American construction engineer and business executive, president (1936-60) of W.A. Bechtel Company and its successor, Bechtel Corp., one of the world's largest construction and engineering firms. Projects to which his firm and its affiliated companies have substantially contributed include the ...
Polish army officer and foreign minister from 1932 to 1939, one of Jozef Pilsudski's most trusted confidants, who attempted to maintain friendly relations with both the Soviet Union and Germany while preserving alliances of Poland with France and with Romania.
German general who, as chief of the army general staff (1935-38), opposed Adolf Hitler's expansionist policies and who was a central figure in the unsuccessful July Plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944.
mineralogist who in 1903 presented to the International Geological Congress a paper on the composition and texture of the crystalline schists. Published in amplified form in 1913, his paper contained the first comprehensive theory of metamorphic rocks and proved to ...
German football (soccer) player who is the only man to have both captained and managed World Cup-winning teams (1974 and 1990, respectively). Nicknamed "der Kaiser," Beckenbauer dominated German football in the 1960s and '70s and is arguably the country's greatest ...
German tennis player who, on July 7, 1985, became the youngest champion in the history of the men's singles at Wimbledon. At the same time, he became the only unseeded player and the only German ever to win the title, ...
American economist, awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1992. He applied the methods of economics to aspects of human behaviour previously considered more or less the exclusive domain of sociology, criminology, anthropology, and demography.
metallurgist who developed a process of using silicon instead of carbon as a reducing agent in metal production, thus making low-carbon ferroalloys and certain steels practical.
chancellor of England (1155-62) and archbishop of Canterbury (1162-70) during the reign of King Henry II. His career was marked by a long quarrel with Henry that ended with Becket's murder in Canterbury cathedral.
author, critic, and playwright, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. He wrote in both French and English and is perhaps best known for his plays, especially En attendant Godot (1952; Waiting for Godot).
South African-born British nun who appeared on a series of popular television shows and wrote a number of books as an art critic. Nicknamed the "Art Nun," she offered eloquent and down-to-earth commentary that made art accessible to everyone.
eccentric English dilettante, author of the Gothic novel Vathek (1786). Such writers as George Gordon, Lord Byron, and Stephane Mallarme acknowledged his genius. He also is renowned for having built Fonthill Abbey, the most sensational building of the English Gothic ...
city, seat (1850) of Raleigh county, southern West Virginia, U.S., approximately 50 miles (80 km) southeast of Charleston. The first settlement was established by General Alfred Beckley in 1838, but the city's growth dates from 1890, with the start of ...
German Expressionist painter and printmaker whose works are notable for the boldness and power of their symbolic commentary on the tragic events of the 20th century.
dramatist and critic whose loosely structured plays, based on character and motivation rather than on closely knit plots, provided a healthy challenge to the "well-made plays" that held the stage in his day. Although Becque disliked literary theory and refused ...
French physicist who discovered radioactivity through his investigations of uranium and other substances. In 1903 he shared the Nobel Prize for Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie.
piece of furniture upon which a person may recline or sleep, for many centuries considered the most important piece of furniture in the house and a prized status symbol. In ancient civilizations (and, indeed, in Europe until the later Middle ...
Canadian biathlete who was the first North American to medal in the Olympic biathlon, earning a bronze medal at the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville, France. She later won two gold medals in the biathlon at the 1994 Winter Olympics ...
any member of the approximately 75 species of nocturnal insects of the family Cimicidae (order Heteroptera) that feed by sucking the blood of humans and other warm-blooded animals. The reddish brown adult is broad and flat and 4 to 5 ...
traditional emirate, Yobe state, northern Nigeria. Although Bade (Bedde, Bede) peoples settled in the vicinity of Tagali village near Gashua as early as the 14th century, they shortly thereafter came under the jurisdiction of a galadima ("governor") of the Bornu ...
Anglo-Saxon theologian, historian, and chronologist, best known today for his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum ("Ecclesiastical History of the English People"), a source vital to the history of the conversion to Christianity of the Anglo-Saxon tribes. During his ...
town (township), Middlesex county, northeastern Massachusetts, U.S. It lies near the Concord River, just northwest of Boston. Settled in 1642, it developed around an Algonquian Indian trading post called the Shawsheen House. It was incorporated in 1729 and named for ...
borough (district), administrative county of Bedfordshire, south-central England. The borough lies almost entirely within the historic county of Bedfordshire, except for a small area northwest of Pertenhall that belongs to the historic county of Huntingdonshire. The borough of Bedford includes ...
county, southern Pennsylvania, U.S., bordered to the south by Maryland and to the east by Town Hill and Rays Hill. It is a mountainous region lying mostly in the Appalachian Ridge and Valley physiographic province. Other topographic features include Wills, ...
city, seat of Lawrence county, southern Indiana, U.S., 25 miles (40 km) south of Bloomington. Founded in 1825 as the county seat and named by Joseph Rawlins for his home county of Bedford, Tennessee, it developed with the discovery of ...
town (township), Westchester county, southeastern New York, U.S., north of White Plains, near the Connecticut state line. Bedford Village, the original settlement, was founded in 1680 by 22 farmers from Stamford, Connecticut, on a tract known as the hop ground ...
town, Bedford borough, administrative and historic county of Bedfordshire, England, in the fertile valley of the River Ouse. A Roman fording station and a Saxon town (cemetery of Kempston), it was recaptured by the Anglo-Saxon sovereign Edward the Elder (ruled ...
borough (town), seat (1771) of Bedford county, southern Pennsylvania, U.S., on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and the Raystown Branch Juniata River, in the Allegheny Mountains, 38 miles (61 km) south of Altoona. A settlement made on the site about 1750 by ...
eldest son of Francis Russell (d. 1767), marquess of Tavistock, the eldest son of the 4th duke; he succeeded his grandfather as duke of Bedford in 1771.
general and statesman who commanded England's army during a critical period in the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) with France. Despite his military and administrative talent, England's position in France had irreversibly deteriorated by the time he died.
founder of the wealth and greatness of the house of Russell, who was a favourite of England's Henry VIII and was created earl of Bedford during the reign of Edward VI.
administrative, geographic, and historic county of the southeastern Midlands of England. The county town (seat) is Bedford. The administrative county is divided into three districts: Mid Bedfordshire, South Bedfordshire, and the borough of Bedford. These districts cover largely rural areas ...
