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Agricola, Georgius

(Encyclopedia)Agricola, Georgius gāˈôrk bouˈər [key], 1494–1555, German physician and scientist, known as the father of mineralogy. He was a pioneer in physical geology and the first to classify minerals sci...

Burnett, Frances Eliza Hodgson

(Encyclopedia)Burnett, Frances Eliza Hodgson bərnĕtˈ [key], 1849–1924, American author, b. Manchester, England. In 1865 she went to Knoxville, Tenn., with her family. She wrote several adult novels, but is fam...

Butler, Samuel, 1612–80, English poet and satirist

(Encyclopedia)Butler, Samuel, 1612–80, English poet and satirist. During the Puritan Revolution he served Sir Samuel Luke, a noted officer of Cromwell. After the restoration of Charles II, he wrote his famous moc...

agnosticism

(Encyclopedia)agnosticism ăgnŏsˈtĭsĭzəm [key], form of skepticism that holds that the existence of God cannot be logically proved or disproved. Among prominent agnostics have been Auguste Comte, Herbert Spenc...

Braun, Eva

(Encyclopedia)Braun, Eva āˈvä broun [key], 1912–45, mistress and later wife of the German dictator Adolf Hitler. She was a shop assistant to a Nazi photographer, through whom she met Hitler. She entered his ho...

Caraway, Hattie Wyatt

(Encyclopedia)Caraway, Hattie Wyatt kărˈəwāˌ [key], 1878–1950, U.S. senator (1932–45), b. near Bakerville, Tenn. In 1932 she was appointed to fill the unexpired Senate term from Arkansas of her late husban...

White, William

(Encyclopedia)White, William, 1748–1836, American Episcopal bishop, b. Philadelphia, grad. College of Philadelphia (now Univ. of Pennsylvania), 1765. He was ordained in England in 1772, returning to become assist...

Bertillon system

(Encyclopedia)Bertillon system bərtĭlˈyən [key], first scientific method of criminal identification, developed by the French criminologist Alphonse Bertillon (1853–1914). The system, based on the classificati...

Weems, Mason Locke

(Encyclopedia)Weems, Mason Locke, 1759–1825, American author and preacher, b. Anne Arundel co., Md., studied theology in London. He was ordained in 1784 and served various Episcopal parishes. For 30 years after 1...

Le Nôtre, André

(Encyclopedia)Le Nôtre, André äNdrāˈ lənōˈtrə [key], 1613–1700, the most famous landscape architect in French history, b. near the Tuileries; studied drawing with Simon Vouet at the Louvre. Le Nôtre's f...