See biographies and studies by C. H. Farnham (1901, repr. 1969), H. O. Sedgwick (1904), M. Wade (1942), O. A. Pease (1953, repr. 1968), and R. L. Gale (1974).
See biography by F. Freidel (1948, repr. 1968); R. S. Hartigan, Lieber's Code and the Law of War (1983).
See his journal and letters (3 vol., 1958).
See his autobiography, ed. by M. Thale (1972); biographies by G. Wallas (4th ed. 1925, repr. 1951) and M. Dudley (1988).
See biography by T. W. Higginson (1891), which contains his complete journal.
See his Contributions to the Edinburgh Review (4 vol., 1844).
See his System of Moral Philosophy (with memoir by Rev. W. Leechman, 1755). See studies by W. L. Taylor (1965), P. Kivy (1976), and V. Hope (1989).
His baptismal name was Giovanni (John), his father's name was Pietro de Bernardone; from his birth Giovanni di Bernardone was called Francesco (Francis) [Ital., =Frenchman], because his father was a frequent traveler in France and admired much that he saw there. The name Francis (and its equivalents in other languages) owes its great popularity to St. Francis, for before him it was a name rarely given. Pietro de Bernardone was a wealthy merchant, and his son's early life was ordinary. At the age of 20, however, Francis was taken prisoner in a battle between Assisi and Perugia and spent a year in prison in Perugia.
Two years after his return from Perugia, Francis set out for the wars in Apulia, but illness forced him home again. He then underwent a conversion that turned him from the worldly life he had been leading. He became markedly devout and ascetic, began dressing in rags, and went on a pilgrimage to Rome (1206). A series of events at that time revealed strikingly the characteristics that Francis was always to exemplify: humility, love of absolute poverty, singular devotion to others and to the Roman Church, and joyous religious fervor.
In 1209, as he was hearing Mass, the words of Jesus in the Gospel (Mat. 10.7-10) bidding his apostles to go forth on their mission struck Francis as a call. So he set out, still a layman, to preach; when a small group had gathered about him, they went to Rome to see Pope Innocent III, who gave them oral permission to live in the manner Francis had chosen. Thus began the Franciscan order of friars, an entirely new type of order in the church. They wandered about Umbria and through Italy preaching the Gospel, working to pay for their very simple needs. The expansion of the friars was very rapid. In 1212 St. Clare began to follow St. Francis, and the Poor Clares (Second Order of St. Francis), a cloistered, contempletive order was established. Francis not only sent the brothers abroad but went himself—to Dalmatia, to France, to Spain, and in 1219-20 to the Holy Land. On his way to Palestine he stopped at Damietta and preached to the sultan.
A growing dissension in his order recalled him from Palestine, and after his return (1221) a great assembly was held at the small chapel of the Porziuncola near Assisi, with which Francis's career was closely identified. There the saint gave up active leadership of the order, for he felt it had become too unwieldy to command. He continued his preaching and the composition of his rule and sponsored the Franciscan tertiaries (Third Order of St. Francis).
Two years before his death (1224) the most famous event of his life occurred. He received the stigmata; as he prayed on the Monte della Verna, he had a vision and was afflicted with the wounds of the Crucifixion, from which he suffered for the rest of his life. It is the first known appearance of the stigmata, one of the best attested, and the only one that is celebrated liturgically (on Sept. 17) in the Roman Catholic Church. Francis died Oct. 3, 1226. Two years later Pope Gregory IX, who had been his patron and friend, canonized him; his feast is Oct. 4.
The sources for the life of St. Francis are two lives by Thomas of Celano and the biography by St. Bonaventure. Later medieval works are the Legenda trium sociorum, the Sacrum commercium, and the Speculum perfectionis. The Italian Fioretti di San Francesco [little flowers of St. Francis], a series of short anecdotes, has always been popular for its picture of St. Francis and his companions. It exemplifies in simplest form his love of nature and of humanity, a love so great that he preached one time to the sparrows at Alviano (he is often depicted in art preaching to the birds). His spirit also breathes in the Cantico del sole [hymn of the sun], which he may have written, and in the rules for his orders. Artistic and literary representations of St. Francis are innumerable; see L. Cunningham, comp., Brother Francis (1972); biographies by G. K. Chesterton (1924), J. H. Smith (1972), A. House (2001), and V. Martin (2001); study by E. A. Armstrong (1973).
See his essays and writings (3 vol., 1792; repr. 1968); biographies by G. E. Hastings (1926, repr. 1968) and O. G. Sonneck (1905, repr. 1966).
See biography by L. Bliss (1987); studies by G. C. Campbell (1972) and M. Baldwin (1974).
See biography by I. M. Page (1938); biographical study ed. by B. S. Schlenther (1971); C. A. Briggs, American Presbyterianism (1985).
See biography by B. Roselli (1933).
See his Literary Criticisms (ed. by T. L. Connolly, 1948); biographies by E. Meynell (1913, repr. 1971), and P. van K. Thomson (1961, repr. 1972); studies by J. C. Reid (1959) and R. L. Mégroz (1927, repr. 1971).
See biography by H. E. Wharton (1891).
See biography by W. P. Cresson (1930).
See study by E. Adams (1973).
See biographies by W. G. Simms (1844, repr. 1971) and H. F. Rankin (1973).
Bacon belongs to both the worlds of philosophy and literature. He projected a large philosophical work, the Instauratio Magna, but completed only two parts, The Advancement of Learning (1605), later expanded in Latin as De Augmentis Scientiarum (1623), and the Novum Organum (1620). Bacon's contribution to philosophy was his application of the inductive method of modern science. He urged full investigation in all cases, avoiding theories based on insufficient data. However, he has been widely censured for being too mechanical, failing to carry his investigations to their logical ends, and not staying abreast of the scientific knowledge of his own day. In the 19th cent., Macaulay initiated a movement to restore Bacon's prestige as a scientist. Today his contributions are regarded with considerable respect. In The New Atlantis (1627) he describes a scientific utopia that found partial realization with the organization of the Royal Society in 1660. Noted for their style and their striking observations about life, his largely aphoristic Essays (1597-1625) are his best-known writings.
