george

English - Turkish

Definition of george in English Turkish dictionary: {i} George; (isim) George
george 1st duke of albermarle monck: albermarle monck 1. dükü george
george fox: george tilki
george iii: George ııı
george mason university: George Mason Üniversitesi
george v coast: george v sahil
By George!: Maşallah! Vallahi!
by george!: george tarafından!
let george do it: (deyim) (Bir işi) Bırak birileri yapsın
by george: vallahi
by george: (fiil)y canına, vallahi
by george: vay canına
st. george: aziz george

Turkish - Turkish

Definition of george in Turkish Turkish dictionary
sir george cayley: insan taşıyan ilk planörü yapan, ingiliz mucit

English - English

Definition of george in English English dictionary: A coin with King George’s profile
Take the Georges, Pew, and don’t stand here squalling. — Robert Louis Stevenson.; A male given name
George and Charles are unlucky in this respect; they have no diminutives, and what a mouthful of monosyllables they are! names royal too, and therefore unshortened. A king must be of a very rare class who could afford to be called by shorthand;.; A diminutive of the female given name Georgina or Georgia; also used in the conjoined name George Ann(e); A patronymic surname; {n} a figure worn by knights of the garter, a loaf; {i} male first name; family name; figure of St. George and the dragon (esp. the one on the insignia of the British Order of the Garter); coin with the figure of St. George (British Slang) ; American magazine that covers politics and pop culture; given name, male; Christian martyr and patron of England who, according to legend, slew a fearsome dragon. orig. George William Frederick born June 4, 1738, London, Eng. died Jan. 29, 1820, Windsor Castle, near London King of Great Britain and Ireland (1760-1820); also elector (1760-1814) and king (1814-20) of Hanover. The grandson of George II, he ascended the throne during the Seven Years' War. His chief minister, Lord Bute, forced William Pitt's resignation and caused intrigue rather than stability within the government. Bute resigned in 1763, but George's political overtures to others were snubbed, until Lord North became prime minister in 1770. England was in financial distress caused by the war, and George supported attempts to raise funds through taxation of the American colonies, which led to the American Revolution. With North, he was blamed for prolonging the war and losing the colonies. He reasserted his power when North and Charles James Fox planned to take control of the East India Company; he forced them to resign and reaffirmed his control through a new "patriotic" prime minister, William Pitt, the Younger. George supported him until the war with Revolutionary France (1793) and fears of related uprisings in Ireland caused Pitt to propose political emancipation of the Roman Catholics. George's vehement opposition led to Pitt's resignation in 1801. In 1811 George's ill health and a return of the madness that had afflicted him for short periods earlier in his life caused Parliament to enact the regency of his son, the future George IV. orig. George Augustus German Georg August born Nov. 10, 1683, Herrenhausen Palace, Hanover died Oct. 25, 1760, London, Eng. King of Great Britain and elector of Hanover (1727-60). His father, the elector of Hanover, became George I of England; he succeeded him in both roles in 1727. He retained Robert Walpole as his key minister until 1742. His new minister, John Carteret (1690-1763), brought England into the War of the Austrian Succession, where George fought courageously at the Battle of Dettingen (1743), the last time a British king appeared on the battlefield. The parliament and ministers forced Carteret's resignation and the appointment of William Pitt. George lost interest in politics, and Pitt's strategy brought about a British victory in the Seven Years' War. Greek Georgios born July 20, 1890, Tatoi, near Athens, Greece died April 1, 1947, Athens King of Greece (1922-24, 1935-47). He became king when his father, Constantine I, was deposed in 1922, but the royal family was unpopular and George fled Greece in 1923. The National Assembly proclaimed Greece a republic in 1924. George remained in exile until the conservative Populist Party, with army support, gained control of the legislature and restored the monarchy in 1935. Ioannis Metaxas seized power in 1936 with the king's support. George was forced into exile in 1941 in World War II; republican sentiment threatened his throne, but he was restored by a plebiscite and returned to Greece in 1946. orig. George Augustus Frederick born Aug. 12, 1762, London, Eng. died June 26, 1830, Windsor, Berkshire King of the United Kingdom (1820-30) and king of Hanover (1820-30). The son of George III, he earned his father's ill will by his extravagances and dissolute habits, contracting a secret marriage that was annulled by his father. In 1811 George became regent for his father, who had been declared insane. Retaining his father's ministers rather than appointing his Whig friends, he saw Britain and its allies triumph over Napoleon in 1815. A patron of the architect John Nash, he sponsored the restoration of Windsor Castle. orig. George Louis German Georg Ludwig born May 28, 1660, Osnabrück, Hanover died June 11, 1727, Osnabrück First king of England (1714-27) from the house of Hanover. He succeeded his father as the elector of Hanover (1698) and fought with distinction in the War of the Spanish Succession. As a great-grandson of James I of England and under the Act of Settlement, George ascended the English throne in 1714. He formed a Whig ministry and left internal politics to his ministers, including 1st Earl Stanhope, Viscount Townshend, and Robert Walpole. He was unpopular because of his German manner and German mistresses and their involvement in the South Sea Bubble crisis, but he strengthened Britain's position by forming the Quadruple Alliance (1718). He was succeeded by his son, George II. Greek Georgios orig. Prince William of Denmark born Dec. 24, 1845, Copenhagen, Den. died March 18, 1913, Salonika, Greece King of Greece. Son of Christian IX of Denmark, he served in the Danish navy and in 1862 was nominated to the Greek throne by Britain, France, and Russia after the Greek king, Otto, was deposed. Accepted by the Greek National Assembly, he ascended the throne as George I in 1863. He oversaw the incorporation of territory in Thessaly and Epirus into Greece as well as the annexation of Crete. In the unrest caused by the Balkan Wars, he was assassinated at Salonika; he was succeeded by his son, Constantine I. His long reign was the formative period for the development of Greece as a modern European state. orig. Albert Frederick Arthur George born Dec. 14, 1895, Sandringham, Norfolk, Eng. died Feb. 6, 1952, Sandringham King of the United Kingdom (1936-52). The second son of George V, he was proclaimed king following the abdication of his brother, Edward VIII. He was an important symbolic leader