(Encyclopedia) Homer, Winslow, 1836–1910, American landscape, marine, and genre painter. Homer was born in Boston, where he later worked as a lithographer and illustrator. In 1861 he was sent to the…
(Encyclopedia) Smithsonian Institution, research and education center, mainly at Washington, D.C.; founded 1846 under the terms of the will of James Smithson of London, who in 1829 bequeathed his…
(Encyclopedia) Pynchon, ThomasPynchon, Thomaspĭnˈchən [key], 1937–, American novelist, b. Glen Cove, N.Y., grad. Cornell, 1958. Pynchon is noted for his amazingly fertile imagination, his wild sense…
(Encyclopedia) Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 1806–61, English poet, b. Durham. A delicate and precocious child, she spent a great part of her early life in a state of semi-invalidism. She read…
(Encyclopedia) Glaser, Milton, 1929–2020, widely considered America's preeminent graphic designer of the last half of the 20th cent., b. New York City. After graduating (1951) from New York's Cooper…
(Encyclopedia) Alien and Sedition Acts, 1798, four laws enacted by the Federalist-controlled U.S. Congress, allegedly in response to the hostile actions of the French Revolutionary government on the…
(Encyclopedia) signing statement, written comment issued by the executive of a government when signing a bill into law. In the United States, such statements have traditionally been comparatively…
(Encyclopedia) Sirleaf, Ellen JohnsonSirleaf, Ellen Johnsonsĭrlēfˈ [key], 1938–, Liberian economist and political leader. Educated in the United States (M.P.A. Harvard, 1971), she worked in the…
Zappa, Frank Vincent
(Encyclopedia) Zappa, Frank
Vincent, 1940-1993, American guitarist, bandleader, and
composer, b. Baltimore, Md. Zappa's family relocated several…
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