See his works (14 vol., 1857-74, repr. 1968); biography by L. Jardine and A. Stewart (1999); studies by J. Weinberger (1985) and P. Urbach (1987); D. W. Davies and E. S. Wrigley, ed., Concordance to the Essays of Francis Bacon (1973).
See biographies by J. Russell (1979), A. Sinclair (1993), and M. Peppiatt (rev. ed. 2009); M. Peppiatt, Francis Bacon: Studies for a Portrait: Essays and Interviews (2008); Francis Bacon: A Retrospective (1999); D. Sylvester, Interviews with Francis Bacon (1975, repr. 1988), Francis Bacon: In Conversation with Michel Archimbaud (1993); studies by E. van Alphen (1993), W. Schmied (1996, tr. 2006), D. Sylvester (2000), G. Deleuze (2004), M. Harrison (2005), M. Peppiatt (2006), and R. Chiappini (2008); exhibition catalogs from Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C. (1989) and Tate Museum, London, and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, ed. by M. Gale and C. Stephens (2008).
See biography of the father by the son (2 vol., 1867); study by T. R. Crane (1962).
(born Sept. 5, 1902, Wahoo, Neb., U.S.—died Dec. 22, 1979, Palm Springs, Calif.) U.S. film producer and executive. He worked as a steelworker, garment factory foreman, and a professional boxer while pursuing his career as a writer, and in 1924 he was hired as a screenwriter for Warner Brothers. After writing scripts for more than 35 movies, he was made a producer. He promoted the conversion to sound by producing The Jazz Singer (1927). In 1933 he cofounded Twentieth Century Pictures, which soon merged with the Fox Film Corp. As the controlling executive of Twentieth Century-Fox, he produced films such as The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Gentleman's Agreement (1947), and Viva Zapata! (1952). He resigned in 1956, but he returned as president in 1962 to effect the company's financial recovery with hits such as The Longest Day (1962), The Sound of Music (1965), and Patton (1970). He retired as chairman in 1971.
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(born May 31, 1863, Murree, India—died July 31, 1942, Lytchett Minster, Dorset, England) British army officer and explorer. He forced the conclusion of the Anglo-Tibetan Treaty (1904) that gained Britain long-sought trade concessions. His two initial attempts to negotiate trade and frontier issues with Tibet failed despite British military action; he then marched to Lhasa with British troops and forced the conclusion of a trade treaty, though the Dalai Lama, Tibet's leader, had fled. Seealso amban.
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(born April 7, 1506, Xavier Castle, near Sangüesa, Navarre—died Dec. 3, 1552, Sancian Island, China; canonized March 12, 1622; feast day December 3) Spanish-born French missionary to the Far East. Born into a noble Basque family, he was educated at the University of Paris, where he met Ignatius of Loyola and became one of the first seven members of the Jesuits. He was ordained in 1537, and in 1542 he embarked on a three-year mission to India. In 1545 he established missions in the Malay Archipelago, and in 1549 he traveled to Japan, where he was the first to introduce Christianity systematically. He returned to India in 1551 and died the following year while attempting to secure entrance to China. He is believed to have baptized about 30,000 converts; his success was partly due to adaptation to local cultures. In 1927 he was named patron of all missions.
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(born circa 1532, probably Footscray, Kent, Eng.—died April 6, 1590, London) English statesman and adviser to Queen Elizabeth I (1573–90). A member of Parliament from 1563, he became ambassador to the French court (1570–73) and established friendly relations between France and England. He was admitted to the Privy Council in 1573 and became secretary of state to Elizabeth I. Although not allowed to pursue an independent policy, he faithfully executed Elizabeth's foreign policy. He proved invaluable in uncovering conspiracies by Catholics against Elizabeth's life, including the plots by Francis Throckmorton (1583) and Anthony Babington (1586) to free Mary, Queen of Scots.
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(born June 24, 1883, Waldstein, Styria, Austria—died Dec. 17, 1964, Mount Vernon, N.Y., U.S.) Austrian-born U.S. physicist. He received his doctorate from the University of Vienna in 1906. His research dealt chiefly with radioactivity and atmospheric electricity. His experiments proved what had long been suspected: an extremely penetrating radiation of extraterrestrial origin permeates the atmosphere (see cosmic ray). Further investigation of this radiation, named cosmic rays in 1925, led Carl D. Anderson (1905–91) to discover the positron and opened up new fields of research in modern physics. For this work, Hess and Anderson shared a Nobel Prize in 1936.
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(born July 12, 1922, Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire, Eng.—died Sept. 6, 1956, near Hatfield, Hertfordshire) British architect and cryptographer. At age 14 he heard a lecture on the continuing mystery of Linear B script (see Linear A and Linear B) and resolved to decipher it. In 1952 he determined that Linear B was Greek in its oldest known form, dating from circa 1400–1200 BC. He collaborated with John Chadwick (1920–98) on Documents in Mycenaean Greek (1956), published a few weeks after his own death in an auto accident.
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(born Oct. 29, 1828, Wilmington, Del., U.S.—died Sept. 28, 1898, Dedham, Mass.) U.S. statesman, diplomat, and lawyer. Born into a prominent political family, he succeeded his father as U.S. senator from Delaware (1869–85). He served as secretary of state (1885–89) and as ambassador to Britain (1893–97), the first U.S. representative to Great Britain to hold that rank. A champion of arbitration, he was critical of the aggressive position of Pres. Grover Cleveland in the dispute with Britain over the Venezuelan boundary (1895).
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(born June 10, 1688, London, Eng.—died Jan. 1, 1766, Rome, Papal States) Claimant to the English and Scottish thrones. Son of the exiled James II of England, he was raised in France as a Catholic. On the death of his father (1701), he was proclaimed king of England by the French king Louis XIV, but the English Parliament passed a bill of attainder against him. He served with the French army in the War of the Spanish Succession. In the Jacobite uprising (1715), James landed in Scotland, but within two months the uprising collapsed and he returned to France. He lived thereafter in Rome under the pope's patronage. He became known as the “Old Pretender” to distinguish him from his son, Charles Edward, the Young Pretender.
