Definitions

David "Tweener" Apolskis

William David Coolidge

(born Oct. 23, 1873, Hudson, Mass., U.S.—died Feb. 3, 1975, Schenectady, N.Y.) U.S. engineer and physical chemist. He taught at MIT (1897, 1901–05) before joining the General Electric Research Laboratory, where in 1908 he perfected a process to render tungsten ductile and therefore more suitable for incandescent lightbulbs. In 1916 he patented a revolutionary X-ray tube capable of producing highly predictable amounts of radiation; it was the prototype of the modern X-ray tube. With Irving Langmuir, he also developed the first successful submarine-detection system.

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Henry David Thoreau, portrait by Samuel Worcester Rowse, 1854; in the Concord Free Public Library, elipsis

(born July 12, 1817, Concord, Mass., U.S.—died May 6, 1862, Concord) U.S. thinker, essayist, and naturalist. Thoreau graduated from Harvard University and taught school for several years before leaving his job to become a poet of nature. Back in Concord, he came under the influence of Ralph Waldo Emerson and began to publish pieces in the Transcendentalist magazine The Dial. In the years 1845–47, to demonstrate how satisfying a simple life could be, he lived in a hut beside Concord's Walden Pond; essays recording his daily life were assembled for his masterwork, Walden (1854). His A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849) was the only other book he published in his lifetime. He reflected on a night he spent in jail protesting the Mexican-American War in the essay “Civil Disobedience” (1849), which would later influence such figures as Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. In later years his interest in Transcendentalism waned, and he became a dedicated abolitionist. His many nature writings and records of his wanderings in Canada, Maine, and Cape Cod display the mind of a keen naturalist. After his death his collected writings were published in 20 volumes, and further writings have continued to appear in print.

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(born Sept. 17, 1939, Melrose, Mass., U.S.) U.S. jurist. He graduated from Harvard Law School and soon joined the New Hampshire attorney general's office. He was promoted to state attorney general in 1976, to the state's Superior Court in 1978, and to its Supreme Court in 1983. In 1990 he was appointed by Pres. George Bush to the First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and later that year to the U.S. Supreme Court. Considered a conservative at the outset of his appointment, he gradually emerged as a moderate liberal, particularly on issues of civil rights.

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(born March 9, 1906, Decatur, Ind., U.S.—died May 23, 1965, Albany, N.Y.) U.S. sculptor. He learned to work with metal while employed at an automobile plant. In 1926 he went to New York City and took various jobs while studying painting at the Art Students League. His sculptures grew out of his abstract paintings, to which he attached so many bits of wood, metal, and found objects that they became virtual bases for sculptural superstructures. He became the first U.S. artist to make welded metal sculpture. In 1940 he moved to Bolton Landing, N.Y., and there made his large yet seemingly weightless metal sculptures until his death in a car crash. His abstract biomorphic and geometric forms are remarkable for their erratic inventiveness, stylistic diversity, and high aesthetic quality. His work greatly influenced Minimalist sculpture in the 1960s.

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(born Sept. 1, 1864, Kingstown, County Dublin, Ire.—died Aug. 3, 1916, London, Eng.) British civil servant and Irish rebel. As British consul in Africa (1895–1904) and Brazil (1906–11), he became famous for his reports revealing white traders' cruel exploitation of native labour in the Congo and in the Putumayo River region of Peru. Ill health forced his retirement to Ireland (1912), where he joined the Irish nationalists and helped form the Irish National Volunteers. After World War I broke out, he sought German support for the Irish independence movement. For his additional intrigue in the Easter Rising, he was convicted of treason and hanged. His execution made him an Irish martyr in the revolt against British rule in Ireland.

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(born Dec. 19, 1902, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, Eng.—died Oct. 10, 1983, London) British actor. He began his acting career at age 18 and gained prominence in the 1930s and '40s at the Old Vic in roles such as Peer Gynt, Petruchio, Falstaff, and Volpone, gaining a reputation as one of the greatest actors of his time. He made his screen debut in 1933 and became known for playing urbane, witty characters and later for eccentric old men. His many films included The Fallen Idol (1948), Doctor Zhivago (1965), and Greystoke (1984).

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(born March 25, 1908, Croydon, Surrey, Eng.—died April 16, 1991, London) British film director. He worked at Gaumont Studios from 1928, becoming head film editor. He codirected In Which We Serve (1942) with Noël Coward and was sole director of Coward's Blithe Spirit (1945) and Brief Encounter (1945). He directed film adaptations of Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948). Lean won wide acclaim for The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957, Academy Award) and later for Lawrence of Arabia (1962, Academy Award), Dr. Zhivago (1965), and A Passage to India (1984). His literate, epic productions featured spectacular cinematography and stunning locales.

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The Central Administration Building (left) at University City, Mexico City, with a mosaic by David elipsis

(born Dec. 29, 1896, Chihuahua, Mex.—died Jan. 6, 1974, Cuernavaca) Mexican painter. A Marxist activist since his youth, he fought in the Mexican Revolution alongside Venustiano Carranza, who rewarded him by sponsoring his studies in Europe. Back in Mexico (1922), he began his lifework of decorating public buildings with murals and organizing unions of artists and workers. With Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, he cofounded the renowned school of Mexican mural painting. His activism interrupted his career several times when he was imprisoned, chose self-imposed exile, and fought in the Spanish Civil War. His murals are marked by great dynamism, monumental size and vigour, and a limited colour range subordinated to dramatic effects of light and shadow. His easel paintings (e.g., Echo of a Scream, 1937) helped establish his international reputation. In 1968 he became the first president of the Mexican Academy of Arts.

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(born May 10, 1902, Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S.—died June 22, 1965, Hollywood, Calif.) U.S. film producer. He trained with his father, a movie executive, before moving to Hollywood in 1926. Working for MGM, RKO, and other studios, he produced films such as Dinner at Eight (1933), King Kong (1933), David Copperfield (1935), and A Tale of Two Cities (1935). He formed his own company, Selznick International, in 1936 and produced hits such as A Star Is Born (1937). He was essential to the enormous success of Gone with the Wind (1939), overseeing its entire production with detailed memos about every aspect of the movie. He brought Alfred Hitchcock to the U.S. and produced Rebecca (1940) and Spellbound (1945). He also produced Duel in the Sun (1946), The Third Man (1949), and A Farewell to Arms (1957), which starred his second wife, Jennifer Jones.

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(born Jan. 21, 1922, Hurstpierpoint, Sussex, Eng.—died March 19, 2008, near Sussex) British actor. After entertaining the troops in World War II, he joined the theatre company at Stratford-upon-Avon (later the Royal Shakespeare Company) in 1946, winning acclaim as Henry V and Hamlet. He had his greatest success in A Man for All Seasons in London (1960) and New York City (1961–62) and reprised the role on film (1966, Academy Award). He continued to excel in stage productions, notably Uncle Vanya (1970) and Amadeus (1979). He appeared in the film versions of King Lear (1971), A Delicate Balance (1973), and Henry V (1989), and he later acted in the films Quiz Show (1994) and The Crucible (1996).

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(born Nov. 12, 1755, Bordenau, Hanover—died June 28, 1813, Prague, Bohemia) Prussian general. He joined the Hanoverian army in 1778 and served with distinction in Belgium against the French in the 1790s. An officer in the Prussian army from 1801, he taught at the war academy and became chief of staff in the war against Napoleon (1806). As head of the army reform commission (from 1807), he developed the modern general staff system and reorganized the Prussian army; with August von Gneisenau he devised the system of rapid military training and use of army reserves. After a forced retirement, he became chief of staff to Gebhard von Blücher (1813) and died of a wound received in the Battle of Lützen.

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Sarnoff, 1971

(born Feb. 27, 1891, Minsk, Russia—died Dec. 12, 1971, New York, N.Y., U.S.) Russian-born U.S. communications executive. After immigrating with his family to New York in 1900, he left school to work for the Marconi telegraph company. In 1912 he heard the distress signal from the sinking Titanic and remained at his instrument for 72 hours relaying news. In 1921 he became general manager of the newly formed Radio Corp. of America (RCA Corp.). He had proposed the first commercially marketed radio receiver in 1916, and by 1924 it had earned $80 million in sales. He formed the radio network NBC in 1926. Perceiving television's potential, he set up an experimental television station (1928) and demonstrated the new medium at the New York World's Fair (1939). During World War II he was a communications consultant to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and was made a brigadier general. President of RCA (1930–47), he served as chairman of the board until 1970.

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(born July 8, 1805, Easton, Pa., U.S.—died May 6, 1884, Philadelphia) U.S. surgeon, teacher of medicine, and author. He was apprenticed to a local country doctor before receiving formal medical training. His most celebrated work, Elements of Pathological Anatomy (1839), was a pioneering effort that organized knowledge on the subject in English, and his System of Surgery (2 vol., 1859) had a profound effect on surgical thought worldwide. His Manual of Military Surgery (1861) was written at the government's request. Gross also invented many surgical tools. He was memorably portrayed in Thomas Eakins's masterpiece, The Gross Clinic.

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(born Feb. 9, 1909, Cherokee county, Ga., U.S.—died Dec. 20, 1994, Athens, Ga.) U.S. secretary of state (1961–69) and educator. He earned a master's degree as a Rhodes scholar at St. John's College, Oxford, and then taught (1934–40) at Mills College in Oakland, Calif. He served in World War II on Gen. Joseph Stilwell's staff. He later held positions in the U.S. State Department and War Department, helping prosecute the Korean War as an assistant secretary of state (1950). After serving as president of the Rockefeller Foundation (1952–60), he became U.S. secretary of state under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. A consistent defender of U.S. participation in the Vietnam War, he became a target of antiwar protests. He also opposed diplomatic recognition of China. After retiring from public life, he taught at the University of Georgia until 1984.

