actor, producer, directorBorn: 8/17/1960Birthplace: Burbank, California The son of actor Leo Penn and actress Eileen Ryan, Sean Penn comes by his thespian tendencies honestly. Instead of attending…
Every July or August, thousands of Sri Lankans travel to the hill city of Kandy to watch dancers, acrobats, drummers, whip crackers, flame throwers and more than 100 elegantly decorated elephants…
(Encyclopedia) Service, Robert William, 1874–1958, Canadian poet and novelist, b. England, educated at the Univ. of Glasgow. He went to Canada in 1897 and held odd jobs in British Columbia and at…
(Encyclopedia) Stephens, James, 1882–1950, Irish poet and fiction writer, b. Dublin. One of the leading figures of the Irish literary renaissance, Stephens is best known for his fanciful and highly…
(Encyclopedia) Adams, John Couch, 1819–92, English astronomer, grad. St. John's College, Cambridge, 1843. By mathematical calculation based on irregularities in the motion of Uranus, he predicted the…
(Encyclopedia) sky, apparent dome over the earth, background of the clouds, sun, moon, and stars. The blue color of the clear daytime sky results from the selective scattering of light rays by the…
(Encyclopedia) Columbia Plateau, physiographic region of North America, c.100,000 sq mi (259,000 sq km), NW United States, between the Rocky Mts. and the Cascade Range in Washington, Oregon, and…
(Encyclopedia) Odum, Howard WashingtonOdum, Howard Washingtonōˈdəm [key], 1884–1954, American sociologist, b. Bethlehem, Ga., grad. Emory College, 1904, Ph.D. Clark Univ., 1909, and Ph.D. Columbia,…
(Encyclopedia) Poisson, Siméon DenisPoisson, Siméon DenissēmāôNˈ dənēˈ pwäsôNˈ [key], 1781–1840, French mathematician and physicist. From 1802 he taught at the École polytechnique, Paris, and was…
