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North Africa, campaigns in

(Encyclopedia)North Africa, campaigns in, series of military contests for control of North Africa during World War II. The desert war started in 1940 and for more than two years thereafter seesawed between NE Libya...

Coke, Sir Edward

(Encyclopedia)Coke, Sir Edward ko͝ok [key], 1552–1634, English jurist, one of the most eminent in the history of English law. He entered Parliament in 1589 and rose rapidly, becoming solicitor general and speake...

D'Ewes, Sir Simonds

(Encyclopedia)D'Ewes, Sir Simonds dyo͞oz [key], 1602–50, English antiquarian, b. Coxden. He collected many old manuscripts and made transcriptions of others with the intention of writing a history of England; th...

Strafford, Thomas Wentworth, 1st earl of

(Encyclopedia)Strafford, Thomas Wentworth, 1st earl of, 1593–1641, English statesman. Regularly elected to Parliament from 1614 on, he became one of the critics of George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham, and of ...

Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 1503–42, English poet and statesman

(Encyclopedia)Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 1503–42, English poet and statesman, father of Sir Thomas Wyatt. He served in various capacities under Henry VIII and was knighted in 1536. It is generally agreed he had been the ...

Percy, Sir Henry

(Encyclopedia)Percy, Sir Henry, 1366–1403, English nobleman, called Hotspur or Henry Hotspur; son of Henry Percy, 1st earl of Northumberland. In 1388 he participated in the famous battle of Otterburn, or Chevy Ch...

Stephen, Sir Leslie

(Encyclopedia)Stephen, Sir Leslie, 1832–1904, English author and critic. The first serious critic of the novel, he was also editor of the great Dictionary of National Biography from its beginning in 1882 until 18...

Douglas, Sir James

(Encyclopedia)Douglas, Sir James, 1803–77, Canadian fur trader and colonial governor, b. British Guiana (now Guyana). As a young man, he went to Canada in the service of the North West Company; soon after its mer...

Tarleton, Sir Banastre

(Encyclopedia)Tarleton, Sir Banastre băˈnəstər tärlˈtən [key], 1754–1833, British army officer in the American Revolution. He arrived (1775) in America with General Cornwallis and was a member of the patro...

Cunard, Sir Samuel

(Encyclopedia)Cunard, Sir Samuel kyo͞onärdˈ [key], 1787–1865, Canadian pioneer of regular transatlantic steam navigation, b. Halifax, N.S. The son of a United Empire Loyalist, he became a leading businessman o...