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(born Oct. 7, 1927, Glasgow, Scot.—died Aug. 23, 1989, St. Tropez, France) Scottish psychiatrist. In his widely read and highly controversial book The Divided Self (1960), his analysis of schizophrenia led him to theorize that insecurity about one's existence prompts a defensive reaction in which the self splits into separate components, generating psychotic symptoms, and he opposed standard schizophrenia treatments such as hospitalization and electroshock. He even opposed the concept of mental illness, viewing it as induced by family relationships and society, and radically reconceived the role of the psychiatrist. He later modified some of his controversial positions.

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(born April 8, 1732, Germantown, Pa.—died June 26, 1796, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.) U.S. astronomer and inventor. He was a clockmaker by trade but also built mathematical instruments and, it is believed, the first telescope in the U.S. In 1769 he observed Venus moving across the face of the Sun and noted that Venus has an atmosphere. Rittenhouse served as treasurer of Pennsylvania (1777–89), first director of the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia (1792–95), and president of the American Philosophical Society (1791–96).

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(born Dec. 19, 1902, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, Eng.—died Oct. 10, 1983, London) British actor. He began his acting career at age 18 and gained prominence in the 1930s and '40s at the Old Vic in roles such as Peer Gynt, Petruchio, Falstaff, and Volpone, gaining a reputation as one of the greatest actors of his time. He made his screen debut in 1933 and became known for playing urbane, witty characters and later for eccentric old men. His many films included The Fallen Idol (1948), Doctor Zhivago (1965), and Greystoke (1984).

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orig. Davide Rizzio

(born circa 1533, Pancalieri, near Turin, Piedmont—died March 9, 1566, Edinburgh, Scot.) Secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots. The son of a musician, he accompanied the duke of Savoy's ambassador to Scotland and entered Mary's service as a musician (1561). He became her close adviser and helped arrange her marriage to Lord Darnley (1565). Disliked because of his arrogance, Riccio was an impediment to the Scottish nobles' plan to remove Mary. While at dinner in Mary's palace, he was seized by an armed band of nobles, including Lord Ruthven, and stabbed to death.

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(born , April 18/19, 1772, London, Eng.—died Sept. 11, 1823, Gatcombe Park, Gloucestershire) British economist. The son of a Dutch Jew, he followed his father into the London stock exchange, where he made a fortune before turning to the study of political economy, in which he was influenced by the writings of Adam Smith. His writings in support of a metal currency standard were influential. In his major work, The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817), he examined the movement of wages and the determination of value, asserting that the domestic values of commodities were largely determined by the labour required for their production. His Iron Law of Wages stated that attempts to improve the real income of workers were futile and that wages tended to stabilize at subsistence level. Though many of his ideas are obsolete, he was a major figure in the development of classical economics and is credited as the first person to systematize economics.

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(born March 11, 1926, Linden, Ala., U.S.—died April 17, 1990, Atlanta, Ga.) U.S. pastor and civil rights leader. He was educated at Alabama State University and Atlanta University. Ordained a Baptist minister in 1948, he became pastor of the First Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala., in 1951. He met Martin Luther King, Jr., a few years later when the latter became pastor of another Baptist church in Montgomery. In 1955–56 the two men organized a nonviolent boycott of the city bus system, marking the beginning of the U.S. civil rights movement. In 1957 they founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Abernathy became its president on King's assassination in 1968; in 1977 he resigned to resume work as a pastor in Atlanta. His autobiography, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, appeared in 1989.

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David Dixon Porter, photograph; in the Mathew Brady collection

(born June 8, 1813, Chester, Pa., U.S.—died Feb. 13, 1891, Washington, D.C.) U.S. naval officer. He served under his father, David Porter, in the West Indies and in the Mexican navy before joining the U.S. Navy in 1829. Promoted to commander in the American Civil War, he served under his foster brother, David Farragut, to help win the Battle of New Orleans. In 1863 he succeeded in running his fleet past the Confederate fort at Vicksburg to meet Ulysses S. Grant's troops and complete the effort to open the Mississippi River to Union forces. After the war he served as superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy (1865–69) and was promoted to admiral (1870).

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(born Feb. 1, 1780, Boston, Mass., U.S.—died March 3, 1843, Pera, Tur.) U.S. naval officer. He joined the navy (1798) and served in the Tripolitan War. In the War of 1812 he commanded the Essex, the first U.S. warship to operate in the Pacific Ocean; he captured several British whaling vessels and took possession of Nuku Hiva, the largest of the Marquesas Islands (1813). He was blockaded by British frigates in Valparaíso, Chile, where he surrendered (1814). He served on the board of naval commissioners (1815–23) and commanded a squadron to suppress piracy in the West Indies (1823–25). For unauthorized action against Spanish authorities in Puerto Rico, he was court-martialed and suspended from duty. He resigned in 1826 and became commander of the Mexican navy (1826–29).

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(born Oct. 7, 1885, Copenhagen, Den.—died Nov. 18, 1962, Copenhagen) Danish physicist. He studied the structure of the atom with J.J. Thomson and Ernest Rutherford at the universities of Cambridge and Manchester. He was among the first to see the importance of an element's atomic number and postulated that any atom could exist only in a discrete set of states characterized by definite values of energy. He became the first to apply the quantum theory to atomic and molecular structure, and his concept of the atomic nucleus was a key step in understanding such processes as nuclear fission. From 1920 to 1962 he directed the newly created Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen. His work on atomic theory won him a Nobel Prize for Physics in 1922. He was president of the Royal Danish Academy from 1939 until his death. Though he contributed to atomic bomb research in the U.S. during World War II, he later dedicated himself to the cause of arms control. He received the first U.S. Atoms for Peace Award in 1957. Element 107, bohrium, is named in his honour. His son Aage Niels Bohr (b. 1922) shared the 1975 Nobel Prize for Physics with Ben Mottelson (b. 1926) and James Rainwater (1917–86) for their work on atomic nuclei.

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orig. David Margulois

(born Nov. 27, 1912, St. Louis, Mo., U.S.—died April 25, 2000, London, Eng.) U.S. theatrical producer. He practiced law until 1949, when he became a producer in New York City. His first independent production, Clutterbuck (1949), was followed over the next 40 years by more than 85 other Broadway shows, including Look Back in Anger (1957), The Entertainer (1958), Gypsy (1959), Oliver! (1963), Hello, Dolly! (1964), and 42nd Street (1980). Many of his productions were critical and commercial successes, and he was known for his skillful use of publicity.

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(born Oct. 1, 1963, Pomona, Calif., U.S.) U.S. baseball player. McGwire played first base in college, then joined the Oakland Athletics in 1987 and quickly displayed the strength that would become his trademark. His 49 home runs hit during his first season in the majors set a record, and he was named the American League's Rookie of the Year. In 1989 his .343 postseason batting average guided Oakland to the World Series championship. Injuries plagued him in 1993–95. Traded to the St. Louis Cardinals in 1997, he hit 58 homers. In 1998 he topped Roger Maris's 37-year-old season record of 61 home runs. He and Sammy Sosa thrilled fans with their home-run competition, and McGwire achieved the new record with 70; the record was broken in 2001 by Barry Bonds (73). In 1999 McGwire hit 65 home runs. Following the 2001 season he retired from professional play.

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(born Oct. 1, 1963, Pomona, Calif., U.S.) U.S. baseball player. McGwire played first base in college, then joined the Oakland Athletics in 1987 and quickly displayed the strength that would become his trademark. His 49 home runs hit during his first season in the majors set a record, and he was named the American League's Rookie of the Year. In 1989 his .343 postseason batting average guided Oakland to the World Series championship. Injuries plagued him in 1993–95. Traded to the St. Louis Cardinals in 1997, he hit 58 homers. In 1998 he topped Roger Maris's 37-year-old season record of 61 home runs. He and Sammy Sosa thrilled fans with their home-run competition, and McGwire achieved the new record with 70; the record was broken in 2001 by Barry Bonds (73). In 1999 McGwire hit 65 home runs. Following the 2001 season he retired from professional play.

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(born Nov. 30, 1947, Chicago, Ill., U.S.) U.S. playwright, director, and screenwriter. In 1973 he founded the St. Nicholas Theatre Co. in Chicago. He won wide notice with Sexual Perversity in Chicago (1974) and followed it with plays such as American Buffalo (1977) and Glengarry Glen Ross (1983, Pulitzer Prize). He became known for rapid-fire dialogue studded with obscenities and for his preoccupation with power relationships and corporate corruption. Mamet used the rhythms and rhetoric of everyday speech to delineate character, describe intricate relationships, and drive dramatic development. His later plays include Speed-the-Plow (1987), Oleanna (1992), and The Cryptogram (1994); his screenplays include The Verdict (1980) and The Untouchables (1986). He also wrote and directed films such as House of Games (1987) and State and Main (2000).

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(born Jan. 17, 1863, Manchester, Eng.—died March 26, 1945, Ty-newydd, near Llanystumdwy, Caernarvonshire, Wales) British prime minister (1916–22). He entered Parliament in 1890 as a Liberal and retained his seat for 55 years. He served as president of the Board of Trade (1905–08), then as chancellor of the Exchequer (1908–15). Rejection of his controversial “People's Budget” (to raise taxes for social programs) in 1909 by the House of Lords led to a constitutional crisis and passage of the Parliament Act of 1911. He devised the National Insurance Act of 1911, which laid the foundation of the British welfare state. As minister of munitions (1915–16), he used unorthodox methods to ensure that war supplies were forthcoming during World War I. He replaced H.H. Asquith as prime minister in 1916, with Conservative support in his coalition government. His small war cabinet ensured speedy decisions. Distrustful of the competence of the British high command, he was constantly at odds with Gen. Douglas Haig. In the 1918 elections his decision to continue a coalition government further split the Liberal Party. He was one of the three great statesmen responsible for the Treaty of Versailles at the Paris Peace Conference. He began the negotiations that culminated in the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921. He resigned in 1922 and headed an ailing Liberal Party (1926–31).