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(born March 19, 1821, Torquay, Devonshire, Eng.—died Oct. 20, 1890, Trieste, Austria-Hungary) English scholar-explorer and Orientalist. Expelled from Oxford in 1842, Burton went to India as a subaltern officer. There he disguised himself as a Muslim and wrote detailed reports of merchant bazaars and urban brothels. He then traveled to Arabia, again disguised as a Muslim, and became the first non-Muslim European to penetrate the forbidden holy cities; he recounted his adventures in Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Mecca (1855–56), a classic account of Muslim life. In 1857–58 he led an expedition with John Hanning Speke in search of the source of the Nile River; stricken with malaria, he turned back after becoming the first European to reach Lake Tanganyika. His travels resulted in a total of 43 accounts of such subjects as Mormons, West African peoples, the Brazilian highlands, Iceland, and Etruscan Bologna. He learned 25 languages and numerous dialects; among his 30 volumes of translations were ancient Eastern manuals on the art of love, and he larded his famous Arabian Nights translation with ethnological footnotes and daring essays that won him many enemies in Victorian society. After his death his wife, Isabel, who was a devout Catholic, burned his 40 years of diaries and journals.
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(born circa 1532, probably Footscray, Kent, Eng.—died April 6, 1590, London) English statesman and adviser to Queen Elizabeth I (1573–90). A member of Parliament from 1563, he became ambassador to the French court (1570–73) and established friendly relations between France and England. He was admitted to the Privy Council in 1573 and became secretary of state to Elizabeth I. Although not allowed to pursue an independent policy, he faithfully executed Elizabeth's foreign policy. He proved invaluable in uncovering conspiracies by Catholics against Elizabeth's life, including the plots by Francis Throckmorton (1583) and Anthony Babington (1586) to free Mary, Queen of Scots.
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Sir Francis Galton, detail of an oil painting by G. Graef, 1882; in the National Portrait Gallery, elipsis
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(born May 31, 1863, Murree, India—died July 31, 1942, Lytchett Minster, Dorset, England) British army officer and explorer. He forced the conclusion of the Anglo-Tibetan Treaty (1904) that gained Britain long-sought trade concessions. His two initial attempts to negotiate trade and frontier issues with Tibet failed despite British military action; he then marched to Lhasa with British troops and forced the conclusion of a trade treaty, though the Dalai Lama, Tibet's leader, had fled. Seealso amban.
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Sir Francis Drake, oil painting by an unknown artist; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
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(born Jan. 4, 1930, Grand River, Ohio, U.S.) U.S. football coach. He played football for John Carroll University and the Baltimore Colts and other NFL clubs. After coaching collegiate football, he became head coach of the Colts (1963–69); under Shula the team won 71 games, lost 23, and tied 4. As coach of the Miami Dolphins (1970–96), he became the first NFL coach to win 100 games in 10 seasons; in 1972–73 the Dolphins became the first team to go undefeated through an entire season and the play-offs, culminating in a Super Bowl victory. Shula holds the all-time NFL record for victories, with 347.
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(born Aug. 21, 1567, Thorens-Glières, Savoy—died Dec. 28, 1622, Lyon; canonized 1665; feast day January 24) Roman Catholic bishop of Geneva and Doctor of the Church. He studied in Paris and at Padua and was ordained in 1593. He was consecrated bishop of Geneva in 1602. In 1610, with St. Jane Frances de Chantal, he founded the Visitation of Holy Mary (the Visitation Nuns), a teaching order. His Introduction to a Devout Life (1609) argued that spiritual perfection is possible for ordinary individuals busy with worldly affairs. He was an active opponent of Calvinism. Pius XI named him patron saint of writers.
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Saint Francis of Assisi, detail of a fresco by Cimabue, late 13th century; in the lower church of elipsis
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(born Aug. 21, 1567, Thorens-Glières, Savoy—died Dec. 28, 1622, Lyon; canonized 1665; feast day January 24) Roman Catholic bishop of Geneva and Doctor of the Church. He studied in Paris and at Padua and was ordained in 1593. He was consecrated bishop of Geneva in 1602. In 1610, with St. Jane Frances de Chantal, he founded the Visitation of Holy Mary (the Visitation Nuns), a teaching order. His Introduction to a Devout Life (1609) argued that spiritual perfection is possible for ordinary individuals busy with worldly affairs. He was an active opponent of Calvinism. Pius XI named him patron saint of writers.
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(born April 7, 1506, Xavier Castle, near Sangüesa, Navarre—died Dec. 3, 1552, Sancian Island, China; canonized March 12, 1622; feast day December 3) Spanish-born French missionary to the Far East. Born into a noble Basque family, he was educated at the University of Paris, where he met Ignatius of Loyola and became one of the first seven members of the Jesuits. He was ordained in 1537, and in 1542 he embarked on a three-year mission to India. In 1545 he established missions in the Malay Archipelago, and in 1549 he traveled to Japan, where he was the first to introduce Christianity systematically. He returned to India in 1551 and died the following year while attempting to secure entrance to China. He is believed to have baptized about 30,000 converts; his success was partly due to adaptation to local cultures. In 1927 he was named patron of all missions.
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(born Nov. 20, 1925, Brookline, Mass., U.S.—died June 6, 1968, Los Angeles, Calif.) U.S. politician. The son of Joseph P. Kennedy, he interrupted his education at Harvard University to serve in World War II; he was graduated from Harvard in 1948 and received a law degree from the University of Virginia in 1951. He managed the U.S. Senate campaign of his brother John F. Kennedy in 1952. In 1957 he became chief counsel to the Senate committee investigating labour racketeering; he resigned the post in 1960 to manage his brother's presidential campaign. As U.S. attorney general (1961–64), he led a drive against organized crime that resulted in the conviction of labour leader Jimmy Hoffa. In 1964 he was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York. He became a spokesman for liberal Democrats and a critic of the Vietnam policy of Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1968, while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination in Los Angeles, he was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian immigrant.