of the British people during World War II, supporting the wartime leadership of Winston Churchill and visiting his armies on several battlefronts. In 1949 he was formally recognized as head of the Commonwealth by its member states. He earned the respect of his people by scrupulously observing the responsibilities of a constitutional monarch and by overcoming the handicap of a severe stammer. He was succeeded by his daughter, Elizabeth II. orig. George Frederick Ernest Albert born June 3, 1865, London, Eng. died Jan. 20, 1936, Sandringham, Norfolk King of the United Kingdom (1910-36). The second son of the future Edward VII, he succeeded his father in 1910. Early in his reign, he faced problems resulting from the constitutional struggle to restrict the power of the House of Lords. Respect for the new king increased during World War I, and he visited the front in France several times. After the war he faced both serious industrial unrest and, in 1923, the resignation as prime minister of Andrew Bonar Law, who was replaced by Stanley Baldwin. After the collapse of the pound sterling and the subsequent financial crisis in 1931, he persuaded James Ramsay MacDonald to remain in office and form a national coalition government. He was succeeded successively by his sons Edward VIII and George VI. George Kastrioti Abbott George Francis Aberdeen George Hamilton Gordon 4th earl of George William Russell Akerlof George A. Alexander Harold Rupert Leofric George Alexander 1st Earl George Edward Arcaro Balanchine George Baltimore of Baltimore George Calvert 1st Baron Bancroft George Beadle George Wells Bellows George Wesley Berkeley George Bingham George Caleb Blanda George Frederick Boole George Brown George George Bryan Buchanan George George Villiers Burns George Bush George Herbert Walker Bush George Walker Byron George Gordon Byron 6th Baron Cabot George Cadbury George Canning George Carteret Sir George Cartier Sir George Étienne Baronet Carver George Washington Catlin George Cayley Sir George Charles Philip Arthur George prince of Wales Clarendon George William Frederick Villiers 4th earl of Clark George Rogers Clinton George Cohan George Michael Collingwood Robin George Crabbe George Croghan George Cruikshank George Crumb George Henry Cukor George Dewey Custer George Armstrong Dallas George Mifflin Dawson George Geoffrey George Geoffrey Robinson de Mille Agnes George Derby Edward George Geoffrey Smith Stanley 14th earl of Dewey George Diefenbaker John George George Baker Dollond John and George du Maurier George Louis Palmella Busson Durham John George Lambton 1st earl of Durrell Lawrence George Eastman George Edmunds George Franklin Eliot George Etherege Sir George Evans George Henry Farquhar George Foreman George Fox George Fraser George MacDonald Frazer Sir James George Gallup George Horace Gamow George Gemistus Plethon George George III George William Frederick George II George Augustus George IV George Augustus Frederick George I George Louis George VI Albert Frederick Arthur George George V George Frederick Ernest Albert George Washington Birthplace National Monument George Henry George Lake George Saint George Stefan Gershwin George Gissing George Robert Goethals George Washington Gordon Charles George George Percy Grainger Grenville George Grierson Sir George Abraham Grosz George Grove Sir George Gurdjieff George Ivanovitch Halas George Stanley Hale George Ellery Handel George Frideric Heath Sir Edward Richard George Hepplewhite George Herbert George Herriman George Joseph Hitchings George Herbert Hoar George Frisbie Inness George Jones George Glenn Julian George Washington Kaufman George Simon Kelly George Kemeny John George Kennan George Frost King George Sound King George's War Lansbury George Laver Rodney George Lloyd George of Dwyfor David Lloyd George Earl Lucas George Marshall George Catlett Mason George McClellan George Brinton McGovern George Stanley Mead George Herbert Meade George Gordon Meany George Meredith George Mikan George Lawrence Miller George Armitage Minot George Richards Monck George 1st duke of Albermarle Moore George Edward Moynihan Berkeley George Andrew Murray George Redmayne Norris George William Orwell George Patton George Smith Peabody George Pendleton George Hunt Pickett George Edward Potter Dennis Christopher George Previn André George Pullman George Mortimer Rickover Hyman George Ripley George Roberts Sir Charles George Douglas Romney George George Herman Ruth Saint George's Saint George's Channel Saintsbury George Edward Bateman Sand George Santayana George Scott George Campbell Segal George Seldes George Shaw George Bernard Shull George Harrison Simpson George Gaylord Smith George Smollett Tobias George Soros George Stebbins George Ledyard Steiner Francis George Stephenson George Stevens George Stibitz George Robert Stigler George Joseph Stubbs George Szell George Thomas George Henry Trevelyan George Macauley Vancouver George Ventris Michael George Francis Wald George Wallace George Corley Washington George Welles George Orson Wells Herbert George Westinghouse George Whipple George Hoyt Willem Frederik George Lodewijk Williams George Emlyn Wythe George Bulwer Lytton Edward George Earl Curzon of Kedleston George Nathaniel Curzon Marquess Seferis George Shaughnessy of Montreal and Ashford Thomas George Shaughnessy 1st Baron; A coin with King George's profile; A figure of St; A kind of brown loaf; Christian martyr; patron saint of England; hero of the legend of Saint George and the Dragon in which he slew a dragon and saved a princess (?-303); George (the patron saint of England) on horseback, appended to the collar of the Order of the Garter; I am an agouti hooded rat; (b 1795) and Jemima (Parker) (b 1795) Stanley were married in 1822 at Orange Meeting House in Wayne County George was born in 1795 and was a son of Samuel and Susannah Stanley Jemima was born in 1795 at Rich Square, North Carolina and was the daughter of Jeremiah and Keren (Newby) Parker Immediately after their marriage, Jemima transferred to Newberry Monthly Meeting in Clinton County, Ohio, where George was a member In 1829 they transferred to Milford Monthly Meeting in Wayne County, Indiana They were charter members of Hopewell Monthly Meeting in Henry County in 1841 In 1847 they removed to Richland Monthly Meeting in Hamilton County, Indiana There children were Samuel (1822), Jeremiah (1824), Isaac (1825), Keren (1828), John T (1829), Elizabeth (1831), Elam (1834), and James M (1838); england; cavalry
George Foreman grill: A popular low-fat grill (especially for red meats.)
George Foreman grills: plural form of George Foreman grill
George Town: The state capital of Penang (Malaysia)
George Town: The capital city of the Cayman Islands
George VI: King of the United Kingdom from 1936 to 1952
George V, Edward VIII and George VI were all Patrons of the Rugby Union.
George's Island: The name given to Tahiti by Samuel Wallis. (Reference: A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12, ed. Robert Kerr .)