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David Livingstone, oil painting by F. Havill after photographs; in the National Portrait Gallery, elipsis

(born March 19, 1813, Lanarkshire, Scot.—died May 1, 1873, Chitambo, Barotseland) Scottish missionary and explorer in Africa. Of working-class origins, Livingstone studied theology and medicine in Glasgow before being ordained (1840) and deciding to work in Africa to open up the interior for colonization, extend the Gospel, and abolish the slave trade. By 1842 he had already penetrated farther north of the Cape Colony frontier than any other white man. He was the first European to reach Lake Ngami (1849) and the first to reach Luanda from the interior (1854). He encountered and named Victoria Falls (1855), journeyed across the continent to eastern Mozambique (1856, 1862), explored the Lake Malawi region (1861–63), came across Lakes Mweru and Bangweulu (1867), and penetrated to points farther east of Lake Tanganyika than any previous expedition had managed (1871). His attempt to find the source of the Nile (1867–71) failed. When he was found by Henry Morton Stanley in 1871, his health was failing; he refused to leave, and in 1873 he was found dead by African aides. Livingstone produced a complex body of knowledge—geographic, technical, medical, and social—that took decades to mine. In his lifetime he stirred the imagination of English-speaking peoples everywhere and was celebrated as one of the great figures of British civilization.

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(born March 25, 1908, Croydon, Surrey, Eng.—died April 16, 1991, London) British film director. He worked at Gaumont Studios from 1928, becoming head film editor. He codirected In Which We Serve (1942) with Noël Coward and was sole director of Coward's Blithe Spirit (1945) and Brief Encounter (1945). He directed film adaptations of Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948). Lean won wide acclaim for The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957, Academy Award) and later for Lawrence of Arabia (1962, Academy Award), Dr. Zhivago (1965), and A Passage to India (1984). His literate, epic productions featured spectacular cinematography and stunning locales.

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(born Jan. 27, 1824, Greene county, Tenn., U.S.—died Feb. 3, 1900, Chattanooga, Tenn.) U.S. politician. Admitted to the bar in 1850, he practiced law in Chattanooga and became active in Democratic Party politics. He opposed secession by the South but served in the Confederate army during the American Civil War, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. After the war he worked to heal sectional grievances and restore the Union. He was appointed to the U.S. Senate (1875), succeeding former president Andrew Johnson, but two years later was defeated in a bid to retain the seat. When the disputed 1876 presidential election was turned over to a special Electoral Commission, the Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, secured the support of Southern Democrats by promising, among other things, to appoint a Southerner to his cabinet. Key was thus appointed postmaster general in 1877. From 1880 to 1894 Key was a U.S. district judge in Tennessee.

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Kaunda

(born April 28, 1924, Lubwa, near Chinsali, Northern Rhodesia) Political leader and first president (1961–91) of Zambia. Kaunda came to prominence in 1959–60 in the movement to stop Britain from establishing a federation of North and South Rhodesia and Nyasaland. As the first president of independent Zambia, he helped avert a civil war in the late 1960s but ended up imposing single-party rule. From the 1970s he led other southern African nations in confronting the white-minority governments of Rhodesia and South Africa. He increased Zambia's dependence on copper exports and on foreign aid, allowing agriculture, education, and social services to languish and poverty and unemployment to increase. Several attempted coups in the early 1980s were crushed; in 1990 he was forced to legalize opposition parties, and in 1991 he was voted out of office.

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Kaunda

(born April 28, 1924, Lubwa, near Chinsali, Northern Rhodesia) Political leader and first president (1961–91) of Zambia. Kaunda came to prominence in 1959–60 in the movement to stop Britain from establishing a federation of North and South Rhodesia and Nyasaland. As the first president of independent Zambia, he helped avert a civil war in the late 1960s but ended up imposing single-party rule. From the 1970s he led other southern African nations in confronting the white-minority governments of Rhodesia and South Africa. He increased Zambia's dependence on copper exports and on foreign aid, allowing agriculture, education, and social services to languish and poverty and unemployment to increase. Several attempted coups in the early 1980s were crushed; in 1990 he was forced to legalize opposition parties, and in 1991 he was voted out of office.

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(born Jan. 19, 1851, near Gainesville, N.Y., U.S.—died Sept. 19, 1931, Stanford, Calif.) U.S. educator and ichthyologist. He studied at Cornell University and taught at universities in Indiana until 1885, when he became president of Indiana University. In 1891 he became the first president of Stanford University, and served until 1913. His extensive field trips led to his naming 1,085 genera and more than 2,500 species of fishes. He was coauthor (with B.W. Evermann) of The Fishes of North and Middle America (1896–1900) and author of Manual of the Vertebrates of the Northern United States (13 editions, 1876–1929). He devoted his later career mainly to the cause of international peace, acting as chief director of the World Peace Foundation.

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(born Jan. 1, 1919, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. writer. He began to publish short stories in periodicals in 1940. After World War II his stories, some based on his army experiences, appeared increasingly in The New Yorker. His entire literary output comprises 13 stories and novellas— collected in Nine Stories (1953), Franny and Zooey (1961), and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, and Seymour: An Introduction (1963)—and The Catcher in the Rye (1951), a novel of adolescent anguish that won great critical and popular admiration, especially among college students. He retreated into a mysterious seclusion in New Hampshire and ceased to publish.

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Jacques-Louis David, self-portrait, oil painting, 1794; in the Louvre, Paris

(born Aug. 30, 1748, Paris, France—died Dec. 29, 1825, Brussels) French painter. At 18 he entered the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. In 1775 he went to Rome and became a proponent of the Neoclassical style, but also studied the work of such 17th-century painters as Nicolas Poussin and Caravaggio. His work came to epitomize the late 18th-century Neoclassical reaction against the ornate Rococo style. Among his subjects were classical, historical, and mythological themes; he was also a great portraitist. He became the unchallenged painter of the French Revolution, and later was appointed official portraitist to Napoleon. He was also a founding member of the new Institut de France, which replaced the Royal Academy, and produced commemorative medals and other revolutionary propaganda. Among his masterpieces is The Death of Marat (1793), an expression of universal tragedy as well as a portrayal of a key event of the French Revolution. His influence on European art was pervasive; his pupils included Antoine-Jean Gros and J.-A.-D. Ingres.

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(born May 7, 1711, Edinburgh, Scot.—died Aug. 25, 1776, Edinburgh) Scottish philosopher, historian, and economist. He conceived of philosophy as the inductive, experimental science of human nature. His first major work, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), explains the origin of ideas, including the ideas of space, time, and causality, in sense experience; presents an elaborate account of the affective, or emotional, aspects of the mind and assigns a subordinate role to reason in this order (“Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions”); and describes moral goodness in terms of “feelings” of approval or disapproval that a person has when he considers human behaviour in the light of the agreeable or disagreeable consequences either to himself or to others. The Treatise was poorly received, and late in life Hume repudiated it as juvenile. He revised Book I of the Treatise as An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1758); a revision of Book III was published as An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751). His Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), containing a refutation of the argument from design and a critique of the notion of miracles, was withheld from publication during his lifetime at the urging of friends. From his account of the origin of ideas Hume concluded that we have no knowledge of a “self” as the enduring subject of experience; nor do we have knowledge of any “necessary connection” between causally related events. Immanuel Kant, who developed his critical philosophy in direct reaction to Hume, said that Hume had awakened him from his “dogmatic slumbers.” In Britain, Hume's moral theory influenced Jeremy Bentham to adopt utilitarianism. With John Locke and George Berkeley, Hume is regarded as one of the great philosophers of empiricism.

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(born Feb. 27, 1926, Windsor, Ont., Can.) Canadian-born U.S. neurobiologist. He studied medicine at McGill University and in 1959 joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School. In 1981 he shared a Nobel Prize with Torsten Wiesel and Roger Sperry for investigations of visual perception, one of their achievements being analysis of the flow of nerve impulses from the retina to the brain's sensory and motor centres.

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(born July 9, 1937, Bradford, Eng.) British painter, draftsman, printmaker, photographer, and stage designer. He studied at the Bradford College of Art and the Royal College of Art in London. In the mid 1960s he taught at the Universities of Iowa, Colorado, and California, and in 1978 he settled permanently in Los Angeles. His portraits, self-portraits, still lifes, and quiet scenes of friends are characterized by economy of technique, preoccupation with light, bright colours, and a frank, mundane realism derived from Pop art and photography. The California swimming pool became one of his favourite themes. A brilliant draftsman and printmaker, he published series of etchings, including illustrations for Six Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (1969). In the 1970s he achieved prominence as a set designer for the opera and ballet. He later experimented with photography and photocollage, and still later with computer technology and printers.

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(born Jan. 23, 1862, Königsberg, Prussia—died Feb. 14, 1943, Göttingen, Ger.) German mathematician whose work aimed at establishing the formalistic foundations of mathematics. He finished his Ph.D. at the University of Königsberg (1884) and moved to the University of Göttingen in 1895. In 1900 at the International Mathematical Congress in Paris, he laid out 23 research problems as a challenge to the 20th century. Many have since been solved, in each case to great fanfare. Hilbert's name is prominently attached to an infinite-dimensional space called a Hilbert space (see inner product space), a concept useful in mathematical analysis and quantum mechanics.

