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Playfair, John

(Encyclopedia)Playfair, John, 1748–1819, Scottish mathematician, physicist, and geologist. He was educated at St. Andrews and Edinburgh and taught first mathematics and then physics and astronomy at the latter un...

Powell, John

(Encyclopedia)Powell, John, 1882–1963, American pianist and composer, b. Richmond, Va., grad. Univ. of Virginian, 1901. In Vienna he studied piano and composition and in 1908 made his debut as a pianist in Berlin...

Prester John

(Encyclopedia)Prester John, legendary Christian priest and monarch of a vast, wealthy empire in Asia or in Africa. The legend first appeared in the latter part of the 12th cent. and persisted for several centuries....

Philips, John

(Encyclopedia)Philips, John, 1676–1709, English poet. He was one of the few to write in blank verse in an age when the heroic couplet was the standard form. His Splendid Shilling (1701, 1705) is a parody of Milto...

Porteous, John

(Encyclopedia)Porteous, John pôrˈtēəs [key], d. 1736, British soldier. He was captain of the Edinburgh town guard at the execution (1736) of Andrew Wilson, a smuggler. When the crowd, which was sympathetic to W...

Byng, John

(Encyclopedia)Byng, John, 1704–57, British admiral; son of George Byng, Viscount Torrington. Sent (1756) to prevent the French from taking Minorca, he arrived when the island was already under siege and, after an...

Byrom, John

(Encyclopedia)Byrom, John bīˈrəm [key], 1692–1763, English shorthand expert and poet, educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He devised an early shorthand system, which he taught in Manchester. Although he co...

Byron, John

(Encyclopedia)Byron, John, 1723–86, British vice admiral and explorer. Sailing in 1740 with Admiral George Anson on a voyage around the world, he was shipwrecked off Chile. His Narrative of Great Distresses on th...

Cabot, John

(Encyclopedia)Cabot, John, fl. 1461–98, English explorer, probably b. Genoa, Italy. He became a citizen of Venice in 1476 and engaged in the Eastern trade of that city. This experience, it is assumed, was the sti...

Calvin, John

(Encyclopedia)Calvin, John, 1509–64, French Protestant theologian of the Reformation, b. Noyon, Picardy. The extension of Calvinism to all spheres of human activity was extremely important to a world emerging f...