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(baptized May 8, 1592, Romford, Essex, Eng.—died Sept. 8, 1644, London) English religious poet. Quarles is remembered for his Emblemes (1635), the most notable of English-language emblem books (collections of symbolic pictures, usually with verse and prose). Its success led him to produce another, Hieroglyphikes of the Life of Man (1638). Printed together in 1639, they formed perhaps the most popular volume of verse of the 17th century. He also wrote Enchiridion (1640), a highly popular book of aphorisms.
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(born Jan. 7, 1899, Paris, Fr.—died Jan. 30, 1963, Paris) French composer. In his teens he studied piano with Ricardo Viñes (1875–1943). Influenced by Erik Satie, Poulenc and five other like-minded young composers became known as Les Six. Poulenc wrote piano compositions, orchestral music, and chamber music, but he is best known for his vocal music, including many admired songs, the operas The Breasts of Tiresias (1944), Dialogues of the Carmelites (1956), and La voix humaine (1958), and such sacred choral works as Mass in G Major (1937), the Stabat Mater (1950), and the Gloria (1959), reflecting his devout Catholicism.
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(born Jan. 22, 1879, Paris, France—died Nov. 30, 1953, Paris) French painter, illustrator, designer, writer, and editor. After studying at the École des Beaux-Arts and the École des Arts Décoratifs, he painted for a time in an Impressionist and then a Cubist style. Picabia went on to combine the Cubist style with Orphic elements in such paintings as I See Again in Memory My Dear Udnie (1913–14), to which he gave proto-Dadaist names. About 1916 he began to paint the satiric, machinelike contrivances that are his chief contribution to Dadaism. In 1915 in New York City, Picabia, Marcel Duchamp, and Man Ray together founded an American Dadaist movement. In 1917 Picabia returned to Europe and joined Dadaist movements in Barcelona, Paris, and Zürich. After Dadaism broke up about 1921, he followed the poet André Breton into the Surrealist movement. He subsequently painted in Surrealist, abstract, and figurative styles.
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(born Sept. 16, 1823, Boston, Mass., U.S.—died Nov. 8, 1893, Jamaica Plain, Mass.) U.S. historian. Parkman graduated from Harvard University before embarking in 1846 on a journey to the West that resulted in The California and Oregon Trail (1849). He is noted for his seven-part history France and England in North America, covering the colonial period from the beginnings to 1763; its volumes include Pioneers of France in the New World (1865); Montcalm and Wolfe (1884), which demonstrates how biography can penetrate the spirit of an age; and A Half-Century of Conflict (1892), which exemplifies his literary artistry.
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(born Sept. 28, 1824, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, Eng.—died Oct. 24, 1897, London) English critic and poet. He spent many years in the civil service's education department and taught poetry at Oxford. His Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics (1861), a comprehensive, well-chosen, and carefully arranged lyric anthology, influenced the poetic taste of several generations and was important in popularizing the works of William Wordsworth.
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(born July 12, 1922, Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire, Eng.—died Sept. 6, 1956, near Hatfield, Hertfordshire) British architect and cryptographer. At age 14 he heard a lecture on the continuing mystery of Linear B script (see Linear A and Linear B) and resolved to decipher it. In 1952 he determined that Linear B was Greek in its oldest known form, dating from circa 1400–1200 BC. He collaborated with John Chadwick (1920–98) on Documents in Mycenaean Greek (1956), published a few weeks after his own death in an auto accident.
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(born circa 1732, Winyah, S.C.—died Feb. 26, 1795, Berkeley county, S.C., U.S.) American Revolutionary commander. He fought the Cherokee (1759) and later served as a member of the provincial assembly (1775). In the American Revolution he commanded troops in South Carolina. After the surrender of Gen. Benjamin Lincoln to the British at Charleston, S.C. (1780), he slipped away to the swamps, gathered together his band of guerrillas, and began leading bold raids on British positions. For a daring rescue of American troops surrounded by the British at Parkers Ferry, S.C. (1781), he received the thanks of Congress. He was then appointed a brigadier general.
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(born April 7, 1775, Newburyport, Mass., U.S.—died Aug. 10, 1817, Boston) U.S. businessman. Born into a prominent Massachusetts family, Lowell closely studied the British textile industry while visiting Britain. With Paul Moody he devised an efficient power loom and spinning apparatus. His Boston Manufacturing Co. in Waltham (1812–14) was apparently the world's first mill in which were performed all operations converting raw cotton into finished cloth. His example greatly stimulated the growth of New England industry. Lowell, Mass., is named for him.
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(born Aug. 1, 1779, Frederick county, Md., U.S.—died Jan. 11, 1843, Baltimore, Md.) U.S. lawyer, author of “The Star Spangled Banner.” After the burning of Washington, D.C., in the War of 1812 he was sent to secure the release of a friend from a British ship in Chesapeake Bay. He watched the British shelling of Fort McHenry during the night of Sept. 13–14, 1814; when he saw the U.S. flag still flying the next morning, he wrote the poem “Defense of Fort M'Henry.” Published in the Baltimore Patriot, it was later set to the tune of an English drinking song, “To Anacreon in Heaven.” The song was adopted as the U.S. national anthem in 1931.
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(born Nov. 20, 1925, Brookline, Mass., U.S.—died June 6, 1968, Los Angeles, Calif.) U.S. politician. The son of Joseph P. Kennedy, he interrupted his education at Harvard University to serve in World War II; he was graduated from Harvard in 1948 and received a law degree from the University of Virginia in 1951. He managed the U.S. Senate campaign of his brother John F. Kennedy in 1952. In 1957 he became chief counsel to the Senate committee investigating labour racketeering; he resigned the post in 1960 to manage his brother's presidential campaign. As U.S. attorney general (1961–64), he led a drive against organized crime that resulted in the conviction of labour leader Jimmy Hoffa. In 1964 he was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York. He became a spokesman for liberal Democrats and a critic of the Vietnam policy of Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1968, while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination in Los Angeles, he was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian immigrant.
