A species of torture applied to contumacious felons. In the reign of Henri IV. the accused was pressed to death by weights; in later reigns the practice prevailed of tying the thumbs…
When Bernini's bust of Charles I. was brought home, the King was sitting in the garden of Chelsea Palace. He ordered the bust to be uncovered, and at the moment a hawk with a bird in its…
(Encyclopedia) Barry, Sir Charles, 1795–1860, English architect. A leader in the revival of the Renaissance style of architecture in England (also called Anglo-Italian), he designed the Travellers…
(Encyclopedia) Benchley, Robert Charles, 1889–1945, American humorist, b. Worcester, Mass., grad. Harvard, 1912. He was drama critic of Life (1920–29) and of the New Yorker (1929–40). Benchley was…
(Encyclopedia) Whittaker, Charles Evans, 1901–73, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1957–62), b. Troy, Kans. He received his law degree from the Univ. of Kansas City in 1924 and practiced…
(Encyclopedia) Brown, Herbert Charles, 1912–2004, American chemist, b. London, Ph.D. Univ. of Chicago, 1938. A professor at Wayne State Univ. (1943–47) and Purdue Univ. (1947–78), he shared the 1979…
(Encyclopedia) Charles IX, 1550–74, king of France. He succeeded (1560) his brother Francis II under the regency of his mother, Catherine de' Medici. She retained her influence throughout his reign.…
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