George 1st duke of Albermarle Monck: born Dec. 6, 1608, Great Potheridge, Devon, Eng. died Jan. 3, 1670, London English general. He served with the Dutch army against the Spanish in the Netherlands (1629-38) and later suppressed a rebellion in Ireland (1642-43). He fought in Ireland and Scotland in the English Civil Wars, then served in Scotland as commander (1650) and governor (1654). Appointed a general at sea (1652) in the Anglo-Dutch Wars, he played a leading part in the English naval victories. In 1660 he was the chief architect of the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy, for which he was created duke of Albemarle
George A Miller: born Feb. 2, 1920, Charleston, W.Va., U.S. U.S. psychologist. He taught at Harvard, Rockefeller, and Princeton universities. He is known for his work in cognitive psychology, particularly communication and psycholinguistics. In Plans and the Structure of Behavior (with Eugene Galanter and Karl Pribram, 1960), Miller examined how knowledge is accumulated and organized into a practical "image" or plan. His other works, including Language and Communication (1951) and The Science of Words (1991), focus on the psychology of language and communication. He received the National Medal of Science in 1991
George A. Akerlof: born June 17, 1940, New Haven, Conn., U.S. U.S. economist. He studied at Yale University (B.A., 1962) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D., 1966) and in 1966 began teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, becoming Goldman Professor of Economics in 1980. Akerlof's research often drew on other disciplines, including psychology, anthropology, and sociology, and he played an important role in the development of behavioral economics. His landmark study on asymmetric information in the used car market demonstrated how markets malfunction when sellers have more information than buyers. Akerlof shared the 2001 Nobel Prize for Economics with A. Michael Spence and Joseph E. Stiglitz
George Abbott: born June 25, 1887, Forestville, N.Y., U.S. died Jan. 31, 1995, Miami Beach, Fla. U.S. theatre director, producer, and playwright. In 1913 he began acting on Broadway, and he soon turned to writing and directing plays, achieving his first of many hits with The Fall Guy (1925). He also wrote, directed, or produced many popular musicals, including The Boys from Syracuse (1938), Pal Joey (1940), Where's Charley (1948), Wonderful Town (1953), and Damn Yankees (1955). He was active in the theatre into the 1980s, directing a revival of On Your Toes at age 95
George Armitage Miller: born Feb. 2, 1920, Charleston, W.Va., U.S. U.S. psychologist. He taught at Harvard, Rockefeller, and Princeton universities. He is known for his work in cognitive psychology, particularly communication and psycholinguistics. In Plans and the Structure of Behavior (with Eugene Galanter and Karl Pribram, 1960), Miller examined how knowledge is accumulated and organized into a practical "image" or plan. His other works, including Language and Communication (1951) and The Science of Words (1991), focus on the psychology of language and communication. He received the National Medal of Science in 1991
George Armstrong Custer: born Dec. 5, 1839, New Rumley, Ohio, U.S. died June 25, 1876, Little Bighorn River, Montana Territory U.S. cavalry officer. He graduated from West Point and at age 23 became a brigadier general. His vigorous pursuit of Confederate troops under Gen. Robert E. Lee in retreat from Richmond hastened Lee's surrender in 1865. In 1874 he led U.S. troops to investigate rumours of gold in South Dakota's Black Hills, a sacred Indian hunting ground. The resulting gold rush led to hostile encounters with the Indians. In 1876 the 36-year-old Custer commanded one of two columns of a planned attack against Indians camped near Montana's Little Bighorn River. He rashly decided to attack without the other column, and in the Battle of the Little Bighorn he and all his troops were killed
George Armstrong Custer: {i} General George Armstrong Custer (1839-1876), United States Union general during the American Civil War
George B McClellan: born Dec. 3, 1826, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S. died Oct. 29, 1885, Orange, N.J. U.S. Army officer. After graduating from West Point, he served in the Mexican War and then returned to West Point to teach military engineering. In 1855-56 he undertook a mission to the Crimea to study European methods of warfare. In 1857 he resigned his commission to become chief of engineering for the Illinois Central Railroad (1857); he became president of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad in 1860. At the outbreak of the American Civil War he was commissioned in the regular army and placed in command of the department of the Ohio. Appointed general in chief of the army by Abraham Lincoln in 1861, he organized the army into an efficient fighting force but refused to take the offensive in the fall of that year, prompting Lincoln to issue his General War Order (1862) calling for forward movement of all armies. McClellan cautiously conducted the Peninsular Campaign but failed to take Richmond, and he fought indecisively in the Seven Days' Battles. At the Battle of Antietam he failed to destroy Robert E. Lee's army, and Lincoln removed him from command. In 1864 he was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for president against Lincoln. From 1872 to 1877 he was president of the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad
George Balanchine: a US choreographer (=someone who decides what movements dancers will do to a piece of music) who was born in Russia, and who helped to start the New York City Ballet (1904-83). orig. Georgy Melitonovich Balanchivadze born Jan. 22, 1904, St. Petersburg, Russia died April 30, 1983, New York, N.Y., U.S. Russian-born U.S. choreographer. After studying at the Imperial Ballet School, he left the Soviet Union in 1925 to join the Ballets Russes, where his choreography of Apollo (1928) exemplified the spare neoclassical style that became his trademark. His work impressed the impresario Lincoln Kirstein, who in 1933 invited "Mr. B." to form the School of American Ballet and its performing group, the American Ballet. The group became the Metropolitan Opera's resident company (1935-38) but disbanded in 1941. In 1946 Kirstein and Balanchine founded the Ballet Society, from which emerged the New York City Ballet in 1948. Balanchine created more than 150 works for the company, including The Nutcracker (1954), Don Quixote (1965), and Jewels (1967), and he also choreographed musicals and operas. He collaborated closely with the composer Igor Stravinsky, setting more than 30 works to his music. Balanchine's work remains in the repertoires of many companies worldwide, and he is widely considered the greatest choreographer of the 20th century
George Bancroft: born Oct. 3, 1800, Worcester, Mass., U.S. died Jan. 17, 1891, Washington, D.C. U.S. historian. Bancroft was educated at Harvard and several German universities. He was minister to England (1846-49), Prussia (1867-71), and the German empire (1871-74). He was the first scholar to plan a comprehensive study of the U.S. from the colonial days through the end of the Revolutionary War. His 10-volume History of the United States (1834-40, 1852-74) reflected his belief that the U.S. represented humanity's closest approximation yet to the perfect state and earned him his reputation as the "father of U.S. history
George Bancroft: {i} (1800-1891) U.S. historian and stateman, published the ten-volume History of the United States (1834-1874), was the secretary of the navy from 1845 to 1846
