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Ayckbourn, Sir Alan

(Encyclopedia)Ayckbourn, Sir Alan ākˈbôrn [key], 1939–, English playwright and director, b. London. One of Britain's most successful and prolific dramatists, he had his first play produced in 1959 and since th...

minstrel show

(Encyclopedia)minstrel show, stage entertainment by white performers made up as blacks. Thomas Dartmouth Rice, who gave (c.1828) the first solo performance in blackface and introduced the song-and-dance act Jim Cro...

Zamojski, Jan

(Encyclopedia)Zamojski or Zamoyski, Jan both: yän zämoiˈskē [key], 1542–1605, Polish statesman, general, and author. He championed the rights of the lesser nobility; after the extinction (1572) of the Jagiell...

Belichick, Bill

(Encyclopedia)Belichick, Bill (William Stephen Belichick), 1952–, American professional football coach, b. Nashville, Tenn. The son of a college coach, he played football at Wesleyan Univ. He held various coachin...

Rudolf II

(Encyclopedia)Rudolf II, 1552–1612, Holy Roman emperor (1576–1612), king of Bohemia (1575–1611) and of Hungary (1572–1608), son and successor of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II. Acceding to the Hapsburg la...

Ridley, Nicholas

(Encyclopedia)Ridley, Nicholas, c.1500–1555, English prelate, reformer, and Protestant martyr. In 1534, while a proctor of Cambridge, he signed the decree against the pope's supremacy in England. In 1537 he becam...

Bainbridge, William

(Encyclopedia)Bainbridge, William, 1774–1833, American naval officer, b. Princeton, N.J. An experienced sea captain, he joined (1798) the navy when war with France threatened. His ship, the Retaliation, was captu...

Pécs

(Encyclopedia)Pécs pāch [key], Ger. Fünfkirchen, city (1991 est. pop. 170,000), SW Hungary, near the Croatian border. A county administrative seat and a railroad hub, Pécs is the industrial center of Hungary's ...

James, Cyril Lionel Robert

(Encyclopedia)James, C. L. R., 1901–1989, Trinidadian historian, journalist, and communist activist, b. Tunapuna, Trinidad and Tobago. A social theorist, anti-colon...

Chabrol, Claude

(Encyclopedia)Chabrol, Claude klōd shäbrōlˈ [key], 1930–2010, French filmmaker, b. Paris, attended Univ. of Paris. One of the creators of the French “new wave” cinema of the 1950s and 60s, he and such oth...