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(born Oct. 2, 1737, Philadelphia, Pa.—died May 9, 1791, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.) U.S. political leader and writer. After a brief business career, he launched a successful legal practice in New Jersey. He was appointed to the governor's council in 1774, and in 1776 he represented New Jersey in the Continental Congress. He signed the Declaration of Independence, and he later wrote articles that helped win ratification of the U.S. Constitution. He served as judge of the admiralty court for Pennsylvania (1779–89) and as U.S. district judge (1789–91). An accomplished harpsichordist and composer of religious and secular songs, he was also known for his poetry and literary essays and for his design of numerous governmental and organizational seals.
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(born June 24, 1883, Waldstein, Styria, Austria—died Dec. 17, 1964, Mount Vernon, N.Y., U.S.) Austrian-born U.S. physicist. He received his doctorate from the University of Vienna in 1906. His research dealt chiefly with radioactivity and atmospheric electricity. His experiments proved what had long been suspected: an extremely penetrating radiation of extraterrestrial origin permeates the atmosphere (see cosmic ray). Further investigation of this radiation, named cosmic rays in 1925, led Carl D. Anderson (1905–91) to discover the positron and opened up new fields of research in modern physics. For this work, Hess and Anderson shared a Nobel Prize in 1936.
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(born June 25, 1887, Forestville, N.Y., U.S.—died Jan. 31, 1995, Miami Beach, Fla.) U.S. theatre director, producer, and playwright. In 1913 he began acting on Broadway, and he soon turned to writing and directing plays, achieving his first of many hits with The Fall Guy (1925). He also wrote, directed, or produced many popular musicals, including The Boys from Syracuse (1938), Pal Joey (1940), Where's Charley (1948), Wonderful Town (1953), and Damn Yankees (1955). He was active in the theatre into the 1980s, directing a revival of On Your Toes at age 95.
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Sir Francis Galton, detail of an oil painting by G. Graef, 1882; in the National Portrait Gallery, elipsis
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Saint Francis of Assisi, detail of a fresco by Cimabue, late 13th century; in the lower church of elipsis
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(born Sept. 28, 1824, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, Eng.—died Oct. 24, 1897, London) English critic and poet. He spent many years in the civil service's education department and taught poetry at Oxford. His Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics (1861), a comprehensive, well-chosen, and carefully arranged lyric anthology, influenced the poetic taste of several generations and was important in popularizing the works of William Wordsworth.
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F. Scott Fitzgerald
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(born Aug. 1, 1779, Frederick county, Md., U.S.—died Jan. 11, 1843, Baltimore, Md.) U.S. lawyer, author of “The Star Spangled Banner.” After the burning of Washington, D.C., in the War of 1812 he was sent to secure the release of a friend from a British ship in Chesapeake Bay. He watched the British shelling of Fort McHenry during the night of Sept. 13–14, 1814; when he saw the U.S. flag still flying the next morning, he wrote the poem “Defense of Fort M'Henry.” Published in the Baltimore Patriot, it was later set to the tune of an English drinking song, “To Anacreon in Heaven.” The song was adopted as the U.S. national anthem in 1931.
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(baptized May 8, 1592, Romford, Essex, Eng.—died Sept. 8, 1644, London) English religious poet. Quarles is remembered for his Emblemes (1635), the most notable of English-language emblem books (collections of symbolic pictures, usually with verse and prose). Its success led him to produce another, Hieroglyphikes of the Life of Man (1638). Printed together in 1639, they formed perhaps the most popular volume of verse of the 17th century. He also wrote Enchiridion (1640), a highly popular book of aphorisms.
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(born Jan. 22, 1879, Paris, France—died Nov. 30, 1953, Paris) French painter, illustrator, designer, writer, and editor. After studying at the École des Beaux-Arts and the École des Arts Décoratifs, he painted for a time in an Impressionist and then a Cubist style. Picabia went on to combine the Cubist style with Orphic elements in such paintings as I See Again in Memory My Dear Udnie (1913–14), to which he gave proto-Dadaist names. About 1916 he began to paint the satiric, machinelike contrivances that are his chief contribution to Dadaism. In 1915 in New York City, Picabia, Marcel Duchamp, and Man Ray together founded an American Dadaist movement. In 1917 Picabia returned to Europe and joined Dadaist movements in Barcelona, Paris, and Zürich. After Dadaism broke up about 1921, he followed the poet André Breton into the Surrealist movement. He subsequently painted in Surrealist, abstract, and figurative styles.
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(born Sept. 16, 1823, Boston, Mass., U.S.—died Nov. 8, 1893, Jamaica Plain, Mass.) U.S. historian. Parkman graduated from Harvard University before embarking in 1846 on a journey to the West that resulted in The California and Oregon Trail (1849). He is noted for his seven-part history France and England in North America, covering the colonial period from the beginnings to 1763; its volumes include Pioneers of France in the New World (1865); Montcalm and Wolfe (1884), which demonstrates how biography can penetrate the spirit of an age; and A Half-Century of Conflict (1892), which exemplifies his literary artistry.
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(born circa 1732, Winyah, S.C.—died Feb. 26, 1795, Berkeley county, S.C., U.S.) American Revolutionary commander. He fought the Cherokee (1759) and later served as a member of the provincial assembly (1775). In the American Revolution he commanded troops in South Carolina. After the surrender of Gen. Benjamin Lincoln to the British at Charleston, S.C. (1780), he slipped away to the swamps, gathered together his band of guerrillas, and began leading bold raids on British positions. For a daring rescue of American troops surrounded by the British at Parkers Ferry, S.C. (1781), he received the thanks of Congress. He was then appointed a brigadier general.
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Francis Joseph, 1908.
