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Chancellor, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Chancellor, Richard, d. 1556, English navigator. When, largely under the inspiration of Sebastian Cabot, a group of men in England undertook to finance a search for the Northeast Passage to Asia, Chan...

Magna Carta

(Encyclopedia)Magna Carta or Magna Charta [Lat., = great charter], the most famous document of British constitutional history, issued by King John at Runnymede under compulsion from the barons and the church in...

Woolf, Virginia

(Encyclopedia)Woolf, Virginia, 1882–1941, English novelist and essayist, b. Adeline Virgina Stephen; daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen. A successful innovator in the form of the novel, she is considered a significan...

Sigismund II

(Encyclopedia)Sigismund II or Sigismund Augustus, 1520–72, king of Poland (1548–72). Crowned in 1530 to assure his succession, he assumed the royal functions at the death of his father, Sigismund I. By the Unio...

Whitelaw of Penrith, William Stephen Ian Whitelaw, Viscount

(Encyclopedia)Whitelaw of Penrith, William Stephen Ian Whitelaw, Viscount, 1918–99, British politician. A Scottish landowner and cattle farmer, he was elected to Parliament as a Conservative in 1955 and served as...

Sigismund III

(Encyclopedia)Sigismund III, 1566–1632, king of Poland (1587–1632) and Sweden (1592–99). The son of John III of Sweden and Catherine, sister of Sigismund II of Poland, he united the Vasa and Jagiello dynastie...

Girard College

(Encyclopedia)Girard College, in Philadelphia, an elementary and secondary boarding school for children with financial need from single-parent or parentless families. It opened 1848 with a bequest, now grown to a h...

Orillia

(Encyclopedia)Orillia ōrĭlˈēə [key], town (1991 pop. 25,925), SE Ont., on Lake Couchiching. Manufactures include industrial machinery, household appliances, and industrial rubber products. It is also a summer ...

Longs Peak

(Encyclopedia)Longs Peak [for Stephen H. Long], 14,255 ft (4,345 m) high, N Colo., in the Front Range of the Rocky Mts. From the east side of its snowcapped peak there is a 2,000 ft (610 m) drop to Chasm Lake. It i...

Kalocsa

(Encyclopedia)Kalocsa kŏˈlôchŏ [key], town (1991 est. pop. 18,200), S Hungary, near the Danube River. It is an agricultural center and is famed for its embroidery and paprika. Created a bishopric by St. Stephen...