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Henry David Thoreau, portrait by Samuel Worcester Rowse, 1854; in the Concord Free Public Library, elipsis

(born July 12, 1817, Concord, Mass., U.S.—died May 6, 1862, Concord) U.S. thinker, essayist, and naturalist. Thoreau graduated from Harvard University and taught school for several years before leaving his job to become a poet of nature. Back in Concord, he came under the influence of Ralph Waldo Emerson and began to publish pieces in the Transcendentalist magazine The Dial. In the years 1845–47, to demonstrate how satisfying a simple life could be, he lived in a hut beside Concord's Walden Pond; essays recording his daily life were assembled for his masterwork, Walden (1854). His A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849) was the only other book he published in his lifetime. He reflected on a night he spent in jail protesting the Mexican-American War in the essay “Civil Disobedience” (1849), which would later influence such figures as Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. In later years his interest in Transcendentalism waned, and he became a dedicated abolitionist. His many nature writings and records of his wanderings in Canada, Maine, and Cape Cod display the mind of a keen naturalist. After his death his collected writings were published in 20 volumes, and further writings have continued to appear in print.

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(born July 8, 1805, Easton, Pa., U.S.—died May 6, 1884, Philadelphia) U.S. surgeon, teacher of medicine, and author. He was apprenticed to a local country doctor before receiving formal medical training. His most celebrated work, Elements of Pathological Anatomy (1839), was a pioneering effort that organized knowledge on the subject in English, and his System of Surgery (2 vol., 1859) had a profound effect on surgical thought worldwide. His Manual of Military Surgery (1861) was written at the government's request. Gross also invented many surgical tools. He was memorably portrayed in Thomas Eakins's masterpiece, The Gross Clinic.

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(born Nov. 12, 1755, Bordenau, Hanover—died June 28, 1813, Prague, Bohemia) Prussian general. He joined the Hanoverian army in 1778 and served with distinction in Belgium against the French in the 1790s. An officer in the Prussian army from 1801, he taught at the war academy and became chief of staff in the war against Napoleon (1806). As head of the army reform commission (from 1807), he developed the modern general staff system and reorganized the Prussian army; with August von Gneisenau he devised the system of rapid military training and use of army reserves. After a forced retirement, he became chief of staff to Gebhard von Blücher (1813) and died of a wound received in the Battle of Lützen.

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“Virgin and Child with Saints and Donor,” panel painting by Gerard David, c. elipsis

(born circa 1460, Oudewater, Neth.—died Aug. 13, 1523, Bruges) Netherlandish painter. He worked mainly in Bruges, where he entered the painters' guild in 1484 and became dean in 1501. He became the city's leading painter after the death of Hans Memling. Most of his works are altarpieces and other panels featuring traditional religious themes, but his best-known paintings, The Judgment of Cambyses and The Flaying of Sisamnes (1498), deal with the theme of justice; they originally hung in the town hall of Bruges. His works are among the earliest Flemish paintings to feature the Italian Renaissance iconography of putti (male child angels) and garlands.

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(born Feb. 19, 1717, Hereford, Herefordshire, Eng.—died Jan. 20, 1779, London) British actor, producer, and playwright. Tutored in his boyhood by Samuel Johnson, he settled in London as a wine merchant before winning fame with his acting debut as Richard III in 1741. In diverse roles in plays such as King Lear, Hamlet, and Ben Jonson's The Alchemist, he was acclaimed for his naturalistic style and came to be regarded as one of England's greatest actors. As part owner and manager of the Drury Lane Theatre (1747–76) he made it London's most prosperous theatre, reformed theatrical stage practices, and replaced many Restoration adaptations of Shakespeare with his own versions. He wrote over 20 plays.

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(born Sept. 5, 1774, Greifswald, Pomerania—died May 7, 1840, Dresden, Saxony) German painter. He studied at the Copenhagen Academy. After 1798 he settled in Dresden and began his career as a topographical draftsman in pencil and sepia wash. His first important oil painting, The Cross in the Mountains (1807–08), achieves an overwhelming sense of isolation. In 1824 he was appointed professor at the Dresden Academy. His vast, mysterious landscapes and seascapes, proclaiming human helplessness against the forces of nature, did much to establish the sublime as a primary focus of Romanticism. Interest in his work revived with the rise of Symbolism at the beginning of the 20th century.

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David Farragut, daguerreotype.

(born July 5, 1801, near Knoxville, Tenn., U.S.—died Aug. 14, 1870, Portsmouth, N.H.) U.S. naval officer. He served in the War of 1812 and received his first command in 1824. During the American Civil War he commanded the Union blockade of the western Gulf of Mexico; in the Battle of New Orleans he captured the port through which the Confederacy received much of its war supplies. In 1863 he helped secure victory at the Battle of Vicksburg, bringing the Mississippi River under Union control. In 1864 he led a successful attack in the Battle of Mobile Bay, sending his ships across a blockade of mines (“torpedoes”) with the order, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” He became a full admiral in 1866.

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(born April 7, 1869, Lansing, Mich., U.S.—died Aug. 6, 1954, Coconut Grove, Fla.) U.S. botanist and agricultural explorer. He studied at Kansas State University of Agriculture. From 1904 to 1928, as head of the section of plant pathology of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, he supervised the introduction of many useful plants into the U.S., including alfalfa, dates, mangoes, horseradish, and bamboos.

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Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1952.

(born Oct. 14, 1890, Denison, Texas, U.S.—died March 28, 1969, Washington, D.C.) 34th president of the U.S. (1953–61). He graduated from West Point (1915), then served in the Panama Canal Zone (1922–24) and in the Philippines under Douglas MacArthur (1935–39). In World War II Gen. George Marshall appointed him to the army's war-plans division (1941), then chose him to command U.S. forces in Europe (1942). After planning the invasions of North Africa, Sicily, and Italy, he was appointed supreme commander of Allied forces (1943). He planned the Normandy Campaign (1944) and the conduct of the war in Europe until the German surrender (1945). He was promoted to five-star general (1944) and was named army chief of staff in 1945. He served as president of Columbia University from 1948 until being appointed supreme commander of NATO in 1951. Both Democrats and Republicans courted Eisenhower as a presidential candidate; in 1952, as the Republican candidate, he defeated Adlai Stevenson with the largest popular vote to that time. He defeated Stevenson again in 1956 in an even larger landslide. His policy of support for Middle Eastern countries facing communist aggression, enunciated in the Eisenhower Doctrine, was a continuation of the containment policy adopted by the Harry Truman administration (see Truman Doctrine). He sent federal troops to Little Rock, Ark., to enforce integration of a city high school (1957). When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I (1957), he was criticized for failing to develop the U.S. space program; he responded by creating NASA (1958). In his last weeks in office the U.S. broke diplomatic relations with Cuba.

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Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1952.

(born Oct. 14, 1890, Denison, Texas, U.S.—died March 28, 1969, Washington, D.C.) 34th president of the U.S. (1953–61). He graduated from West Point (1915), then served in the Panama Canal Zone (1922–24) and in the Philippines under Douglas MacArthur (1935–39). In World War II Gen. George Marshall appointed him to the army's war-plans division (1941), then chose him to command U.S. forces in Europe (1942). After planning the invasions of North Africa, Sicily, and Italy, he was appointed supreme commander of Allied forces (1943). He planned the Normandy Campaign (1944) and the conduct of the war in Europe until the German surrender (1945). He was promoted to five-star general (1944) and was named army chief of staff in 1945. He served as president of Columbia University from 1948 until being appointed supreme commander of NATO in 1951. Both Democrats and Republicans courted Eisenhower as a presidential candidate; in 1952, as the Republican candidate, he defeated Adlai Stevenson with the largest popular vote to that time. He defeated Stevenson again in 1956 in an even larger landslide. His policy of support for Middle Eastern countries facing communist aggression, enunciated in the Eisenhower Doctrine, was a continuation of the containment policy adopted by the Harry Truman administration (see Truman Doctrine). He sent federal troops to Little Rock, Ark., to enforce integration of a city high school (1957). When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I (1957), he was criticized for failing to develop the U.S. space program; he responded by creating NASA (1958). In his last weeks in office the U.S. broke diplomatic relations with Cuba.

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(born Feb. 22, 1892, Brest-Litovsk, Russian Empire—died Sept. 17, 1982, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. labour leader. The son of a baker in Russian Poland, he was sent to Siberia in 1908 for his union activities. In 1911 he escaped and immigrated to the U.S., where he renewed his union work. In 1932 he became president of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), a post he held until 1966. As president, he transformed the ILGWU from a small, fractious regional organization into a model international union. He also played a significant role in the merger of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (see AFL-CIO) in 1955.

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(born March 9, 1815, Cecil county, Md., U.S.—died June 26, 1886, Bloomington, Ill.) U.S. jurist. He earned a law degree from Yale in 1835 and established a law practice in Bloomington the following year. He was elected to the Illinois legislature in 1844. As a state circuit-court judge (1848–62) he became a close friend of Abraham Lincoln, and he worked assiduously for Lincoln's election as president in 1860. In 1862 Lincoln appointed him to the Supreme Court of the United States (1862–77). He resigned his seat on the court to accept election to the U.S. Senate (1877–83).

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Jacques-Louis David, self-portrait, oil painting, 1794; in the Louvre, Paris

(born Aug. 30, 1748, Paris, France—died Dec. 29, 1825, Brussels) French painter. At 18 he entered the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. In 1775 he went to Rome and became a proponent of the Neoclassical style, but also studied the work of such 17th-century painters as Nicolas Poussin and Caravaggio. His work came to epitomize the late 18th-century Neoclassical reaction against the ornate Rococo style. Among his subjects were classical, historical, and mythological themes; he was also a great portraitist. He became the unchallenged painter of the French Revolution, and later was appointed official portraitist to Napoleon. He was also a founding member of the new Institut de France, which replaced the Royal Academy, and produced commemorative medals and other revolutionary propaganda. Among his masterpieces is The Death of Marat (1793), an expression of universal tragedy as well as a portrayal of a key event of the French Revolution. His influence on European art was pervasive; his pupils included Antoine-Jean Gros and J.-A.-D. Ingres.