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(born Jan. 7, 1899, Paris, Fr.—died Jan. 30, 1963, Paris) French composer. In his teens he studied piano with Ricardo Viñes (1875–1943). Influenced by Erik Satie, Poulenc and five other like-minded young composers became known as Les Six. Poulenc wrote piano compositions, orchestral music, and chamber music, but he is best known for his vocal music, including many admired songs, the operas The Breasts of Tiresias (1944), Dialogues of the Carmelites (1956), and La voix humaine (1958), and such sacred choral works as Mass in G Major (1937), the Stabat Mater (1950), and the Gloria (1959), reflecting his devout Catholicism.
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(born Jan. 16, 1836, Kingdom of Naples—died Dec. 27, 1894, Arco, Italy) King of the Two Sicilies (1859–60), the last of the Bourbon kings of Naples. He succeeded his father, Ferdinand II, in 1859 and on his accession rejected proposals made by Count Cavour that he join Piedmont-Sardinia in the war against Austria and grant liberal reforms on its conclusion. Alarmed by the invasion of Sicily by Giuseppe de Garibaldi in 1860, Francis capitulated to the liberals in his kingdom and restored the constitution of 1848, granted freedom of the press, and promised new elections. It was too late to save the monarchy, however; the Bourbon forces were defeated by Garibaldi, and less than a month later Francis was deposed by a plebiscite. He then lived in exile in Rome and Paris.
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(born Dec. 8, 1708, Nancy, Duchy of Lorraine—died Aug. 18, 1765, Innsbruck, Austria) Holy Roman emperor (1745–65). The son of the duke of Lorraine, he succeeded to the duchy in 1729 (as Francis Stephen). In 1736 he married Maria Theresa, heiress to Emperor Charles VI, who agreed to the marriage on the condition that Francis cede Lorraine to Stanislaw I of Poland, in compensation for which Francis was granted Tuscany (1737). He served with Maria Theresa as coregent (1740–45) and was elected emperor during the War of the Austrian Succession. He was overshadowed by his wife during his rule but was remembered for his cultural interests.
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(born Oct. 2, 1737, Philadelphia, Pa.—died May 9, 1791, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.) U.S. political leader and writer. After a brief business career, he launched a successful legal practice in New Jersey. He was appointed to the governor's council in 1774, and in 1776 he represented New Jersey in the Continental Congress. He signed the Declaration of Independence, and he later wrote articles that helped win ratification of the U.S. Constitution. He served as judge of the admiralty court for Pennsylvania (1779–89) and as U.S. district judge (1789–91). An accomplished harpsichordist and composer of religious and secular songs, he was also known for his poetry and literary essays and for his design of numerous governmental and organizational seals.
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(born Jan. 30, 1846, Clapham, Surrey, Eng.—died Sept. 18, 1924, Oxford) British idealist philosopher. Influenced by G.W.F. Hegel, he considered mind to be more fundamental than matter. In Ethical Studies (1876), he sought to expose confusions in utilitarianism. In The Principles of Logic (1883), he denounced the psychology of the empiricists. His most ambitious work, Appearance and Reality (1893), maintained that, though reality is spiritual, the thesis cannot be demonstrated because of the fatally abstract nature of human thought. Instead of ideas, which could not properly contain reality, he recommended feeling, the immediacy of which could embrace the harmonious nature of reality. He was the first English philosopher to be awarded the Order of Merit. His brother was the eminent poetry critic A.C. Bradley (1851–1935).
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(born June 8, 1916, Northampton, Northamptonshire, Eng.—died July 28, 2004, San Diego, Calif., U.S.) British biophysicist. Educated at University College, London, he helped develop magnetic mines for naval use during World War II but returned to biology after the war. He worked at the University of Cambridge with James D. Watson and Maurice Wilkins to construct a molecular model of DNA consistent with its physical and chemical properties, work for which the three shared a 1962 Nobel Prize. Crick also discovered that each group of three bases (a codon) on a single DNA strand designates the position of a specific amino acid on the backbone of a protein molecule, and he helped determine which codons code for each amino acid normally found in protein, thus clarifying the way the cell uses DNA to build proteins. Seealso Rosalind Franklin.
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(born April 7, 1939, Detroit, Mich., U.S.) U.S. film director, screenwriter, and producer. He worked under Roger Corman before achieving his first success with the low-budget but stylish You're a Big Boy Now (1967). He wrote or cowrote screenplays for several films, including Patton (1970, Academy Award). He won acclaim for writing and directing the Mafia epic The Godfather (1972, Academy Awards for best picture and screenplay). His other films include The Conversation (1974), The Godfather, Part II (1974, Academy Awards for best director, picture, and screenplay), Apocalypse Now (1979), Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), The Godfather, Part III (1990), The Rainmaker (1997), and Youth Without Youth (2007).
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(born Dec. 18, 1863, Graz, Austria—died June 28, 1914, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina) Archduke of Austria, whose assassination was the immediate cause of World War I. Nephew of Emperor Francis Joseph, he became heir apparent in 1896. His desire to marry Sophie, countess von Chotek, a lady-in-waiting, brought him into sharp conflict with the emperor, and the marriage was only allowed after he agreed to renounce his future children's rights to the throne. From 1906 he exerted influence in military matters and became inspector general of the army (1913). While on an official visit in Sarajevo in June 1914, he and his wife were assassinated by the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip. In July Austria declared war against Serbia, precipitating World War I.
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(born April 7, 1775, Newburyport, Mass., U.S.—died Aug. 10, 1817, Boston) U.S. businessman. Born into a prominent Massachusetts family, Lowell closely studied the British textile industry while visiting Britain. With Paul Moody he devised an efficient power loom and spinning apparatus. His Boston Manufacturing Co. in Waltham (1812–14) was apparently the world's first mill in which were performed all operations converting raw cotton into finished cloth. His example greatly stimulated the growth of New England industry. Lowell, Mass., is named for him.
