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mah jongg

(Encyclopedia)mah jongg mä jông [key], four-handed game, probably of Chinese origin, popular in the United States. It is played in many variations throughout China. In 1920, Joseph P. Babcock, an American travele...

Keaton, Buster

(Encyclopedia)Keaton, Buster (Joseph Francis Keaton), 1895–1966, American movie actor, b. Piqua, Kans. Considered one of the greatest comic actors in film history, Keaton used his considerable acrobatic skills, w...

Gregory, Wilton Daniel

(Encyclopedia)Gregory, Wilton Daniel, 1947–, American Roman Catholic cardinal, b. Chicago. Ordained in 1973, he was educated at Niles College (now St. Joseph's College Seminary) of Loyola Univ., Chicago, St. Mary...

French, Daniel Chester

(Encyclopedia)French, Daniel Chester, 1850–1931, American sculptor, b. Exeter, N.H., studied in Florence and in Boston with William Rimmer. After executing his first large work, The Minute Man (1875), he received...

Hazard, Paul

(Encyclopedia)Hazard, Paul pôl äzärˈ [key], 1878–1944, French scholar. He began his teaching at the Univ. of Lyons in 1910. After World War I he taught at the Sorbonne and in 1925 was appointed to the chair o...

Berchtold, Leopold, Graf von

(Encyclopedia)Berchtold, Leopold, Graf von lāˈōpôlt gräf fən bĕrkhˈtôlt [key], 1863–1942, Austro-Hungarian foreign minister (1912–15). During the Balkan Wars he successfully worked for the creation of ...

Zoar, village, United States

(Encyclopedia)Zoar zôr, zōˈər [key], village, Tuscarawas co., E central Ohio, on the Tuscarawas River; founded 1817, inc. 1884. It was founded by a group of Separatists from S Germany who fled religious persecu...

Black Hand

(Encyclopedia)Black Hand, symbol and name for a criminal and terroristic secret society, and especially associated with the Mafia and the Camorra. The Black Hand flourished in Sicily in the late 19th cent., and in ...

Blinken, Antony John

(Encyclopedia)Blinken, Antony John, 1962–, U.S. government official, b. Yonkers, N.Y., J.D. Columbia, 1988. A Democrat, he served (1994–2001) on the staff of the National Security Council under President Clinto...

Blücher, Vasily Konstantinovich

(Encyclopedia)Blücher, Vasily Konstantinovich blüˈkhər [key], 1889–1937?, Russian general. An enlisted man in the czarist army, Blücher joined the Bolshevik party in 1916. He rose to high command in the civ...