George Berkeley: known as Bishop Berkeley born March 12, 1685, near Dysert Castle, near Thomastown?, County Kilkenny, Ire. died Jan. 14, 1753, Oxford, Eng. Irish bishop, philosopher, and social activist. He worked principally at Trinity College, Dublin (to 1713), and as bishop of Cloyne (1734-52). He is best known for his contention that, for material objects, to be is to be perceived ("Esse est percipi"). His religious calling may have prompted his qualification that, even if no human perceives an object, God does, thereby ensuring the continued existence of the physical world when not perceived by any finite being. With John Locke and David Hume, he was one of the founders of modern empiricism. Unlike Locke, he did not believe that there exists any material substance external to the mind, but rather that objects exist only as collections of sensible ideas. His works include An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision (1709), Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710), and Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous (1713). He spent part of his career in America, where he advocated educating Native Americans and blacks. The city of Berkeley, Calif., U.S., is named for him
George Berkeley: {i} (1685-1753) Irish philosopher and bishop known as "Bishop Berkeley
George Bernard Shaw: {i} (1856-1950) Irish-born author playwright and social reformer who spent most of his career in England
George Bernard Shaw: an Irish writer famous especially for his clever plays which criticize society and the moral values of the time. His best known works include the historical plays Caesar and Cleopatra and St Joan, and the comedy Pygmalion, which was later turned into the popular musical show My Fair Lady. He was a leading socialist and wrote books about socialism (1856-1950). born July 26, 1856, Dublin, Ire. died Nov. 2, 1950, Ayot St. Lawrence, Hertfordshire, Eng. Irish playwright and critic. After moving to London in 1876, he worked for years as a music and art critic, wrote book and theatre reviews, and was an active member of the socialist Fabian Society. In his first play, Widowers' Houses (1892), he emphasized social and economic issues instead of romance, adopting the ironic comedic tone that would characterize all his work. He described his first plays as "unpleasant" because they forced the spectator to face unpleasant facts; these plays include Mrs. Warren's Profession (1893), which concerns prostitution and was barred from performance until 1902. He then wrote four "pleasant" plays, including the comedies Arms and the Man (1894) and Candida (1895). His next plays include Caesar and Cleopatra (1899) and Man and Superman (1905). He used high comedy to explore society's foibles in Major Barbara (1905), The Doctor's Dilemma (1911), and Pygmalion (1913), his comedic masterpiece. Other notable plays include Androcles and the Lion (1912), Heartbreak House (1919), and Saint Joan (1923). His other writings and speeches made him a controversial public figure for much of his life. He received the Nobel Prize in 1925
George Blanda: a US football player who is famous because he played professional football for 26 years and scored more points than any other NFL player (1927- ). born Sept. 17, 1927, Youngwood, Pa., U.S. U.S. football player. He played for the University of Kentucky. As a professional quarterback and kicker, he played for the Chicago Bears (1949-58), Houston Oilers (1960-66), and Oakland Raiders (1967-76), setting still-standing records for most seasons played (26), most games played (340), and most points after touchdowns (943). His record for most field goals (335) was broken in 1983
George Boole: {i} (1815-1864) English mathematician and logician who developed the Boolean algebra
George Boole: born Nov. 2, 1815, Lincoln, Eng. died Dec. 8, 1864, Ballintemple, Ire. British mathematician. Though basically self-taught and lacking a university degree, in 1849 he was appointed professor of mathematics at Queen's College in Ireland. His original and remarkable general symbolic method of logical inference is fully stated in Laws of Thought (1854). Boole argued persuasively that logic should be allied with mathematics rather than with philosophy, and his two-valued algebra of logic, now called Boolean algebra, is used in telephone switching and by electronic digital computers
George Brinton McClellan: born Dec. 3, 1826, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S. died Oct. 29, 1885, Orange, N.J. U.S. Army officer. After graduating from West Point, he served in the Mexican War and then returned to West Point to teach military engineering. In 1855-56 he undertook a mission to the Crimea to study European methods of warfare. In 1857 he resigned his commission to become chief of engineering for the Illinois Central Railroad (1857); he became president of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad in 1860. At the outbreak of the American Civil War he was commissioned in the regular army and placed in command of the department of the Ohio. Appointed general in chief of the army by Abraham Lincoln in 1861, he organized the army into an efficient fighting force but refused to take the offensive in the fall of that year, prompting Lincoln to issue his General War Order (1862) calling for forward movement of all armies. McClellan cautiously conducted the Peninsular Campaign but failed to take Richmond, and he fought indecisively in the Seven Days' Battles. At the Battle of Antietam he failed to destroy Robert E. Lee's army, and Lincoln removed him from command. In 1864 he was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for president against Lincoln. From 1872 to 1877 he was president of the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad
George Brown: born Nov. 29, 1818, Edinburgh, Scot. died May. 9, 1880, Toronto, Ont., Can. Canadian journalist and politician. He immigrated to New York in 1837 and in 1843 moved to Toronto, where he founded The Globe (1844), a reformist political newspaper. As a member of the Canadian assembly (1857-65), he advocated proportional representation, the confederation of British North America, acquisition of the Northwest Territories, and separation of church and state. He later became a leader of the Clear Grits movement. In 1873 he was appointed to the Canadian Senate, though he continued to manage his influential and popular newspaper (later The Globe and Mail)
George Buchanan: born February 1506, Killearn, Stirlingshire, Scot. died Sept. 29, 1582, Edinburgh Scottish humanist, scholar, and educator. As a teacher of Latin in Paris, Buchanan wrote bitter attacks on the Franciscans that landed him in jail for heresy. He escaped and became a teacher in Bordeaux, where Michel de Montaigne was one of his pupils. There he translated two of Euripides' plays into Latin and wrote original dramas. His paraphrase of the Psalms was long used for Latin instruction. At first a supporter of Mary, Queen of Scots, he later helped prepare the case that led to her execution. In De jure regni apud Scotos (1579), he argued for limited monarchy; Rerum Scotiacarum historia (1582) traces Scotland's history
George Burns: a US comedian and actor who was popular in vaudeville, on radio, and on television. He was known for always smoking a cigar and for talking to the audience (=the people watching) (1896-1996). orig. Nathan Birnbaum born Jan. 20, 1896, New York, N.Y., U.S. died March 9, 1996, Beverly Hills, Calif. U.S. comedian best known for his collaboration with Gracie Allen (1902-64). Burns and Allen formed a comedy team in 1925 and were married in 1926. They performed on radio in The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show (1932-50), with Burns playing the straight man to Allen's malaprop-prone chatterbox, before their show moved to television (1950-58). They made 13 films together, including The Big Broadcast films of 1932, 1936, and 1937. Burns returned to the screen in films such as The Sunshine Boys (1975, Academy Award) and Oh, God! (1977) and its sequels. Famous for his wry humour and his cigars, he continued performing into his late 90s
