Gregory, Dick

Byname of  Richard Claxton Gregory   African-American comedian, civil rights activist, and spokesman for health issues, who became nationally recognized in the 1960s for a biting brand of comedy that attacked racial prejudice. By addressing his hard-hitting satire to white audiences, he gave a comedic voice to the rising Civil Rights Movement. In the 1980s his nutrition business venture targeted

Switzerland, Music

Although Switzerland is not a leading musical nation, in the 20th century such composers as Arthur Honegger, Othmar Schoeck, and Frank Martin gained international renown. An annual international music festival, one of many, is held in Lucerne, and numerous country and western, pop, and jazz events, especially the famous festival at Montreux, take place throughout the

Staffordshire Ware

Lead-glazed earthenware and unglazed or salt-glazed stoneware made in Staffordshire, England, from the 17th century onward. Abundance of local clays and coal gave rise to a concentration of pottery factories that made Staffordshire one of the foremost pottery centres in Europe. Porcelain was first made at Longton Hall c. 1750. Among the distinguished factories located

Cole, Fay-cooper

After graduating from Northwestern University in 1903, Cole did postgraduate work at the University of

Reformed Church

Any of several major representative groups of classical Protestantism that arose in the 16th-century Reformation. Originally, all of the Reformation churches used this name (or the name Evangelical) to distinguish themselves from the “unreformed” or unchanged Roman Catholic Church. After the great controversy among these churches over the Lord's Supper (after 1529), the

Wackernagel, Jacob

Influenced by his father, Wilhelm Wackernagel, a professor of Germanic studies at the University of Basel, he became interested in comparative linguistics and Sanskrit while studying at the University of Göttingen. In 1876 Wackernagel became

Zlín

Formerly  (1948–90) Gottwaldov,   city, Jihomoravský kraj (region), Czech Republic, on the Drevnice River, near its confluence with the Morava River. Gottwaldov was created in 1948 through a merger of several communities surrounding Zlín, a 14th-century village that had grown rapidly after World War I. The consolidated town was named for Klement Gottwald, the first communist president of Czechoslovakia. In

Bot Fly

Horse bot flies (family Gasterophilidae) include species of Gasterophilus, a serious horse pest. The adult horse fly, often known as a gad fly, deposits between about 400 and 500 eggs (nits) on the horse's

Aare River

Also spelled  Aar,   tributary of the Rhine and the longest stream (183 miles [295 km]) entirely within Switzerland; it drains an area of 6,865 square miles (17,779 square km). The river rises in the Aare Glacier of the Bernese Alps in Bern canton, below the Finsteraarhorn and west of the Grimsel Pass, in the south-central part of Switzerland. As the Aare flows north past Meiringen, the river cuts through the scenic

Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali

Born into a noble Rajput family that had accepted Islam, Bhutto was the son of a prominent political figure in the Indian colonial government. He was educated in Bombay and at the University

Babcock, Horace Welcome

American astronomer (b. Sept. 13, 1912, Pasadena, Calif.—d. Aug. 29, 2003, Santa Barbara, Calif.), led the effort to create, in 1969, Chile's Las Campanas Observatory, the first observatory to be built far from sources of light pollution. In the 1950s Babcock devised the system of adaptive optics that enabled telescopes to compensate for the distorting effect of Earth's atmosphere on light from distant