Allen

(Encyclopedia)Sharp, Phillip Allen, 1944–, American geneticist, b. Falmouth, Ky., Ph.D., Univ. of Illinois, 1969. Sharp joined the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974, where he has spent ...