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Long Island, battle of

(Encyclopedia)Long Island, battle of, Aug. 27, 1776, American defeat in the American Revolution. To protect New York City and the lower Hudson valley from the British forces massed on Staten Island, George Washingt...

Joan of Kent

(Encyclopedia)Joan of Kent, 1328–85, English noblewoman; daughter of Edmund of Woodstock, earl of Kent, youngest son of Edward I. She early gained wide note for her beauty and charm, though the appellation Fair M...

Woodville, Elizabeth

(Encyclopedia)Woodville, Elizabeth, 1437–92, queen consort of Edward IV of England. She was the daughter of Richard Woodville (later the 1st Earl Rivers). Her first husband, Sir John Grey, was killed fighting on ...

Stigand

(Encyclopedia)Stigand stĭgˈənd [key], d. 1072, English prelate. He held simultaneously the sees of Winchester and Canterbury from 1052 though official recognition of this did not come until 1058 from Benedict X,...

Langtry, Lillie

(Encyclopedia)Langtry, Lillie, 1853–1929, English actress, b. Jersey, Channel Islands; known as the Jersey Lily. One of the first English women of elevated social rank to go on the stage, she made her debut at th...

Cumberland, William Augustus, duke of

(Encyclopedia)Cumberland, William Augustus, duke of, 1721–65, British general; third son of George II. Entering the army shortly before the outbreak (1740) of the War of the Austrian Succession, he was defeated b...

Ratcliffe, Sir Peter John

(Encyclopedia)Ratcliffe, Sir Peter John, 1954–, British cellular and molecular biologist, M.D., Cambridge, 1987. He has been a researcher at Oxford since 1987. Ratcliffe, along with William Kaelin and Gregg Semen...

Kaelin, William George, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)Kaelin, William George, Jr., 1957–, American oncologist, b. New York City, M.D. Duke Univ., 1982. He has spent his entire career at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Mass., and also is a pro...

Harleian Library

(Encyclopedia)Harleian Library härˈlēən, härlēˈ– [key], manuscript collection of more than 7,000 volumes and more than 14,000 original legal documents, formed by Robert Harley, 1st earl of Oxford, and his ...

Johnson, Guy

(Encyclopedia)Johnson, Guy, c.1740–1788, Loyalist leader in colonial New York, b. Ireland. He emigrated to America as a boy and married (1763) a daughter of Sir William Johnson, whom he succeeded as superintenden...