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Vergil, Polydore

(Encyclopedia)Vergil or Virgil, Polydore, 1470?-1555?, historian and humanist, b. Urbino, Italy. He studied at Bologna and Padua, served as secretary to the duke of Urbino, was chamberlain to Pope Alexander VI, and...

Buxton, Sir Thomas Fowell

(Encyclopedia)Buxton, Sir Thomas Fowell fouˈəl [key], 1786–1845, British social reformer. As a member of Parliament (1818–37) he began his reform activities immediately with the publication of An Inquiry Whet...

Osborne, Thomas Mott

(Encyclopedia)Osborne, Thomas Mott, 1859–1926, American prison reformer, b. Auburn, N.Y., grad. Harvard, 1884. As chairman (1913) of the state commission on prison reform he became a voluntary prisoner in the Aub...

Rusk, Thomas Jefferson

(Encyclopedia)Rusk, Thomas Jefferson, 1803–57, American political leader, U.S. Senator from Texas (1846–57), b. Pendleton District, S.C. He studied law under John C. Calhoun and practiced in Clarksville, Ga., f...

Crittenden, Thomas Theodore

(Encyclopedia)Crittenden, Thomas Theodore, 1832–1909, governor of Missouri (1881–85), b. Shelby co., Ky.; nephew of John J. Crittenden. In the Civil War he served (1862–65) as lieutenant colonel of a Missouri...

Yayi, Thomas Boni

(Encyclopedia)Yayi, Thomas Boni, 1952–, Beninois political leader, president of Benin (2006–16), b. Tchaourou. He studied at the National Univ. of Benin, in Senegal at Cheikh Anta Diop Univ., and in France at t...

Weller, Thomas Huckle

(Encyclopedia)Weller, Thomas Huckle, 1915–2008, American microbiologist and physician, b. Ann Arbor, Mich., B.A. Univ. of Michigan, 1936, M.D. Harvard, 1940. In 1936 he began teaching at Harvard, and as a special...

Bacon, Francis, English painter

(Encyclopedia)Bacon, Francis, 1910–92, English painter, b. Dublin. A self-taught artist, Bacon rejected abstraction in painting to explore a repertoire of strange, fractured, and often bizarre figurative images, ...

Mason, William

(Encyclopedia)Mason, William, 1724–97, English poet, editor, and cleric. His works include two plays, Elfrida (1752) and Caractacus (1759), based on classical dramas. He was a friend of Thomas Gray, whose Life an...

Mooney, Thomas J.

(Encyclopedia)Mooney, Thomas J., 1883–1942, American labor agitator, b. Chicago. He was an active leader in several violent labor struggles in California before 1916 and was convicted as a participant in the bomb...