George Bush: born June 12, 1924, Milton, Mass., U.S. 41st president of the U.S. (1989-93). Bush was the son of Prescott Bush, an investment banker and U.S. senator from Connecticut. He served in World War II as a torpedo bomber pilot on aircraft carriers in the Pacific, flying some 58 combat missions; he was shot down by the Japanese in 1944. After graduating from Yale University in 1948, he started an oil business in Texas. He was elected to a Republican seat in the U.S. House of Representatives (1966-70) and later served as ambassador to the UN (1971-72), chief of liaison to China (1974-76), and head of the CIA (1976-77). In 1980 he lost the Republican Party nomination for president to Ronald Reagan. Bush served as vice president under Reagan (1981-89), whom he succeeded as president, defeating Michael Dukakis. He made no dramatic departures from Reagan's policies. In 1989 he ordered a brief military invasion of Panama, which toppled that country's leader, Gen. Manuel Noriega. He helped impose a UN-approved embargo against Iraq in 1990 to force its withdrawal from Kuwait. When Iraq refused, he authorized a U.S.-led air offensive that began the Persian Gulf War. Despite general approval of his foreign policy, an economic recession led to his defeat by Bill Clinton in 1992. His son George W. Bush was elected governor of Texas in 1994 and president of the U.S. in 2000. Another son, Jeb Bush, was elected governor of Florida in 1998
George Bush: {i} George Herbert Walker Bush (born 1924), 41st president of the United States (1989-1993); George Walker Bush (born 1946), 43rd president of the United States (2001-), former governor of Texas and son of George Herbert Walker Bush
George Byron: {i} (1788-1824) English satirist and poet, member of the Romantic movement, author of "Don Juan
George Byron 6th Baron Byron: known as Lord Byron born Jan. 22, 1788, London, Eng. died April 19, 1824, Missolonghi, Greece British Romantic poet and satirist. Born with a clubfoot and extremely sensitive about it, he was 10 when he unexpectedly inherited his title and estates. Educated at Cambridge, he gained recognition with English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809), a satire responding to a critical review of his first published volume, Hours of Idleness (1807). At 21 he embarked on a European grand tour. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812-18), a poetic travelogue expressing melancholy and disillusionment, brought him fame, while his complex personality, dashing good looks, and many scandalous love affairs, with women and with boys, captured the imagination of Europe. Settling near Geneva, he wrote the verse tale The Prisoner of Chillon (1816), a hymn to liberty and an indictment of tyranny, and Manfred (1817), a poetic drama whose hero reflected Byron's own guilt and frustration. His greatest poem, Don Juan (1819-24), is an unfinished epic picaresque satire in ottava rima. Among his numerous other works are verse tales and poetic dramas. He died of fever in Greece while aiding the struggle for independence, making him a Greek national hero
George C Marshall: born Dec. 31, 1880, Uniontown, Pa., U.S. died Oct. 16, 1959, Washington, D.C. U.S. Army officer and statesman. After graduating from the Virginia Military Institute, he served in the Philippines (1902-03) and in World War I. He was later an aide to Gen. John Pershing (1919-24) and assistant commandant of the army's infantry school (1927-33), where he taught many future commanders. As chief of staff of the U.S. Army (1939-45), he directed army operations throughout World War II. After his retirement in 1945, Pres. Harry Truman sent him to China to mediate the civil war there. As secretary of state (1947-49), Marshall proposed the European aid program known as the Marshall Plan and initiated discussions that led to the formation of NATO. He resigned because of ill health but was called back by Truman to become secretary of defense (1950-51) and to prepare the armed forces for the Korean War. In 1953 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace
George C Scott: born Oct. 18, 1927, Wise, Va., U.S. died Sept. 22, 1999, Westlake Village, Calif. U.S. actor. He served in the U.S. Marines before studying drama and journalism at the University of Missouri. He took numerous roles in television and repertory theatre productions before winning praise for his early film roles in Anatomy of a Murder (1959), The Hustler (1961), and Petulia (1968). He was noted for his strong screen presence and barking voice. He won an Academy Award for Patton (1970) but refused to accept it, calling the competition a "meat parade." Among his later films were The Hospital (1972), Hardcore (1979), Taps (1981), and Malice (1993). His television work included The Price (1970, Emmy Award, also refused) and the role of Scrooge in A Christmas Carol (1984)
George C Wallace: born Aug. 25, 1919, Clio, Ala., U.S. died Sept. 13, 1998, Montgomery, Ala. U.S. politician. He served in the Alabama state legislature (1947-53). As a circuit court judge (1953-59), he was known for his resistance to federal investigations of racial discrimination. Campaigning as a segregationist, he was elected governor in 1963 and kept his pledge "to stand in the schoolhouse door" to prevent enrollment of African American students at the University of Alabama. He yielded only in the face of the federalized National Guard. Further confrontations made him a nationwide symbol of Southern opposition to racial integration. He formed the American Independent Party and was its presidential candidate in 1968, winning 13% of the popular vote. He again served as governor (1971-79). While campaigning for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination, he was shot in an assassination attempt and left partly paralyzed. In the 1980s he renounced his segregationist views, and he won his last term as governor (1983-87) with support from African American voters
George Cabot: born Jan. 16, 1752, Salem, Mass. died April 18, 1823, Boston, Mass., U.S. U.S. Federalist Party leader. After studying at Harvard University, he went to sea; he became a shipowner and successful merchant, retiring from business in 1794. Elected to the U.S. Senate (1791-96), he supported the fiscal policies of Alexander Hamilton. In 1793 he was appointed a director of the Bank of the United States. A member of the Federalist Essex Junto, he presided at the Hartford Convention in 1814
George Cadbury: born Sept. 19, 1839, Birmingham, Warwickshire, Eng. died Oct. 24, 1922, Birmingham British businessman and social reformer. In 1861 he and his brother Richard took over their father's failing business and built it into the highly prosperous Cadbury Brothers cocoa-and chocolate-manufacturing firm. They improved working conditions and introduced a private social security program for employees. George was also noted for his successful experiments in housing and town planning in Bournville, where he built affordable working-class homes with large gardens
George Caleb Bingham: born March 20, 1811, Augusta county, Va., U.S. died July 7, 1879, Kansas City, Mo. U.S. painter and frontier politician. He studied briefly at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, but he was largely self-taught. He entered politics in Missouri and worked as an itinerant portrait painter before turning to the lively routines of frontier life for inspiration. Bingham is known for his incisive characterizations, clear, golden light, and talent for organizing large, dense compositions. His best-known works include Fur Traders Descending the Missouri (1845) and Jolly Flatboatmen (1846)
George Calvert 1st Baron Baltimore: born 1578/79, Kipling, Yorkshire, Eng. died April 15, 1632 English colonialist. He served in the House of Commons from 1621; charged with communicating the policy of James I, he was distrusted by Parliament. After declaring himself a Roman Catholic (1625), he gave up his office and was created Baron Baltimore, receiving land grants in Ireland. To assure the prosperity of his New World holdings, he took his family to his Newfoundland colony in 1628. Because of conflict over his Catholicism and the severe climate, he petitioned Charles I for a land grant in the Chesapeake Bay area. He died before the charter was granted, and his son Cecil became proprietor of the colony of Maryland
