New Zealand-born British biophysicist whose X-ray diffraction studies of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) proved crucial to the determination of DNA's molecular structure by James D. Watson and Francis Crick. For this ...
black American civil-rights leader who served as the executive director (1955-77) of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He was often referred to as the senior ...
British industrialist known as "the great Staffordshire ironmaster" who found new applications for iron and who devised a boring machine essential to the success of James Watt's steam engine.
legal means by which an owner of property disposes of his assets in the event of his death. The term is also used for the written instrument in which the ...
Flemish composer who contributed significantly to the development of the Italian madrigal, and who established Venice as one of the most influential musical centres of the 16th century.
watercourse of western Oregon, U.S. It is formed by the confluence of the Coast and Middle forks southeast of Eugene. It flows northward for 183 miles (295 km) past Corvallis, ...
American educator whose work in women's education, particularly as founder of Troy Female Seminary, spurred the establishment of high schools for girls and of women's colleges and coeducational universities.
American educator, reformer, and founder of the World Woman's Christian Temperance Union (1883). An excellent speaker, a successful lobbyist, and an expert in pressure politics, she was a leader of ...
U.S. prizefighter, world heavyweight boxing champion from April 5, 1915, when he knocked out Jack Johnson in 26 rounds in Havana, to July 4, 1919, when he was knocked out ...
U.S. clockmaker, creator of the timepiece that came to be known as the banjo clock, and a member of a Massachusetts family of clockmakers designing and producing brass-movement clocks from ...
game sanctuary in Free State province, South Africa, adjoining Allemanskraal Dam northeast of Bloemfontein. Established in 1956, it occupies 46 sq mi (120 sq km) in the Highveld plateau typical ...
French Franciscan friar whose eyewitness account of the Mongol realm is generally acknowledged to be the best written by any medieval Christian traveller. A contemporary of the English scientist and ...
white or greenish-yellow silicate mineral, zinc silicate, Zn2SiO4, that is found as crystals, grains, or fibres with other zinc ores in many deposits. Included are various localities in Sussex County, ...
Belgian novelist and playwright whose playful strategies and fascination with language, doubles, analogies, and mirror images mask a modern tragic sensibility. He expressed the identity crisis of postwar Belgium in ...
chief town of Curacao and capital of the Netherlands Antilles (q.v.) in the Caribbean Sea, on the southern coast of Curacao. It is divided into two parts by the Sint ...
(Catoptrophorus semipalmatus), large, long-billed shorebird of America, belonging to the family Scolopacidae (order Charadriiformes), which also includes the snipes, turnstones, and curlews. The willet is named for its loud call. ...
German king from Oct. 3, 1247, elected by the papal party in Germany as antiking in opposition to Conrad IV and subsequently gaining general recognition. As William II he was ...
style of decorative arts produced during the reign (1689-1702) of William III and Mary II of England. When William came to the English throne from the house of Orange, he ...
state coeducational university of liberal arts at Williamsburg, Virginia, U.S. The second oldest institution of higher education in the United States (after Harvard College), it was chartered in 1693 by ...
count of Flanders and titular duke of Normandy (as William IV, or as William III if England's William Rufus' earlier claim to the duchy is not acknowledged).
Norman adventurer, the eldest of 12 Hauteville brothers, a soldier of fortune who led the first contingent of his family from Normandy to southern Italy. He undertook its conquest and ...
English philosopher and theologian, advocate of the traditional Neoplatonic-Augustinian school of Christian philosophy, and leading critic of the Aristotelian thought introduced by Thomas Aquinas.
Norman king of Sicily, an able ruler who successfully repressed the conspiracies of the barons of his realm. His epithet was bestowed on him by his hapless enemies. He patronized ...
