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Stephen, Sir James Fitzjames

(Encyclopedia)Stephen, Sir James Fitzjames, 1829–94, English jurist and journalist; brother of Sir Leslie Stephen. He was educated at Eton and Cambridge and was admitted to the bar in 1854. After 1855 he wrote ma...

black hole

(Encyclopedia)black hole, in astronomy, celestial object of such extremely intense gravity that it attracts everything near it and in some instances prevents everything, including light, from escaping. The term was...

Eustace II

(Encyclopedia)Eustace II yo͞oˈstĭs [key], d. 1093, count of Boulogne. He was the brother-in-law of Edward the Confessor of England. Visiting England in 1051, he and his followers became involved in a brawl with ...

Clapham Sect

(Encyclopedia)Clapham Sect, group of English social reformers, active c.1790–1830, so named because their activities centered on the home in Clapham, London, of Henry Thornton and William Wilberforce. Most of the...

Greenfield Village

(Encyclopedia)Greenfield Village, reproduction of an early American village, est. 1933 by Henry Ford at Dearborn, Mich., as part of the Edison Institute. A white-spired church, a town hall, an inn, a school, a cour...

Langland, William

(Encyclopedia)Langland, William, c.1332–c.1400, putative author of Piers Plowman. He was born probably at Ledbury near the Welsh marshes and may have gone to school at Great Malvern Priory. Although he took minor...

Ladd, William

(Encyclopedia)Ladd, William, 1778–1841, American pacifist, b. Exeter, N.H., grad. Harvard, 1797. He commanded sailing vessels until the outbreak of the War of 1812, when he retired to a farm in Maine. In 1820 he ...

Laud, William

(Encyclopedia)Laud, William, 1573–1645, archbishop of Canterbury (1633–45). He studied at St. John's College, Oxford, and was ordained a priest in 1601. From the beginning Laud showed his hostility to Puritanis...

Law, William

(Encyclopedia)Law, William, 1686–1761, English clergyman, noted for his controversial, devotional, and mystical writings. One of the nonjurors, Law was deprived of his fellowship in Emmanuel College, Cambridge, a...

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