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“Virgin and Child with Saints and Donor,” panel painting by Gerard David, c. elipsis

(born circa 1460, Oudewater, Neth.—died Aug. 13, 1523, Bruges) Netherlandish painter. He worked mainly in Bruges, where he entered the painters' guild in 1484 and became dean in 1501. He became the city's leading painter after the death of Hans Memling. Most of his works are altarpieces and other panels featuring traditional religious themes, but his best-known paintings, The Judgment of Cambyses and The Flaying of Sisamnes (1498), deal with the theme of justice; they originally hung in the town hall of Bruges. His works are among the earliest Flemish paintings to feature the Italian Renaissance iconography of putti (male child angels) and garlands.

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(born Jan. 22, 1875, Floydsfork, Ky., U.S.—died July 23, 1948, Hollywood, Calif.) U.S. film director. After acting in touring stage companies, he sold film scenarios to the Biograph Co., which hired him as a director (1908–13). In over 400 films for Biograph he developed filmmaking as an art form with techniques such as the close-up, the scenic long shot, and crosscutting, and he collaborated with cinematographer Billy Bitzer to create fade-out, fade-in, and soft-focus shots. He nurtured the careers of future stars such as Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, Mack Sennett, and Lionel Barrymore. His epic dramas The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916) greatly influenced later filmmakers. After cofounding United Artists Corp. in 1919, he directed Broken Blossoms (1919), Way Down East (1920), and Orphans of the Storm (1921). His last films were Abraham Lincoln (1930) and The Struggle (1931). He is regarded as one of the seminal figures in the history of motion pictures.

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(born Jan. 19, 1851, near Gainesville, N.Y., U.S.—died Sept. 19, 1931, Stanford, Calif.) U.S. educator and ichthyologist. He studied at Cornell University and taught at universities in Indiana until 1885, when he became president of Indiana University. In 1891 he became the first president of Stanford University, and served until 1913. His extensive field trips led to his naming 1,085 genera and more than 2,500 species of fishes. He was coauthor (with B.W. Evermann) of The Fishes of North and Middle America (1896–1900) and author of Manual of the Vertebrates of the Northern United States (13 editions, 1876–1929). He devoted his later career mainly to the cause of international peace, acting as chief director of the World Peace Foundation.

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Sarnoff, 1971

(born Feb. 27, 1891, Minsk, Russia—died Dec. 12, 1971, New York, N.Y., U.S.) Russian-born U.S. communications executive. After immigrating with his family to New York in 1900, he left school to work for the Marconi telegraph company. In 1912 he heard the distress signal from the sinking Titanic and remained at his instrument for 72 hours relaying news. In 1921 he became general manager of the newly formed Radio Corp. of America (RCA Corp.). He had proposed the first commercially marketed radio receiver in 1916, and by 1924 it had earned $80 million in sales. He formed the radio network NBC in 1926. Perceiving television's potential, he set up an experimental television station (1928) and demonstrated the new medium at the New York World's Fair (1939). During World War II he was a communications consultant to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and was made a brigadier general. President of RCA (1930–47), he served as chairman of the board until 1970.

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(born March 9, 1906, Decatur, Ind., U.S.—died May 23, 1965, Albany, N.Y.) U.S. sculptor. He learned to work with metal while employed at an automobile plant. In 1926 he went to New York City and took various jobs while studying painting at the Art Students League. His sculptures grew out of his abstract paintings, to which he attached so many bits of wood, metal, and found objects that they became virtual bases for sculptural superstructures. He became the first U.S. artist to make welded metal sculpture. In 1940 he moved to Bolton Landing, N.Y., and there made his large yet seemingly weightless metal sculptures until his death in a car crash. His abstract biomorphic and geometric forms are remarkable for their erratic inventiveness, stylistic diversity, and high aesthetic quality. His work greatly influenced Minimalist sculpture in the 1960s.

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(born April 8, 1732, Germantown, Pa.—died June 26, 1796, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.) U.S. astronomer and inventor. He was a clockmaker by trade but also built mathematical instruments and, it is believed, the first telescope in the U.S. In 1769 he observed Venus moving across the face of the Sun and noted that Venus has an atmosphere. Rittenhouse served as treasurer of Pennsylvania (1777–89), first director of the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia (1792–95), and president of the American Philosophical Society (1791–96).

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orig. Davide Rizzio

(born circa 1533, Pancalieri, near Turin, Piedmont—died March 9, 1566, Edinburgh, Scot.) Secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots. The son of a musician, he accompanied the duke of Savoy's ambassador to Scotland and entered Mary's service as a musician (1561). He became her close adviser and helped arrange her marriage to Lord Darnley (1565). Disliked because of his arrogance, Riccio was an impediment to the Scottish nobles' plan to remove Mary. While at dinner in Mary's palace, he was seized by an armed band of nobles, including Lord Ruthven, and stabbed to death.

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(born , April 18/19, 1772, London, Eng.—died Sept. 11, 1823, Gatcombe Park, Gloucestershire) British economist. The son of a Dutch Jew, he followed his father into the London stock exchange, where he made a fortune before turning to the study of political economy, in which he was influenced by the writings of Adam Smith. His writings in support of a metal currency standard were influential. In his major work, The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817), he examined the movement of wages and the determination of value, asserting that the domestic values of commodities were largely determined by the labour required for their production. His Iron Law of Wages stated that attempts to improve the real income of workers were futile and that wages tended to stabilize at subsistence level. Though many of his ideas are obsolete, he was a major figure in the development of classical economics and is credited as the first person to systematize economics.

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(born Feb. 1, 1780, Boston, Mass., U.S.—died March 3, 1843, Pera, Tur.) U.S. naval officer. He joined the navy (1798) and served in the Tripolitan War. In the War of 1812 he commanded the Essex, the first U.S. warship to operate in the Pacific Ocean; he captured several British whaling vessels and took possession of Nuku Hiva, the largest of the Marquesas Islands (1813). He was blockaded by British frigates in Valparaíso, Chile, where he surrendered (1814). He served on the board of naval commissioners (1815–23) and commanded a squadron to suppress piracy in the West Indies (1823–25). For unauthorized action against Spanish authorities in Puerto Rico, he was court-martialed and suspended from duty. He resigned in 1826 and became commander of the Mexican navy (1826–29).

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(born May 10, 1902, Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S.—died June 22, 1965, Hollywood, Calif.) U.S. film producer. He trained with his father, a movie executive, before moving to Hollywood in 1926. Working for MGM, RKO, and other studios, he produced films such as Dinner at Eight (1933), King Kong (1933), David Copperfield (1935), and A Tale of Two Cities (1935). He formed his own company, Selznick International, in 1936 and produced hits such as A Star Is Born (1937). He was essential to the enormous success of Gone with the Wind (1939), overseeing its entire production with detailed memos about every aspect of the movie. He brought Alfred Hitchcock to the U.S. and produced Rebecca (1940) and Spellbound (1945). He also produced Duel in the Sun (1946), The Third Man (1949), and A Farewell to Arms (1957), which starred his second wife, Jennifer Jones.

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orig. David Margulois

(born Nov. 27, 1912, St. Louis, Mo., U.S.—died April 25, 2000, London, Eng.) U.S. theatrical producer. He practiced law until 1949, when he became a producer in New York City. His first independent production, Clutterbuck (1949), was followed over the next 40 years by more than 85 other Broadway shows, including Look Back in Anger (1957), The Entertainer (1958), Gypsy (1959), Oliver! (1963), Hello, Dolly! (1964), and 42nd Street (1980). Many of his productions were critical and commercial successes, and he was known for his skillful use of publicity.

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(born Jan. 27, 1824, Greene county, Tenn., U.S.—died Feb. 3, 1900, Chattanooga, Tenn.) U.S. politician. Admitted to the bar in 1850, he practiced law in Chattanooga and became active in Democratic Party politics. He opposed secession by the South but served in the Confederate army during the American Civil War, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. After the war he worked to heal sectional grievances and restore the Union. He was appointed to the U.S. Senate (1875), succeeding former president Andrew Johnson, but two years later was defeated in a bid to retain the seat. When the disputed 1876 presidential election was turned over to a special Electoral Commission, the Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, secured the support of Southern Democrats by promising, among other things, to appoint a Southerner to his cabinet. Key was thus appointed postmaster general in 1877. From 1880 to 1894 Key was a U.S. district judge in Tennessee.

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(born Jan. 17, 1863, Manchester, Eng.—died March 26, 1945, Ty-newydd, near Llanystumdwy, Caernarvonshire, Wales) British prime minister (1916–22). He entered Parliament in 1890 as a Liberal and retained his seat for 55 years. He served as president of the Board of Trade (1905–08), then as chancellor of the Exchequer (1908–15). Rejection of his controversial “People's Budget” (to raise taxes for social programs) in 1909 by the House of Lords led to a constitutional crisis and passage of the Parliament Act of 1911. He devised the National Insurance Act of 1911, which laid the foundation of the British welfare state. As minister of munitions (1915–16), he used unorthodox methods to ensure that war supplies were forthcoming during World War I. He replaced H.H. Asquith as prime minister in 1916, with Conservative support in his coalition government. His small war cabinet ensured speedy decisions. Distrustful of the competence of the British high command, he was constantly at odds with Gen. Douglas Haig. In the 1918 elections his decision to continue a coalition government further split the Liberal Party. He was one of the three great statesmen responsible for the Treaty of Versailles at the Paris Peace Conference. He began the negotiations that culminated in the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921. He resigned in 1922 and headed an ailing Liberal Party (1926–31).

