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Borgia
Borgia , Span. Borja , Spanish-Italian noble family, originally from Aragón. When Alfonso de Borja, cardinal-archbishop of Valencia, was pope as Calixtus III (1455-58), several relatives followed him to Rome. His nephew Rodrigo became pope as Alexander VI , and Rodrigo's illegitimate childr...
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Jack Beeson
Jack Beeson 1921-, American composer, b. Muncie, Ind. Beeson studied at the Eastman School of Music and privately in New York with Béla Bartók. Beginning to teach at Columbia Univ. in 1945, he was named MacDowell Professor of Music in 1967; he retired in 1988 but returned as a member ...
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Jiang Qing
Jiang Qing or Chiang Ch'ing , 1914-91, Chinese Communist political leader, wife of Mao Zedong . Born Li Yun-ho, she changed her name to Lan Ping in 1938 when beginning an acting career, joining the Communist party the same year. In 1939, she married Mao Zedong and thereafter remained in the bac...
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Gonzaga
Gonzaga , Italian princely house that ruled Mantua (1328-1708), Montferrat (1536-1708), and Guastalla (1539-1746). The family name is derived from the castle of Gonzaga, a village near Mantua. Luigi Gonzaga, 1267-1360, became captain general of Mantua in 1328. The power of his descendants gr...
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John Bartlett
John Bartlett 1820-1905, American compiler and publisher, b. Plymouth, Mass. While he worked in his university book store in Cambridge, he compiled the invaluable Familiar Quotations (1855), which ran through nine editions in his lifetime and has been revised and enlarged several times since. Bar...
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Agnelli
Agnelli , family of Italian industrialists.
Giovanni Agnelli, 1866-1945, served as a cavalry officer until 1892. One of the founders (1899) of Fiat (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino), he became its head in 1901. He also established (1907) Italy's first ball-bearing plant. Under Agnelli's l...
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French Academy
French Academy ( L'Académie française ), learned society of France. It is one of the five societies of the Institut de France .
Development
The origins of the academy were in a coterie of literary men who met informally in Paris in the early 1630s to discuss rhetoric and cr...
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Sir George Biddell Airy
Sir George Biddell Airy 1801-92, English astronomer. The son of a poor farmer, he distinguished himself as Senior Wrangler at Cambridge, where he was elected fellow of Trinity College (1824) and appointed professor (1826). As Astronomer Royal and director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory from 183...
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Albert of Brandenburg
Albert of Brandenburg 1490-1568, grand master of the Teutonic Knights (1511-25), first duke of Prussia (1525-68); grandson of Elector Albert Achilles of Brandenburg. In 1525 he became a Protestant, and on the advice of Martin Luther he secularized the dominions of the Teutonic Knights and becam...
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An Najaf
An Najaf , city (1987 pop. 309,010), S central Iraq, on a lake near the Euphrates River. The city, one of Shi'a Islam's holiest, is also called Mashad Ali, after the tomb (in a mosque) of Ali , son-in-law of Muhammad the Prophet. The tomb is an object of pilgrimage by Shiite Muslims and a starting ...
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