German emperor from 1871, as well as king of Prussia from 1861, a sovereign whose conscientiousness and self-restraint fitted him for collaboration with stronger statesmen in raising his monarchy and ...
king of The Netherlands and grand duke of Luxembourg (1815-40) who sparked a commercial and industrial revival following the period of French rule (1795-1813), but provoked the Belgian revolt of ...
son of Rollo and second duke of Normandy (927-942). He sought continually to expand his territories either by conquest or by exacting new lands from the French king for the ...
duke of Normandy (as William II) from 1035 and king of England from 1066, one of the greatest soldiers and rulers of the Middle Ages. He made himself the mightiest ...
first of the hereditary stadholders (1572-84) of the United Provinces of the Netherlands and leader of the revolt of the Netherlands against Spanish rule and the Catholic religion.
king of Scotland from 1165 to 1214; although he submitted to English overlordship for 15 years (1174-89) of his reign, he ultimately obtained independence for his kingdom.
king of The Netherlands and grand duke of Luxembourg (1840-49) whose reign saw the reestablishment of fiscal stability and the transformation of The Netherlands to a more liberal monarchy through ...
the last Norman king of Sicily; under a regency from 1166, he ruled in person from 1171. He became known as William the Good because of his policy of clemency ...
German emperor (kaiser) and king of Prussia from 1888 to the end of World War I in 1918, known for his frequently militaristic manner as well as for his vacillating ...
prince of Orange, count of Nassau, stadtholder and captain general of six provinces of the Netherlands from 1647, and the central figure of a critical struggle for power in the ...
stadholder of the United Provinces of the Netherlands as William III (1672-1702) and king of Great Britain (1689-1702), reigning jointly with Queen Mary II (until her death in 1694). He ...
conservative king of The Netherlands and grand duke of Luxembourg (1849-90) who was influential in forming Dutch ministries until 1868 but was unable to prevent Liberal control of the government.
landgrave (or count) of Hesse-Kassel from 1567 who was called "the Wise" because of his accomplishments in political economy and the natural sciences. The son of the landgrave Philip the ...
grand duke of Luxembourg (1905-12), eldest son of grand duke Adolf of Nassau. Falling severely ill soon after his accession, he eventually on March 19, 1908, had his consort Maria ...
king of Great Britain and Ireland and king of Hanover from June 26, 1830. Personally opposed to parliamentary reform, he grudgingly accepted the epochal Reform Act of 1832, which, by ...
medieval troubadour, count of Poitiers and duke of Aquitaine and of Gascony (1086-1127), son of William VIII and grandfather of the famous Eleanor of Aquitaine.
count of Nassau, stadholder of Friesland, Groningen, and Drenthe, who with his cousin, Maurice of Nassau, prince of Orange, formulated the military strategy of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, ...
also called William Of Paris, or William Of Alvernia, French Guillaume D'auvergne, or De Paris the most prominent French philosopher-theologian of the early 13th century and one of the first ...
French philosopher-theologian who contributed to the adaptation of classical Greek philosophy to Christian doctrine. He is considered the first medieval writer to develop a systematic treatise on free will and ...
French bishop, logician, theologian, and philosopher who was prominent in the Scholastic controversy on the nature of universals (i.e., words that can be applied to more than one particular thing).
German cleric, Benedictine abbot, and monastic reformer, the principal German advocate of Pope Gregory VII's clerical reforms, which sought to eliminate clerical corruption and free ecclesiastical offices from secular control.
Flemish cleric, archbishop, and classical scholar whose Latin translations of the works of Aristotle and other early Greek philosophers and commentators were important in the transmission of Greek thought to ...
English chronicler who is remembered as the author of one of the most valuable historical works on 11th- and 12th-century England. He entered the Augustinian priory of Newburgh as a ...
French philosopher and theologian who led the opposition at the University of Paris to the 13th-century rise of the newly formed mendicant religious orders.
Franco-Syrian politician, churchman, and historian whose experiences in the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem inspired him to write a history of medieval Palestine.
Anglo-Norman prince, only son of Henry I of England and recognized duke of Normandy (as William IV, or as William III if the earlier claim of his uncle, William Rufus, ...
citadel of Calcutta, named after King William III of England. The English East India Company's main Bengal trading station was moved from Hooghly to Calcutta in 1690 after a war ...
private, coeducational institution of higher learning opened in 1791 and founded as a college in 1793 at Williamstown, Massachusetts, U.S. Like many other New England colleges, Williams was established by ...
Northern Irish peace activist who, with Mairead Corrigan, founded the Community for Peace People in 1976 and with her shared the 1976 Nobel Prize for Peace.