George Calvert 1st Baron Baltimore of Baltimore: born 1578/79, Kipling, Yorkshire, Eng. died April 15, 1632 English colonialist. He served in the House of Commons from 1621; charged with communicating the policy of James I, he was distrusted by Parliament. After declaring himself a Roman Catholic (1625), he gave up his office and was created Baron Baltimore, receiving land grants in Ireland. To assure the prosperity of his New World holdings, he took his family to his Newfoundland colony in 1628. Because of conflict over his Catholicism and the severe climate, he petitioned Charles I for a land grant in the Chesapeake Bay area. He died before the charter was granted, and his son Cecil became proprietor of the colony of Maryland
George Campbell Scott: born Oct. 18, 1927, Wise, Va., U.S. died Sept. 22, 1999, Westlake Village, Calif. U.S. actor. He served in the U.S. Marines before studying drama and journalism at the University of Missouri. He took numerous roles in television and repertory theatre productions before winning praise for his early film roles in Anatomy of a Murder (1959), The Hustler (1961), and Petulia (1968). He was noted for his strong screen presence and barking voice. He won an Academy Award for Patton (1970) but refused to accept it, calling the competition a "meat parade." Among his later films were The Hospital (1972), Hardcore (1979), Taps (1981), and Malice (1993). His television work included The Price (1970, Emmy Award, also refused) and the role of Scrooge in A Christmas Carol (1984)
George Canning: born April 11, 1770, London, Eng. died Aug. 8, 1827, Chiswick, near London British politician. As a young man, he came under the influence of William Pitt, who helped him win a seat in Parliament (1793) and a post as undersecretary for foreign affairs (1796-99). Canning served twice as foreign secretary (1807-09, 1822-27); his policies included cutting England adrift from the Holy Alliance and recognizing the independence of the Spanish American colonies. He became prime minister in 1827 but died a few months later. He helped the Tory Party take a more liberal view on many questions of domestic, colonial, and foreign policy
George Castriota: {i} Scanderbeg, Skanderbeg (~1403-1468), Albanian national hero and revolutionary leader (also known as: George Kastrioti , Iskander Bey)
George Catlett Marshall: born Dec. 31, 1880, Uniontown, Pa., U.S. died Oct. 16, 1959, Washington, D.C. U.S. Army officer and statesman. After graduating from the Virginia Military Institute, he served in the Philippines (1902-03) and in World War I. He was later an aide to Gen. John Pershing (1919-24) and assistant commandant of the army's infantry school (1927-33), where he taught many future commanders. As chief of staff of the U.S. Army (1939-45), he directed army operations throughout World War II. After his retirement in 1945, Pres. Harry Truman sent him to China to mediate the civil war there. As secretary of state (1947-49), Marshall proposed the European aid program known as the Marshall Plan and initiated discussions that led to the formation of NATO. He resigned because of ill health but was called back by Truman to become secretary of defense (1950-51) and to prepare the armed forces for the Korean War. In 1953 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace
George Catlett Marshall: {i} (1880-1959) American military man and statesman, one who conceived the Marshall Plan, Nobel peace prize winner in 1953
George Catlin: born July 26, 1796, Wilkes-Barre, Pa., U.S. died Dec. 23, 1872, Jersey City, N.J. U.S. painter and author. He practiced law briefly before becoming a self-taught portrait painter in Philadelphia (1823). Long interested in Native American life, in 1830 he began a series of visits to various tribes on the Great Plains. He produced some 500 paintings and sketches based on his travels and exhibited them in the U.S. and Europe. In 1854-57 he traveled to Central and South America; in 1858-70 he lived in Europe. He published several illustrated books on Native American life. Most of his collection was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution for its ethnographic and historical interest
George Clinton: born July 26, 1739, Little Britain, N.Y. died April 20, 1812, Washington, D.C., U.S. U.S. politician, fourth vice president of the U.S. (1805-12). A veteran of the French and Indian War, he was a leading member of the New York assembly (1768-75) and a delegate to the Continental Congress (1775). As governor of New York (1777-95, 1801-04), he was a forceful leader and able administrator; he led the opposition to the state's adoption of the U.S. Constitution. A supporter of Thomas Jefferson, he was twice elected vice president (with Jefferson and James Madison); he died in office
George Clinton: {i} (born 1941) funk musician and performer, co-founder of the band "Parliament/Funkadelic
George Clooney: {i} (born 1961) American television and film actor (known for his roles in the TV series "ER" and the film "Batman and Robin")
George Corley Wallace: born Aug. 25, 1919, Clio, Ala., U.S. died Sept. 13, 1998, Montgomery, Ala. U.S. politician. He served in the Alabama state legislature (1947-53). As a circuit court judge (1953-59), he was known for his resistance to federal investigations of racial discrimination. Campaigning as a segregationist, he was elected governor in 1963 and kept his pledge "to stand in the schoolhouse door" to prevent enrollment of African American students at the University of Alabama. He yielded only in the face of the federalized National Guard. Further confrontations made him a nationwide symbol of Southern opposition to racial integration. He formed the American Independent Party and was its presidential candidate in 1968, winning 13% of the popular vote. He again served as governor (1971-79). While campaigning for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination, he was shot in an assassination attempt and left partly paralyzed. In the 1980s he renounced his segregationist views, and he won his last term as governor (1983-87) with support from African American voters
George Crabbe: born Dec. 24, 1754, Aldeburgh, Suffolk, Eng. died Feb. 3, 1832, Trowbridge, Wiltshire English poet. Reared in an impoverished seacoast village, Crabbe initially became a surgeon. In 1780 he left for London, where his poem The Village (1783) brought him fame; written partly as a protest against Oliver Goldsmith's Deserted Village (1770), it was Crabbe's attempt to show the misery of rural poverty. The Newspaper followed in 1785, but he did not publish again until 1807. In "The Parish Register," he used the register of births, deaths, and marriages to depict the life of a rural community. Considered the last of the Augustan poets, he wrote in heroic couplets. His story of the isolated and violent Peter Grimes in The Borough became the basis of a famous opera by Benjamin Britten
George Croghan: born 1720, near Dublin, Ire. died Aug. 31, 1782, Passyunk, near Philadelphia, Pa., U.S. American trader and Indian agent. He immigrated from Ireland in 1741, settling near Carlisle, Pa., where he learned Indian customs and languages to assist him in his trade. He was named Indian agent (an official representative to Indian tribes) for Pennsylvania in the 1740s. Later, as deputy to William Johnson (1756-72), he negotiated with tribes complaining of encroachments on their land by colonists. In 1765 he achieved an end to Pontiac's War. He espoused the patriot cause in the American Revolution
George Cross: an honour given to British people not in the armed forces who do something extremely brave, for example saving someone else's life at great danger to themselves