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David Livingstone, oil painting by F. Havill after photographs; in the National Portrait Gallery, elipsis

(born March 19, 1813, Lanarkshire, Scot.—died May 1, 1873, Chitambo, Barotseland) Scottish missionary and explorer in Africa. Of working-class origins, Livingstone studied theology and medicine in Glasgow before being ordained (1840) and deciding to work in Africa to open up the interior for colonization, extend the Gospel, and abolish the slave trade. By 1842 he had already penetrated farther north of the Cape Colony frontier than any other white man. He was the first European to reach Lake Ngami (1849) and the first to reach Luanda from the interior (1854). He encountered and named Victoria Falls (1855), journeyed across the continent to eastern Mozambique (1856, 1862), explored the Lake Malawi region (1861–63), came across Lakes Mweru and Bangweulu (1867), and penetrated to points farther east of Lake Tanganyika than any previous expedition had managed (1871). His attempt to find the source of the Nile (1867–71) failed. When he was found by Henry Morton Stanley in 1871, his health was failing; he refused to leave, and in 1873 he was found dead by African aides. Livingstone produced a complex body of knowledge—geographic, technical, medical, and social—that took decades to mine. In his lifetime he stirred the imagination of English-speaking peoples everywhere and was celebrated as one of the great figures of British civilization.

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(born March 5, 1324, Dunfermline, Fife, Scot.—died Feb. 22, 1372, Scotland) King of the Scots from 1329. In keeping with an Anglo-Scottish peace treaty, he was married at age four to the sister of Edward III of England. His reign was marked by conflict with England and a decline in the prestige of the monarchy. He went into exile in France in 1334 after Edward III supported a rival for the throne, and he fought against Edward for the French king Philip VI. David returned to Scotland in 1341 and carried out raids against the English, who captured him in 1346. He was released in 1357 on the promise of ransom, and his offer to trade the Scottish throne for forgiveness of the ransom money was repudiated in Scotland.

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(born circa 1082—died May 24, 1153, Carlisle, Cumberland, Eng.) King of the Scots (1124–53). The youngest of six sons of Malcolm III Canmore, he became king of Scotland on the death of his brother Alexander I. He created a rudimentary central administration, issued the first Scottish royal coinage, and admitted into Scotland an influential Norman aristocracy. David also reorganized Scottish Christianity to conform with European and English usages and founded many religious communities. He had obtained lands in central England through his marriage to the daughter of an English earl in 1113, and he won h1 to Northumberland from the future Henry II in 1149.

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(born Feb. 27, 1926, Windsor, Ont., Can.) Canadian-born U.S. neurobiologist. He studied medicine at McGill University and in 1959 joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School. In 1981 he shared a Nobel Prize with Torsten Wiesel and Roger Sperry for investigations of visual perception, one of their achievements being analysis of the flow of nerve impulses from the retina to the brain's sensory and motor centres.

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(born May 7, 1711, Edinburgh, Scot.—died Aug. 25, 1776, Edinburgh) Scottish philosopher, historian, and economist. He conceived of philosophy as the inductive, experimental science of human nature. His first major work, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), explains the origin of ideas, including the ideas of space, time, and causality, in sense experience; presents an elaborate account of the affective, or emotional, aspects of the mind and assigns a subordinate role to reason in this order (“Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions”); and describes moral goodness in terms of “feelings” of approval or disapproval that a person has when he considers human behaviour in the light of the agreeable or disagreeable consequences either to himself or to others. The Treatise was poorly received, and late in life Hume repudiated it as juvenile. He revised Book I of the Treatise as An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1758); a revision of Book III was published as An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751). His Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), containing a refutation of the argument from design and a critique of the notion of miracles, was withheld from publication during his lifetime at the urging of friends. From his account of the origin of ideas Hume concluded that we have no knowledge of a “self” as the enduring subject of experience; nor do we have knowledge of any “necessary connection” between causally related events. Immanuel Kant, who developed his critical philosophy in direct reaction to Hume, said that Hume had awakened him from his “dogmatic slumbers.” In Britain, Hume's moral theory influenced Jeremy Bentham to adopt utilitarianism. With John Locke and George Berkeley, Hume is regarded as one of the great philosophers of empiricism.

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(born July 9, 1937, Bradford, Eng.) British painter, draftsman, printmaker, photographer, and stage designer. He studied at the Bradford College of Art and the Royal College of Art in London. In the mid 1960s he taught at the Universities of Iowa, Colorado, and California, and in 1978 he settled permanently in Los Angeles. His portraits, self-portraits, still lifes, and quiet scenes of friends are characterized by economy of technique, preoccupation with light, bright colours, and a frank, mundane realism derived from Pop art and photography. The California swimming pool became one of his favourite themes. A brilliant draftsman and printmaker, he published series of etchings, including illustrations for Six Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (1969). In the 1970s he achieved prominence as a set designer for the opera and ballet. He later experimented with photography and photocollage, and still later with computer technology and printers.

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(born Jan. 23, 1862, Königsberg, Prussia—died Feb. 14, 1943, Göttingen, Ger.) German mathematician whose work aimed at establishing the formalistic foundations of mathematics. He finished his Ph.D. at the University of Königsberg (1884) and moved to the University of Göttingen in 1895. In 1900 at the International Mathematical Congress in Paris, he laid out 23 research problems as a challenge to the 20th century. Many have since been solved, in each case to great fanfare. Hilbert's name is prominently attached to an infinite-dimensional space called a Hilbert space (see inner product space), a concept useful in mathematical analysis and quantum mechanics.

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(born Sept. 11, 1885, Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, Eng.—died March 2, 1930, Vence, France) English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and essayist. The son of a Midlands coal miner and an educated mother, he began to write in 1905 and earned a teaching certificate in 1908. Ford Madox Ford published much of Lawrence's early work in the English Review and helped place his first novel, The White Peacock (1911). Lawrence often drew his themes from his own life and relationships. Sons and Lovers (1913) is a clearly autobiographical novel about working-class family life. In 1914 he married a German woman, Frieda Weekley. The object of hostility and suspicion during World War I because of his pacifism and her origins, the couple lived in various countries after 1919, never returning to England. The Rainbow (1915) and its sequel, Women in Love (1920), trace the sickness of modern civilization to the effects of industrialization upon the human psyche. Kangaroo (1923) describes the persecution he experienced during the war. The Plumed Serpent (1926) was inspired by his fascination with Aztec culture. Lawrence's writing is notable for its intensity and its erotic sensuality; several of his works, including Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928), were banned as obscene. He died of the tuberculosis that had plagued him from an early age.

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(born Sept. 17, 1939, Melrose, Mass., U.S.) U.S. jurist. He graduated from Harvard Law School and soon joined the New Hampshire attorney general's office. He was promoted to state attorney general in 1976, to the state's Superior Court in 1978, and to its Supreme Court in 1983. In 1990 he was appointed by Pres. George Bush to the First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and later that year to the U.S. Supreme Court. Considered a conservative at the outset of his appointment, he gradually emerged as a moderate liberal, particularly on issues of civil rights.

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(born April 7, 1869, Lansing, Mich., U.S.—died Aug. 6, 1954, Coconut Grove, Fla.) U.S. botanist and agricultural explorer. He studied at Kansas State University of Agriculture. From 1904 to 1928, as head of the section of plant pathology of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, he supervised the introduction of many useful plants into the U.S., including alfalfa, dates, mangoes, horseradish, and bamboos.

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David Farragut, daguerreotype.

(born July 5, 1801, near Knoxville, Tenn., U.S.—died Aug. 14, 1870, Portsmouth, N.H.) U.S. naval officer. He served in the War of 1812 and received his first command in 1824. During the American Civil War he commanded the Union blockade of the western Gulf of Mexico; in the Battle of New Orleans he captured the port through which the Confederacy received much of its war supplies. In 1863 he helped secure victory at the Battle of Vicksburg, bringing the Mississippi River under Union control. In 1864 he led a successful attack in the Battle of Mobile Bay, sending his ships across a blockade of mines (“torpedoes”) with the order, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” He became a full admiral in 1866.

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(born Feb. 19, 1717, Hereford, Herefordshire, Eng.—died Jan. 20, 1779, London) British actor, producer, and playwright. Tutored in his boyhood by Samuel Johnson, he settled in London as a wine merchant before winning fame with his acting debut as Richard III in 1741. In diverse roles in plays such as King Lear, Hamlet, and Ben Jonson's The Alchemist, he was acclaimed for his naturalistic style and came to be regarded as one of England's greatest actors. As part owner and manager of the Drury Lane Theatre (1747–76) he made it London's most prosperous theatre, reformed theatrical stage practices, and replaced many Restoration adaptations of Shakespeare with his own versions. He wrote over 20 plays.

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(born Feb. 22, 1892, Brest-Litovsk, Russian Empire—died Sept. 17, 1982, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. labour leader. The son of a baker in Russian Poland, he was sent to Siberia in 1908 for his union activities. In 1911 he escaped and immigrated to the U.S., where he renewed his union work. In 1932 he became president of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), a post he held until 1966. As president, he transformed the ILGWU from a small, fractious regional organization into a model international union. He also played a significant role in the merger of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (see AFL-CIO) in 1955.

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David Dixon Porter, photograph; in the Mathew Brady collection

(born June 8, 1813, Chester, Pa., U.S.—died Feb. 13, 1891, Washington, D.C.) U.S. naval officer. He served under his father, David Porter, in the West Indies and in the Mexican navy before joining the U.S. Navy in 1829. Promoted to commander in the American Civil War, he served under his foster brother, David Farragut, to help win the Battle of New Orleans. In 1863 he succeeded in running his fleet past the Confederate fort at Vicksburg to meet Ulysses S. Grant's troops and complete the effort to open the Mississippi River to Union forces. After the war he served as superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy (1865–69) and was promoted to admiral (1870).