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(born circa 1585, Grace-Dieu, Leicestershire, Eng.—died March 6, 1616, London) British playwright. He is known chiefly for the 10 very popular plays on which he collaborated with John Fletcher (1579–1625) circa 1606–13. These included the tragicomedies The Maides Tragedy, Phylaster, and A King and No King. Forty other plays attributed to them were later found to have been written by others. Their independent work includes Beaumont's poetry and his parody The Knight of the Burning Pestle (1607) and Fletcher's pastoral The Faithful Shepherdess (1608). After Beaumont retired in 1613, Fletcher collaborated with other playwrights, possibly including William Shakespeare, with whom he may have written King Henry the Eighth and The Two Noble Kinsmen.
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(born Oct. 28, 1909, Dublin, Ire.—died April 28, 1992, Madrid, Spain) Irish-British painter. He lived in Berlin and Paris before settling in London (1929) to begin a career as an interior decorator. With no formal art training, he started painting, drawing, and participating in gallery exhibitions, with little success. In 1944 he achieved instant notoriety with a series of controversial paintings, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. His mature style emerged completely with the series of works known as “The Screaming Popes” (1949–mid-1950s), in which he converted Diego Velázquez's famous Portrait of Pope Innocent X into a nightmarish icon of hysterical terror. Most of Bacon's paintings depict isolated figures, often framed by geometric constructions, and rendered in smeared, violent colours. His imagery typically suggests anger, horror, and degradation.
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Sir Francis Drake, oil painting by an unknown artist; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
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(born Jan. 4, 1930, Grand River, Ohio, U.S.) U.S. football coach. He played football for John Carroll University and the Baltimore Colts and other NFL clubs. After coaching collegiate football, he became head coach of the Colts (1963–69); under Shula the team won 71 games, lost 23, and tied 4. As coach of the Miami Dolphins (1970–96), he became the first NFL coach to win 100 games in 10 seasons; in 1972–73 the Dolphins became the first team to go undefeated through an entire season and the play-offs, culminating in a Super Bowl victory. Shula holds the all-time NFL record for victories, with 347.
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(born Sept. 5, 1902, Wahoo, Neb., U.S.—died Dec. 22, 1979, Palm Springs, Calif.) U.S. film producer and executive. He worked as a steelworker, garment factory foreman, and a professional boxer while pursuing his career as a writer, and in 1924 he was hired as a screenwriter for Warner Brothers. After writing scripts for more than 35 movies, he was made a producer. He promoted the conversion to sound by producing The Jazz Singer (1927). In 1933 he cofounded Twentieth Century Pictures, which soon merged with the Fox Film Corp. As the controlling executive of Twentieth Century-Fox, he produced films such as The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Gentleman's Agreement (1947), and Viva Zapata! (1952). He resigned in 1956, but he returned as president in 1962 to effect the company's financial recovery with hits such as The Longest Day (1962), The Sound of Music (1965), and Patton (1970). He retired as chairman in 1971.
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(born June 8, 1916, Northampton, Northamptonshire, Eng.—died July 28, 2004, San Diego, Calif., U.S.) British biophysicist. Educated at University College, London, he helped develop magnetic mines for naval use during World War II but returned to biology after the war. He worked at the University of Cambridge with James D. Watson and Maurice Wilkins to construct a molecular model of DNA consistent with its physical and chemical properties, work for which the three shared a 1962 Nobel Prize. Crick also discovered that each group of three bases (a codon) on a single DNA strand designates the position of a specific amino acid on the backbone of a protein molecule, and he helped determine which codons code for each amino acid normally found in protein, thus clarifying the way the cell uses DNA to build proteins. Seealso Rosalind Franklin.
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(born April 7, 1939, Detroit, Mich., U.S.) U.S. film director, screenwriter, and producer. He worked under Roger Corman before achieving his first success with the low-budget but stylish You're a Big Boy Now (1967). He wrote or cowrote screenplays for several films, including Patton (1970, Academy Award). He won acclaim for writing and directing the Mafia epic The Godfather (1972, Academy Awards for best picture and screenplay). His other films include The Conversation (1974), The Godfather, Part II (1974, Academy Awards for best director, picture, and screenplay), Apocalypse Now (1979), Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), The Godfather, Part III (1990), The Rainmaker (1997), and Youth Without Youth (2007).
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Charles Francis Adams
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(born March 19, 1821, Torquay, Devonshire, Eng.—died Oct. 20, 1890, Trieste, Austria-Hungary) English scholar-explorer and Orientalist. Expelled from Oxford in 1842, Burton went to India as a subaltern officer. There he disguised himself as a Muslim and wrote detailed reports of merchant bazaars and urban brothels. He then traveled to Arabia, again disguised as a Muslim, and became the first non-Muslim European to penetrate the forbidden holy cities; he recounted his adventures in Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Mecca (1855–56), a classic account of Muslim life. In 1857–58 he led an expedition with John Hanning Speke in search of the source of the Nile River; stricken with malaria, he turned back after becoming the first European to reach Lake Tanganyika. His travels resulted in a total of 43 accounts of such subjects as Mormons, West African peoples, the Brazilian highlands, Iceland, and Etruscan Bologna. He learned 25 languages and numerous dialects; among his 30 volumes of translations were ancient Eastern manuals on the art of love, and he larded his famous Arabian Nights translation with ethnological footnotes and daring essays that won him many enemies in Victorian society. After his death his wife, Isabel, who was a devout Catholic, burned his 40 years of diaries and journals.
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(born July 23, 1883, Bagnères-de-Bigorre, France—died June 17, 1963, Hartley Wintney, Hampshire, Eng.) British military leader. He served in World War I and later became director of military training (1936–37) and an expert on gunnery. In World War II he began as commander of a corps in France and covered the Dunkirk evacuation. After serving as commander of the British home forces (1940–41), he was promoted to chief of staff (1941–46). He established good relations with the U.S. forces and exercised a strong influence on Allied strategy. He was promoted to field marshal in 1944 and created a viscount in 1946.