George Cruikshank: born , Sept. 27, 1792, London, Eng. died Feb. 1, 1878, London English painter, illustrator, and caricaturist. His series of political caricatures for The Scourge (1811-16) established him as the leading political cartoonist of his generation, and he continued to satirize the policies of the Tories and Whigs in political cartoons until 1825. In the 1820s and '30s he produced book illustrations, notably for Charles Dickens's Sketches by "Boz" (1836) and Oliver Twist (1838). In later life he embraced the cause of temperance with his series The Bottle (1847) and The Drunkard's Children (1848)
George Crumb: born , Oct. 24, 1929, Charleston, W.Va., U.S. U.S. composer. Born to musician parents, he studied at the University of Michigan and from 1965 taught at the University of Pennsylvania. His style is known particularly for its unusual and hauntingly evocative timbres. Echoes of Time and the River (1967, Pulitzer Prize) and Ancient Voices of Children (1970) brought him wide fame. His other works include Madrigals, Books I-IV (1965-70), Night of the Four Moons (1969), Black Angels (1970), Makrokosmos I and II (1972, 1973), and Star-Child (1977)
George Cukor: born July 7, 1899, New York, N.Y., U.S. died Jan. 24, 1983, Los Angeles, Calif. U.S. film director. He directed plays on Broadway before going to Hollywood in 1929. His first film, Tarnished Lady (1931), was followed by the acclaimed Little Women (1933), David Copperfield (1935), The Philadelphia Story (1940), and Gaslight (1944). He directed several comedies starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, including Adam's Rib (1949) and Pat and Mike (1952). He was noted for his skill in working with actors, particularly women. Among his other memorable films are Dinner at Eight (1933), The Women (1939), A Star Is Born (1954), and My Fair Lady (1964, Academy Award)
George Dewey: (1837-1917) admiral in the U.S. Navy during the Spanish-American War
George Dewey: born Dec. 26, 1837, Montpelier, Vt., U.S. died Jan. 16, 1917, Washington, D.C. U.S. naval commander. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1858 and served with Union naval forces in the American Civil War. In 1897 he commanded the U.S. Asiatic Squadron. In the Spanish-American War he sailed from Hong Kong to the Philippines to defeat the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Manila Bay (1898); he opened fire with the command, "You may fire when you are ready, Gridley." His victory, with no loss of U.S. ships, led to U.S. acquisition of the Philippines. In 1899 Congress created for him the rank of admiral of the navy
George Dewey Cukor: born July 7, 1899, New York, N.Y., U.S. died Jan. 24, 1983, Los Angeles, Calif. U.S. film director. He directed plays on Broadway before going to Hollywood in 1929. His first film, Tarnished Lady (1931), was followed by the acclaimed Little Women (1933), David Copperfield (1935), The Philadelphia Story (1940), and Gaslight (1944). He directed several comedies starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, including Adam's Rib (1949) and Pat and Mike (1952). He was noted for his skill in working with actors, particularly women. Among his other memorable films are Dinner at Eight (1933), The Women (1939), A Star Is Born (1954), and My Fair Lady (1964, Academy Award)
George E Hale: born June 29, 1868, Chicago, Ill. died Feb. 21, 1938, Pasadena, Calif., U.S. U.S. astronomer. He studied at Harvard and in Berlin. In 1888 he organized the Kenwood Observatory in Chicago. In 1892 he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago and began organizing the Yerkes Observatory, of which he was director until 1904; there he built the 40-in. (1-m) refracting telescope that remains the largest of its type in the world. He established the Astrophysical Journal in 1895. In 1904 he organized the Mount Wilson Observatory and was its director until 1923. There he built solar apparatus of great power as well as the huge 60-in. (1.5-m) and 100-in. (2.5-m) reflecting telescopes. In 1928 he began work on a 200-in. (5-m) reflecting telescope at Caltech's Palomar Observatory; completed in 1948, it was named in his honour. As a researcher, he is known particularly for his discovery of magnetic fields in sunspots
George E Pickett: born Jan. 25, 1825, Richmond, Va., U.S. died July 30, 1875, Norfolk, Va. U.S. and Confederate army officer. He graduated from West Point and served in the Mexican War. In 1861 he resigned his commission to enter the Confederate army. He rose to major general and commanded a division at the Battle of Fredericksburg. At the Battle of Gettysburg, he led the climactic attack known as Pickett's Charge, in which 4,300 men of his division constituted almost half the attacking force under James Longstreet. The attempt to breach the Union lines on Cemetery Ridge was repulsed with the loss of about 60% of his men. Though criticized for his leadership, he retained his command
George Eastman: a US inventor and businessman who started the Kodak company, and made the first camera that could be carried around and that was cheap and easy to use (1854-1932). born July 12, 1854, Waterville, N.Y., U.S. died March 14, 1932, Rochester, N.Y. U.S. inventor and manufacturer. Eastman in 1880 perfected a process for making dry plates for photography. In 1889 he introduced transparent film, and in 1892 he reorganized his Rochester company as the Eastman Kodak Co. The introduction of the first Kodak (a coined word that became a trademark) camera helped promote large-scale amateur photography. By 1927 Eastman Kodak had a virtual monopoly of the U.S. photographic industry, and it has remained one of the largest American companies in its field. Eastman's generous bequests to the University of Rochester were acknowledged in the naming of the Eastman School of Music
George Edward Bateman Saintsbury: born Oct. 23, 1845, Southampton, Hampshire, Eng. died Jan. 28, 1933, Bath, Somerset English literary historian and critic. When the school at which he was teaching failed in 1876, he decided to write for a living. He produced several successful volumes of criticism of French literature and extensive writings on English literature. Though he formulated no philosophy of criticism, his works were influential because they combined authoritative scholarship with the popular appeal of entertaining prose. They include A History of Criticism and Literary Taste in Europe from the Earliest Texts to the Present Day (1900-04), one of the first surveys of critical literary theory and practice
George Edward Moore: born Nov. 4, 1873, London, Eng. died Oct. 24, 1958, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire British philosopher, one of the founders of analytic philosophy. While a fellow at the University of Cambridge (1898-1904), he published two influential papers, "The Nature of Judgment" (1899) and "The Refutation of Idealism" (1903), that did much to break the hold of absolute idealism on British philosophy. Also published during this period was his major ethical work, Principia Ethica (1903), in which he argued that "good" is a simple and unanalyzable quality that is knowable by direct apprehension. His intuitionism was the dominant metaethical position in Britain for the next 30 years, and it exerted considerable influence within the Bloomsbury group of artists and intellectuals. In epistemology, Moore is remembered for his "common sense" philosophy, according to which human beings know to be true many propositions about themselves and the world that are inconsistent with idealist and skeptical doctrines (e.g., "The Earth has existed for many years"). His general position was that, because no argument for idealism or skepticism is as certain as the commonsense view, idealism and skepticism can be rejected out of hand. He was professor of philosophy at Cambridge from 1925 to 1939. From 1921 to 1947 he edited the journal Mind