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(born March 9, 1815, Cecil county, Md., U.S.—died June 26, 1886, Bloomington, Ill.) U.S. jurist. He earned a law degree from Yale in 1835 and established a law practice in Bloomington the following year. He was elected to the Illinois legislature in 1844. As a state circuit-court judge (1848–62) he became a close friend of Abraham Lincoln, and he worked assiduously for Lincoln's election as president in 1860. In 1862 Lincoln appointed him to the Supreme Court of the United States (1862–77). He resigned his seat on the court to accept election to the U.S. Senate (1877–83).

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orig. David Robert Jones

(born Jan. 8, 1947, London, Eng.) British rock singer. In the mid-1960s Bowie sang in a number of bands in his native London. He changed his name in 1966 to avoid confusion with the lead singer of the Monkees. His first hit recording, “Space Oddity” (1969), and albums such as The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (1972) ushered in the glam rock trend, marked by theatricality and androgyny. His style varied widely, from the disco romanticism of Young Americans (1975) to the avant-garde austerities of Low (1977) to the mainstream pop of Let's Dance (1983). Bowie also acted in stage plays and in films such as The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976). He continued to record and perform into the 21st century.

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orig. David Gruen

(born Oct. 16, 1886, Płońsk, Pol., Russian Empire—died Dec. 1, 1973, Tel Aviv–Yafo, Israel) First prime minister of Israel (1948–53, 1955–63). Introduced to Zionism by his father, Ben-Gurion immigrated to Palestine, then part of the Ottoman Empire, in 1906, hoping to fulfill the Zionist aspiration of building a Jewish state in historic Israel. Expelled by the Ottomans at the outbreak of World War I (1914–18), he traveled to New York, where he married. Following the issuance of the Balfour Declaration, he joined the British army's Jewish Legion and returned to the Middle East. In the 1920s and '30s he led several political organizations, including the Jewish Agency, world Zionism's highest directing body. As Britain became more sympathetic to the interests of the Palestinian Arabs, thereafter restricting Jewish immigration to Palestine, he called on the Jewish community to rise against Britain. However, he again called for Jews to support the Allies during World War II (1939–45), while continuing the clandestine immigration of Jews to Palestine. On the establishment of the State of Israel (1948), he became prime minister and minister of defense. He succeeded in fusing the underground Jewish militias that had fought the British into a national army, which he used successfully to defend against Arab attacks. Unpopular with Britain and the U.S., he found an ally in France—then embroiled in its own war in the Arab world—which helped arm Israel in the period leading to the Suez Crisis (1956). He retired from the premiership in 1963 and from the Knesset (parliament) in 1970. Seealso Arab-Israeli wars.

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(born July 25, 1853, San Francisco, Calif., U.S.—died May 14, 1931, New York, N.Y.) U.S. theatrical producer and playwright. He acted with traveling companies before becoming a theatre manager, first in San Francisco and later in New York City (from 1880). An independent producer from 1890, he built his own theatre in 1906; there he introduced changes in stage lighting, used realistic scenery, and demanded high production standards. He successfully fought against the monopolistic Theatrical Syndicate. He wrote or collaborated on numerous plays, including Madame Butterfly (1900) and The Girl of the Golden West (1905), which were made into operas by the Italian composer Giacomo Puccini.

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(born March 7, 1938, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. virologist. He received his doctorate from the Rockefeller Institute. He and Howard Temin (1934–94), working independently, discovered an enzyme that synthesizes DNA from RNA, the reverse of the usual process. This enzyme, reverse transcriptase, has become an invaluable tool in recombinant DNA technology. The research of Baltimore, Temin, and Renato Dulbecco helped illuminate the role of viruses in cancer; the three men shared a Nobel Prize in 1975. In 1990 Baltimore became president of Rockefeller University. He served as president of the California Institute of Technology from 1997 to 2006, when he was elected to a three-year term as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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The Central Administration Building (left) at University City, Mexico City, with a mosaic by David elipsis

(born Dec. 29, 1896, Chihuahua, Mex.—died Jan. 6, 1974, Cuernavaca) Mexican painter. A Marxist activist since his youth, he fought in the Mexican Revolution alongside Venustiano Carranza, who rewarded him by sponsoring his studies in Europe. Back in Mexico (1922), he began his lifework of decorating public buildings with murals and organizing unions of artists and workers. With Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, he cofounded the renowned school of Mexican mural painting. His activism interrupted his career several times when he was imprisoned, chose self-imposed exile, and fought in the Spanish Civil War. His murals are marked by great dynamism, monumental size and vigour, and a limited colour range subordinated to dramatic effects of light and shadow. His easel paintings (e.g., Echo of a Scream, 1937) helped establish his international reputation. In 1968 he became the first president of the Mexican Academy of Arts.

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(born Nov. 30, 1947, Chicago, Ill., U.S.) U.S. playwright, director, and screenwriter. In 1973 he founded the St. Nicholas Theatre Co. in Chicago. He won wide notice with Sexual Perversity in Chicago (1974) and followed it with plays such as American Buffalo (1977) and Glengarry Glen Ross (1983, Pulitzer Prize). He became known for rapid-fire dialogue studded with obscenities and for his preoccupation with power relationships and corporate corruption. Mamet used the rhythms and rhetoric of everyday speech to delineate character, describe intricate relationships, and drive dramatic development. His later plays include Speed-the-Plow (1987), Oleanna (1992), and The Cryptogram (1994); his screenplays include The Verdict (1980) and The Untouchables (1986). He also wrote and directed films such as House of Games (1987) and State and Main (2000).

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(born Bethlehem, Judah—died circa 962 BC, Jerusalem) Second of the Israelite kings (r. circa 1000–circa 962 BC). David was an aide at the court of Saul until the monarch's jealousy forced him into outlawry. He became king of Israel on Saul's death. He captured Jerusalem from the Jebusites and made it his capital, defeated the Philistines, and gained control of many bordering kingdoms. He faced several revolts, including one by his third son, Absalom. He unified all Israel into one kingdom and made Jerusalem both the religious and political centre. He made the name Yahweh the supreme name for the god of Israel, who was worshiped in Jerusalem, and ruled that all other names for God were mere h1s or attributes of Yahweh. Though the kingdom split under David's son and successor Solomon, religious unity endured, and the house of David symbolized the bond between God and Israel. The word messiah comes from hameshiach, the h1 of kings of the line of David.

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(born Oct. 23, 1873, Hudson, Mass., U.S.—died Feb. 3, 1975, Schenectady, N.Y.) U.S. engineer and physical chemist. He taught at MIT (1897, 1901–05) before joining the General Electric Research Laboratory, where in 1908 he perfected a process to render tungsten ductile and therefore more suitable for incandescent lightbulbs. In 1916 he patented a revolutionary X-ray tube capable of producing highly predictable amounts of radiation; it was the prototype of the modern X-ray tube. With Irving Langmuir, he also developed the first successful submarine-detection system.

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orig. Jay Vivian Chambers

(born April 1, 1901, Philadelphia—died July 9, 1961, near Westminster, Md., U.S.) U.S. journalist and principal figure in the Alger Hiss case. He joined the Communist Party in 1923 and worked at various times as an editor at New Masses, The Daily Worker, and Time magazine. In testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee in August 1948, he named former State Department official Alger Hiss as a fellow member of a 1930s Communist spy ring. Hiss denied the charges and sued Chambers for slander. In the trials that followed, Chambers produced material he claimed Hiss had given him to pass along to Soviet agents. His autobiography, Witness, was published in 1952.

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(born Sept. 5, 1774, Greifswald, Pomerania—died May 7, 1840, Dresden, Saxony) German painter. He studied at the Copenhagen Academy. After 1798 he settled in Dresden and began his career as a topographical draftsman in pencil and sepia wash. His first important oil painting, The Cross in the Mountains (1807–08), achieves an overwhelming sense of isolation. In 1824 he was appointed professor at the Dresden Academy. His vast, mysterious landscapes and seascapes, proclaiming human helplessness against the forces of nature, did much to establish the sublime as a primary focus of Romanticism. Interest in his work revived with the rise of Symbolism at the beginning of the 20th century.

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(born Sept. 1, 1864, Kingstown, County Dublin, Ire.—died Aug. 3, 1916, London, Eng.) British civil servant and Irish rebel. As British consul in Africa (1895–1904) and Brazil (1906–11), he became famous for his reports revealing white traders' cruel exploitation of native labour in the Congo and in the Putumayo River region of Peru. Ill health forced his retirement to Ireland (1912), where he joined the Irish nationalists and helped form the Irish National Volunteers. After World War I broke out, he sought German support for the Irish independence movement. For his additional intrigue in the Easter Rising, he was convicted of treason and hanged. His execution made him an Irish martyr in the revolt against British rule in Ireland.

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Rural retreat of U.S. presidents, northern Maryland. The scenic mountainous area (200 acres, or 81 hectares) was established as “Shangri-La” in 1942 by Pres. Franklin Roosevelt and made an official presidential retreat by Harry Truman in 1945. In 1953 Dwight D. Eisenhower renamed it Camp David for his grandson. It has been the scene of a number of high-level presidential conferences with foreign heads of state. Seealso Camp David Accords.

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orig. David Robert Jones

(born Jan. 8, 1947, London, Eng.) British rock singer. In the mid-1960s Bowie sang in a number of bands in his native London. He changed his name in 1966 to avoid confusion with the lead singer of the Monkees. His first hit recording, “Space Oddity” (1969), and albums such as The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (1972) ushered in the glam rock trend, marked by theatricality and androgyny. His style varied widely, from the disco romanticism of Young Americans (1975) to the avant-garde austerities of Low (1977) to the mainstream pop of Let's Dance (1983). Bowie also acted in stage plays and in films such as The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976). He continued to record and perform into the 21st century.

