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guide dog

(Encyclopedia)guide dog, a dog trained to lead a blind person. The first school for training such dogs was established by the German government after World War I for the benefit of blinded veterans. Schools now exi...

Górecki, Henryk Mikolaj

(Encyclopedia)Górecki, Henryk Mikolaj hĕnˈrĭk mēkôˈlī gôrĕtˈskē [key], 1933–2010, Polish composer. He studied (1955–60) at the Katowice State Higher School of Music, joining the faculty in 1968, ris...

Baker, Ella Josephine

(Encyclopedia)Baker, Ella Josephine, 1903–1986, U.S. civil rights activist, b. Norfolk, Va. Ella Baker was an activist and organizer whose b...

Szymanowski, Karol

(Encyclopedia)Szymanowski, Karol käˈrôl shĭmänôfˈskē [key], 1882–1937, Polish composer; studied in Berlin and Warsaw. His early works show marked German, French, and Russian influences, but in his later c...

muscular dystrophy

(Encyclopedia)muscular dystrophy dĭsˈtrōfē [key], any of several inherited diseases characterized by progressive wasting of the skeletal muscles. There are five main forms of the disease. They are classified ac...

Rock Island, city, United States

(Encyclopedia)Rock Island, city (1990 pop. 40,552), seat of Rock Island co., NW Ill., on the Mississippi and Rock rivers, adjacent to Moline and opposite Davenport, Iowa; inc. 1841. These three cities, with Bettend...

Hernández, Miguel

(Encyclopedia)Hernández, Miguel ārnänˈdĕs [key], 1910–42, Spanish poet, b. Orihuela. A completely self-taught writer, he absorbed the influence of the poets of the Golden Age and of the generation of Garcí...

recorder

(Encyclopedia)recorder, musical wind instrument of the flute family, made of wood, varying in length, and having an inverted conical bore (largest end near the mouthpiece). Its tone is produced by an air stream aga...

Matthiessen, Peter

(Encyclopedia)Matthiessen, Peter măthˈəsən [key], American writer, naturalist, and adventurer, b. New York City, grad. Yale (1950). A founder (1951) of the literary Paris Review, he published his first novel, R...

Simon, Paul

(Encyclopedia)Simon, Paul, 1941–, American singer, songwriter, and guitarist, b. Newark, N.J. A polished and intelligent folk-rock lyricist and performer, he first gained fame as half of Simon and Garfunkel (with...