French-Canadian explorer and cartographer who, with Father Jacques Marquette, was the first white man to traverse the Mississippi River from its confluence with the Wisconsin to the mouth of the Arkansas in Arkansas.
device, now largely obsolete, for determining the specific gravity (relative density) of solids and liquids. Invented by the 19th-century German physicist Philipp von Jolly, it consists in its usual form of a long, delicate, helical spring suspended by one end ...
actor-manager who, after obscure beginnings, emerged as the leader of the last troupe of English strolling players in a tradition that influenced the German theatre.
island and town, southwestern Philippines. The island, between the Sulu (west) and Celebes (east) seas, is characterized by lush tropical vegetation, many short streams, and several extinct volcanoes, including Mount Tumatangas at 2,664 feet (812 metres). Mount Dajo National Park ...
popular U.S. singer and blackface comedian of the musical stage and motion pictures, from before World War I to 1940. His unique singing style and personal magnetism established an immediate rapport with audiences.
Irish geologist and physicist who, soon after 1898, estimated the age of the Earth at 100,000,000 years. He also developed a method for extracting radium (1914) and pioneered its use in cancer treatment.
French general, military critic, and historian whose systematic attempt to define the principles of warfare made him one of the founders of modern military thought.
(5th or 4th millennium BC-c. 250 BC), earliest major culture of prehistoric Japan, characterized by pottery decorated with cord-pattern (jomon) impressions or reliefs. The artifacts of this Neolithic culture have been uncovered in numerous sites from the northern island of ...
the fifth of 12 Old Testament books that bear the names of the Minor Prophets, embraced in a single book, The Twelve, in the Jewish canon. Unlike other Old Testament prophetic books, Jonah is not a collection of the prophet's ...
German religious Reformer and legal scholar. A colleague of Martin Luther, he played a prominent role in the early Reformation conferences, particularly at Marburg (1529) and at Augsburg (1530), where he helped draft the Augsburg Confession, a fundamental statement of ...
Icelandic poet and reformer whose works reflect his resistance to the political and economic trends that he perceived as threatening Iceland's traditional democracy.
in the Old Testament (I and II Samuel), eldest son of King Saul; his intrepidity and fidelity to his friend, the future king David, make him one of the most admired figures in the Bible. Jonathan is first mentioned in ...
statute announcing the intention of the United States government to "withdraw their sovereignty over the Philippine Islands as soon as a stable government can be established therein." The U.S. had acquired the Philippines in 1898 as a result of the ...
trainer of U.S. Thoroughbred racehorses, who trained six winners of the Kentucky Derby and two winners of all three events comprising the U.S. Triple Crown (the Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes), Whirlaway in 1941 and Citation in 1948.
U.S. amateur golfer, the first man to achieve the Grand Slam-winning in a single year the four major tournaments of the time. In 1930 he won the British and U.S. Opens and Amateur championships. From 1923 through 1930 he won ...
American animation director of critically acclaimed cartoon shorts, primarily the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies film series at Warner Bros. studios.
American jazz drummer and bandleader who established a forceful polyrhythmic approach to the traps set, combining different metres played independently by the hands and feet into a propulsive flow of irregularly shifting accents.
psychoanalyst and a key figure in the advancement of his profession in Britain. One of Sigmund Freud's closest associates and staunchest supporters, he wrote an exhaustive three-volume biography of Freud.
British painter, architect, and designer who founded the English classical tradition of architecture. The Queen's House (1616-19) at Greenwich, London, his first major work, became a part of the National Maritime Museum in 1937. His greatest achievement is the Banqueting ...
U.S. novelist best known for From Here to Eternity (1951), a novel about the peacetime army in Hawaii just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
American actor who made his name in leading stage roles in Shakespeare's Othello and in The Great White Hope, a play about the tragic career of the first black heavyweight boxing champion, loosely based ...
Welsh-language satirical poet and social reformer who, under the impact of the French Revolution, produced some of the earliest Welsh political writings. Greatly influenced by the political and social essays of the American and French Revolutionary propagandist Thomas Paine, he ...
English designer, architect, and writer, best known for his standard work treating both Eastern and Western design motifs, The Grammar of Ornament (1856), which presented a systematic pictorial collection emphasizing both the use of colour and the application of logical ...
U.S. theatrical and motion-picture designer whose imaginative simplification of sets initiated the 20th-century American revolution against realism in stage design.
American boxer who became only the second light heavyweight champion to win a heavyweight title. For several years beginning in the late 1990s, he was widely considered the best boxer of his generation.
one of the most respected U.S. Quakers of his time, who wrote extensively on Christian mysticism and helped found the American Friends Service Committee.