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(born Feb. 9, 1923, Dublin, Ire.—died March 20, 1964, Dublin) Irish author. An alcoholic from age eight and an anti-English rebel, he was repeatedly arrested. Borstal Boy (1958) is an account of his detention in an English reform school, which combines earthy satire and powerful political commentary. His first play, The Quare Fellow (1954), is an explosive statement on capital punishment and prison life. His second, The Hostage (produced 1958), is considered his masterwork. He also wrote poetry, short stories, radio scripts, anecdotes, memoirs, and a novel.
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(born Jan. 30, 1846, Clapham, Surrey, Eng.—died Sept. 18, 1924, Oxford) British idealist philosopher. Influenced by G.W.F. Hegel, he considered mind to be more fundamental than matter. In Ethical Studies (1876), he sought to expose confusions in utilitarianism. In The Principles of Logic (1883), he denounced the psychology of the empiricists. His most ambitious work, Appearance and Reality (1893), maintained that, though reality is spiritual, the thesis cannot be demonstrated because of the fatally abstract nature of human thought. Instead of ideas, which could not properly contain reality, he recommended feeling, the immediacy of which could embrace the harmonious nature of reality. He was the first English philosopher to be awarded the Order of Merit. His brother was the eminent poetry critic A.C. Bradley (1851–1935).
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(born Nov. 9, 1874, Geneseo, N.Y., U.S.—died Nov. 16, 1954, Northampton, Mass.) U.S. botanist and geneticist. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University. In his dissertation he became the first person to describe sexuality in the lower fungi. His later experimental work focused on higher plants. After a long tenure with the Carnegie Institution's Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (1915–41), he joined the faculty of Smith College, where he published a series of papers on the genetics and cell biology of jimsonweed. He used the alkaloid colchicine to achieve an increase in the number of chromosomes and thus opened up a new field of artificially produced polyploids.
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(born Feb. 9, 1923, Dublin, Ire.—died March 20, 1964, Dublin) Irish author. An alcoholic from age eight and an anti-English rebel, he was repeatedly arrested. Borstal Boy (1958) is an account of his detention in an English reform school, which combines earthy satire and powerful political commentary. His first play, The Quare Fellow (1954), is an explosive statement on capital punishment and prison life. His second, The Hostage (produced 1958), is considered his masterwork. He also wrote poetry, short stories, radio scripts, anecdotes, memoirs, and a novel.
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(born circa 1585, Grace-Dieu, Leicestershire, Eng.—died March 6, 1616, London) British playwright. He is known chiefly for the 10 very popular plays on which he collaborated with John Fletcher (1579–1625) circa 1606–13. These included the tragicomedies The Maides Tragedy, Phylaster, and A King and No King. Forty other plays attributed to them were later found to have been written by others. Their independent work includes Beaumont's poetry and his parody The Knight of the Burning Pestle (1607) and Fletcher's pastoral The Faithful Shepherdess (1608). After Beaumont retired in 1613, Fletcher collaborated with other playwrights, possibly including William Shakespeare, with whom he may have written King Henry the Eighth and The Two Noble Kinsmen.
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(born Oct. 29, 1828, Wilmington, Del., U.S.—died Sept. 28, 1898, Dedham, Mass.) U.S. statesman, diplomat, and lawyer. Born into a prominent political family, he succeeded his father as U.S. senator from Delaware (1869–85). He served as secretary of state (1885–89) and as ambassador to Britain (1893–97), the first U.S. representative to Great Britain to hold that rank. A champion of arbitration, he was critical of the aggressive position of Pres. Grover Cleveland in the dispute with Britain over the Venezuelan boundary (1895).
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(born Oct. 28, 1909, Dublin, Ire.—died April 28, 1992, Madrid, Spain) Irish-British painter. He lived in Berlin and Paris before settling in London (1929) to begin a career as an interior decorator. With no formal art training, he started painting, drawing, and participating in gallery exhibitions, with little success. In 1944 he achieved instant notoriety with a series of controversial paintings, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. His mature style emerged completely with the series of works known as “The Screaming Popes” (1949–mid-1950s), in which he converted Diego Velázquez's famous Portrait of Pope Innocent X into a nightmarish icon of hysterical terror. Most of Bacon's paintings depict isolated figures, often framed by geometric constructions, and rendered in smeared, violent colours. His imagery typically suggests anger, horror, and degradation.
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(born Nov. 9, 1874, Geneseo, N.Y., U.S.—died Nov. 16, 1954, Northampton, Mass.) U.S. botanist and geneticist. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University. In his dissertation he became the first person to describe sexuality in the lower fungi. His later experimental work focused on higher plants. After a long tenure with the Carnegie Institution's Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (1915–41), he joined the faculty of Smith College, where he published a series of papers on the genetics and cell biology of jimsonweed. He used the alkaloid colchicine to achieve an increase in the number of chromosomes and thus opened up a new field of artificially produced polyploids.
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Charles Francis Adams
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(born June 25, 1887, Forestville, N.Y., U.S.—died Jan. 31, 1995, Miami Beach, Fla.) U.S. theatre director, producer, and playwright. In 1913 he began acting on Broadway, and he soon turned to writing and directing plays, achieving his first of many hits with The Fall Guy (1925). He also wrote, directed, or produced many popular musicals, including The Boys from Syracuse (1938), Pal Joey (1940), Where's Charley (1948), Wonderful Town (1953), and Damn Yankees (1955). He was active in the theatre into the 1980s, directing a revival of On Your Toes at age 95.
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There were 139 households out of which 30.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 51.1% were married couples living together, 15.8% had a female householder with no husband present, and 30.2% were non-families. 28.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 10.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.39 and the average family size was 2.89.
In the town the population was spread out with 23.5% under the age of 18, 8.7% from 18 to 24, 27.1% from 25 to 44, 26.5% from 45 to 64, and 14.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females there were 88.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 85.4 males.
The median income for a household in the town was $25,083, and the median income for a family was $26,094. Males had a median income of $25,417 versus $18,393 for females. The per capita income for the town was $12,826. About 13.9% of families and 17.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 6.8% of those under age 18 and 16.2% of those age 65 or over.