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(born Oct. 7, 1885, Copenhagen, Den.—died Nov. 18, 1962, Copenhagen) Danish physicist. He studied the structure of the atom with J.J. Thomson and Ernest Rutherford at the universities of Cambridge and Manchester. He was among the first to see the importance of an element's atomic number and postulated that any atom could exist only in a discrete set of states characterized by definite values of energy. He became the first to apply the quantum theory to atomic and molecular structure, and his concept of the atomic nucleus was a key step in understanding such processes as nuclear fission. From 1920 to 1962 he directed the newly created Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen. His work on atomic theory won him a Nobel Prize for Physics in 1922. He was president of the Royal Danish Academy from 1939 until his death. Though he contributed to atomic bomb research in the U.S. during World War II, he later dedicated himself to the cause of arms control. He received the first U.S. Atoms for Peace Award in 1957. Element 107, bohrium, is named in his honour. His son Aage Niels Bohr (b. 1922) shared the 1975 Nobel Prize for Physics with Ben Mottelson (b. 1926) and James Rainwater (1917–86) for their work on atomic nuclei.

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orig. David Gruen

(born Oct. 16, 1886, Płońsk, Pol., Russian Empire—died Dec. 1, 1973, Tel Aviv–Yafo, Israel) First prime minister of Israel (1948–53, 1955–63). Introduced to Zionism by his father, Ben-Gurion immigrated to Palestine, then part of the Ottoman Empire, in 1906, hoping to fulfill the Zionist aspiration of building a Jewish state in historic Israel. Expelled by the Ottomans at the outbreak of World War I (1914–18), he traveled to New York, where he married. Following the issuance of the Balfour Declaration, he joined the British army's Jewish Legion and returned to the Middle East. In the 1920s and '30s he led several political organizations, including the Jewish Agency, world Zionism's highest directing body. As Britain became more sympathetic to the interests of the Palestinian Arabs, thereafter restricting Jewish immigration to Palestine, he called on the Jewish community to rise against Britain. However, he again called for Jews to support the Allies during World War II (1939–45), while continuing the clandestine immigration of Jews to Palestine. On the establishment of the State of Israel (1948), he became prime minister and minister of defense. He succeeded in fusing the underground Jewish militias that had fought the British into a national army, which he used successfully to defend against Arab attacks. Unpopular with Britain and the U.S., he found an ally in France—then embroiled in its own war in the Arab world—which helped arm Israel in the period leading to the Suez Crisis (1956). He retired from the premiership in 1963 and from the Knesset (parliament) in 1970. Seealso Arab-Israeli wars.

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(born July 25, 1853, San Francisco, Calif., U.S.—died May 14, 1931, New York, N.Y.) U.S. theatrical producer and playwright. He acted with traveling companies before becoming a theatre manager, first in San Francisco and later in New York City (from 1880). An independent producer from 1890, he built his own theatre in 1906; there he introduced changes in stage lighting, used realistic scenery, and demanded high production standards. He successfully fought against the monopolistic Theatrical Syndicate. He wrote or collaborated on numerous plays, including Madame Butterfly (1900) and The Girl of the Golden West (1905), which were made into operas by the Italian composer Giacomo Puccini.

Learn more about Belasco, David with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born March 7, 1938, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. virologist. He received his doctorate from the Rockefeller Institute. He and Howard Temin (1934–94), working independently, discovered an enzyme that synthesizes DNA from RNA, the reverse of the usual process. This enzyme, reverse transcriptase, has become an invaluable tool in recombinant DNA technology. The research of Baltimore, Temin, and Renato Dulbecco helped illuminate the role of viruses in cancer; the three men shared a Nobel Prize in 1975. In 1990 Baltimore became president of Rockefeller University. He served as president of the California Institute of Technology from 1997 to 2006, when he was elected to a three-year term as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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(born March 11, 1926, Linden, Ala., U.S.—died April 17, 1990, Atlanta, Ga.) U.S. pastor and civil rights leader. He was educated at Alabama State University and Atlanta University. Ordained a Baptist minister in 1948, he became pastor of the First Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala., in 1951. He met Martin Luther King, Jr., a few years later when the latter became pastor of another Baptist church in Montgomery. In 1955–56 the two men organized a nonviolent boycott of the city bus system, marking the beginning of the U.S. civil rights movement. In 1957 they founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Abernathy became its president on King's assassination in 1968; in 1977 he resigned to resume work as a pastor in Atlanta. His autobiography, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, appeared in 1989.

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David "Tweener" Apolskis, portrayed by Lane Garrison, is a fictional character from the American television series, Prison Break. Tweener was introduced as a recurring character in the ninth episode of the series' first season, "Tweener".

Background

Born and raised in Boston to mother Susan, Apolskis' great hands gave him a starting position on his middle school's football team. However, after being deemed academically ineligible, he found a better use for his talent – pickpocketing. He became a master, swiping over 200 wallets and 150 watches between the ages of fourteen and nineteen.

However, when he tried to lift a wallet from an off-duty police officer, he was immediately apprehended. Authorities discovered a valuable baseball card collection in his apartment in Boston, which he had stolen from the father of a friend. He thought it was an ordinary collection; in truth, it included the rare Honus Wagner T206, worth $300,000. Due to the card's worth, he was charged and convicted of grand larceny and subsequently sentenced to five years at Fox River State Penitentiary. In the episode "Flight", Sucre's cousin Manche, describes Tweener as the "Vanilla Ice kid".

Appearances

(Spoilers)
Tweener is a recurring character, introduced in the ninth episode of the series' first season, "Tweener". He was eventually killed off in the seventh episode of the second season, "Buried".

Season 1

Upon his arrival at Fox River, Tweener attempted to ingratiate himself with C-Note (Rockmond Dunbar) and other black inmates because it was a culture he identified with, but he was unaware of the racial tension at Fox River. The blacks wanted nothing to do with him, and because of Tweener's attempted association with them, white inmates felt the same way. This only further alienated Tweener. Fellow inmate T-Bag (Robert Knepper) quickly gave him the nickname "Tweener," as he was caught between inmates of either race, neither of whom welcomed him. He was initially the target of merciless sexual harassment at the hands of T-Bag until Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller) stood up for him. Tweener later returned the favor by using his thieving skills to recover a watch that had been stolen by a guard from Michael's personal belongings.

Their friendly relationship soured when Michael denied him a spot on the P.I. program, claiming it was too full as it is. Captain Bellick (Wade Williams) identified Tweener's impressionable position and coerced him into becoming an informant. Later, when Tweener failed to give Bellick more information, he was transferred to a cell with a very large man known as "Avocado", who sexually assaulted and raped him. In a moment of desperation, Tweener slashed Avocado's penis with a hidden razorblade. Avocado claimed the incident was an accident so he could deal with Tweener himself once he recovered.

Desperate for some help, Tweener turned to Michael again to find protection before Avocado's return. Michael's guilt caused him to tell Tweener of the escape, but Tweener, in turn, told Bellick, who subsequentally found the hole the P.I. crew had been digging in the guard's break room. The plan was only saved by Charles Westmoreland (Muse Watson) who intervened and was severely injured in a scuffle with Bellick. On the night of the escape, Michael told Tweener that he knew that he told Bellick about the escape and that as soon as they made it over the wall, he was to part ways with the rest of the escapees.

After leaving the van provided by John Abruzzi (Peter Stormare), Scofield ordered Tweener to leave. Now on his own, he was nearly caught by a search party, but avoided capture by hiding in the back of a horse trailer which was stopped at a roadside work zone. The trailer itself went to St. Louis.

Season 2

Soon after reaching St. Louis, Tweener shaved his head to avoid being identified. After stealing a man's wallet, he proceeded to buy a bus ticket to Utah and learned that the next available bus wouldn't be leaving until the next day. Tweener fled, fearing that he'd be identified by a man reading a newspaper that featured his mugshot on the front page. He later made his way onto a college campus, where he found a travel flier by a student named Debra Jean Belle (Kristin Malko), who advertised for a travel companion to Utah. Tweener claimed that he was headed to Utah to pick up an inheritance left after his grandfather had died. Debra Jean seemed suspicious, but she agreed to let him travel to Utah with her.

During their drive to Utah, Tweener acted nervously as Debra Jean glanced suspiciously at him. The two made a stop at Gunnison, Colorado, after which they stopped and went to a motel in Mack, Colorado. Debra Jean revealed her affections for Tweener. They spent the night together and after they woke up the next morning, they heard a knock on the door. The policeman on their doorstep revealed to Debra Jean that Tweener was a fugitive. However, she denied seeing him. As Tweener tried to explain, she told him to take her car and that she would report it stolen later. Tweener finally reached Tooele, Utah, where he was confronted by T-Bag, who forced Tweener into helping him find the money Westmoreland buried. Tweener tried to buy digging supplies, but was assaulted by the store owner who recognized Tweener as a member of "The Fox River Eight". Michael and Lincoln (Dominic Purcell) entered and released Tweener. The three met up with T-Bag again to finish the search. However, Tweener, who was no longer of any use to the other three, was locked in a trunk of a car while the other three searched for the money.

Tweener was eventually released to help dig for the money. Michael insisted that he go back in town and refuel their car. Unfortunately for Tweener, by this time, Agent Mahone (William Fichtner) had learned about Westmoreland's money and arrived in Tooele, and eventually cornered Tweener. Mahone decided to try and use Tweener to get to the other escapees by bribing him with a greatly shortened sentence in Club Fed. However, Tweener mislead the federal agents and took them to Debra Jean's house where he apologized to her for lying. After recapturing Tweener, Mahone took him to a side road and confessed to the murder of Oscar Shales. He then gunned Tweener down in cold blood, planting a gun on him to give the appearance of a struggle. Tweener is the second member of the Fox River Eight to be taken down by the authorities.

It was revealed at the end of the next episode that the deaths of Tweener and John Abruzzi were the result of Mahone being blackmailed by Paul Kellerman and the Company. He had orders to kill every one of the Fox River 8.

References

External links

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