George Edward Pickett: born Jan. 25, 1825, Richmond, Va., U.S. died July 30, 1875, Norfolk, Va. U.S. and Confederate army officer. He graduated from West Point and served in the Mexican War. In 1861 he resigned his commission to enter the Confederate army. He rose to major general and commanded a division at the Battle of Fredericksburg. At the Battle of Gettysburg, he led the climactic attack known as Pickett's Charge, in which 4,300 men of his division constituted almost half the attacking force under James Longstreet. The attempt to breach the Union lines on Cemetery Ridge was repulsed with the loss of about 60% of his men. Though criticized for his leadership, he retained his command
George Eliot: an British woman writer, whose real name was Mary Ann or Marian Evans. She wrote some of the greatest English novels, including Middlemarch, The Mill on the Floss, and Silas Marner. Her novels give a detailed picture of many different characters at all levels of English society (1819-80). orig. Mary Ann Evans later Marian Evans born Nov. 22, 1819, Chilvers Coton, Warwickshire, Eng. died Dec. 22, 1880, London British novelist. Eliot was raised with a strong evangelical piety but broke with religious orthodoxy in her 20s. She worked as a translator, a critic, and a subeditor of the Westminster Review (1851-54). Later she turned to fiction. Adopting a masculine pseudonym to evade prejudice against women novelists, she first brought out Scenes of Clerical Life (1858). This was followed by such classic works as Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1862-63), Felix Holt, the Radical (1866), and Daniel Deronda (1876). Her masterpiece, Middlemarch (1871-72), provides a thorough study of every class of provincial society. The method of psychological analysis she developed would become characteristic of modern fiction. With the journalist, philosopher, and critic George Henry Lewes (1817-78), a married man, she enjoyed a long and happy, though scandalous, liaison; their Sunday-afternoon salons were a brilliant feature of Victorian life
George Eliot: {i} pen name of Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880, British writer, author of "Silas Marner" and "Middlemarch")
George Ellery Hale: born June 29, 1868, Chicago, Ill. died Feb. 21, 1938, Pasadena, Calif., U.S. U.S. astronomer. He studied at Harvard and in Berlin. In 1888 he organized the Kenwood Observatory in Chicago. In 1892 he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago and began organizing the Yerkes Observatory, of which he was director until 1904; there he built the 40-in. (1-m) refracting telescope that remains the largest of its type in the world. He established the Astrophysical Journal in 1895. In 1904 he organized the Mount Wilson Observatory and was its director until 1923. There he built solar apparatus of great power as well as the huge 60-in. (1.5-m) and 100-in. (2.5-m) reflecting telescopes. In 1928 he began work on a 200-in. (5-m) reflecting telescope at Caltech's Palomar Observatory; completed in 1948, it was named in his honour. As a researcher, he is known particularly for his discovery of magnetic fields in sunspots
George Emlyn Williams: born Nov. 26, 1905, Mostyn, Flintshire, Wales died Sept. 25, 1987, London Welsh actor and playwright. He made his acting debut in 1927 and won acclaim in London and New York City for his performance in his own play, the macabre Night Must Fall (1935; film, 1964). His most popular play was the autobiographical The Corn Is Green (1938; film, 1945), the story of a boy and his teacher in a Welsh mining town. He also acted in many films and was renowned for his public readings from Charles Dickens, Saki, and Dylan Thomas
George F Kennan: born Feb. 16, 1904, Milwaukee, Wis., U.S. U.S. diplomat and historian. After graduating from Princeton University in 1925, he entered the U.S. foreign service, studied Russian language and culture at the University of Berlin (1929-31), and was assigned to the U.S. embassy in Moscow (1933-35). He served in Vienna, Prague, Berlin, and Lisbon, returning to Moscow during and after World War II. His concept of containment was presented in a highly influential article, signed "X," that appeared in Foregin Affairs magazine in July 1947. Kennan questioned the wisdom of conciliatory U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union, which he considered appeasement, and advocated instead U.S. counterpressure wherever the Soviets threatened to expand; this approach became the basis of U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union during the first decades of the Cold War. After brief service as an adviser to the State Department, he joined the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton as professor of historical studies (1956-74); his tenure there was interrupted by a stint as U.S. ambassador to Yugoslavia (1961-63). He won simultaneous Pulitzer Prizes and National Book Awards for Russia Leaves the War (1956) and Memoirs, 1925-50 (1967)
George Farquhar: born 1678, Londonderry, County Derry, Ire. died April 29, 1707, London, Eng. Irish playwright. His early experience as an actor in Dublin was the source of the originality of dialogue and stage sense that gave his work its great comic power. His plays, written for the London stage and enthusiastically received, included Love and a Bottle (1699), The Constant Couple (1699), and Sir Harry Wildair (1701). His real contribution to English drama came with The Recruiting Officer (1706) and particularly The Beaux' Stratagem (1707), in which he introduced a verbal vigour and love of character reminiscent of Elizabethan dramatists
George Foreman: born Jan. 10, 1949, Marshall, Texas, U.S. U.S. boxer. Foreman grew up in Houston, Texas, and learned to box in a U.S. Job Corps camp in Oregon. He won the Olympic gold medal in heavyweight boxing in 1968. His first world heavyweight title victory was his second-round knockout of Joe Frazier in 1973. He had won all 40 of his professional bouts, many by knockout, before he fell in eight rounds to Muhammad Ali in 1974 in the so-called "Rumble in the Jungle" in Kinshasa, Zaire, one of the most famous matches in modern boxing history. He retired in 1978 but began a remarkable comeback in 1987 at age 38; he regained the title in 10 rounds against Michael Moorer in 1994 to become, at 45, the oldest titleholder ever. He announced his retirement again the next year but fought a few more times in 1996-97. He has been an ordained minister since 1977
George Fox: {i} (1624-1691) English preacher who founded the Society of Friends; George Henry Fox (1846-1937), United States dermatologist (Fox sign named after him)
George Fox: an English religious leader who started the Christian group the Society of Friends, who are also called Quakers (1624-91). born July 1624, Drayton-in-the-Clay, Leicestershire, Eng. died Jan. 13, 1691, London English preacher and founder of the Society of Friends, or Quakers. The son of a weaver, he left home at age 18 in search of religious experience. Probably beginning as a Puritan, he reacted even more strongly than the Puritans against the tradition of the Church of England and came to regard personal experience as the true source of authority, placing God-given "inward light," or inspiration, above creeds and scripture. He traveled the countryside on foot, preaching to small groups, and he and other preachers established congregations. The Society of Friends arose in the 1650s. The Quakers' denunciation of ministers and public officials and their refusal to pay tithes or take oaths led to persecution, and Fox was imprisoned eight times between 1649 and 1673. He made missionary trips to Ireland, the Caribbean islands, North America, and northern Europe. His Journal gives an account of his life and of the rise of Quakerism
George Francis Abbott: born June 25, 1887, Forestville, N.Y., U.S. died Jan. 31, 1995, Miami Beach, Fla. U.S. theatre director, producer, and playwright. In 1913 he began acting on Broadway, and he soon turned to writing and directing plays, achieving his first of many hits with The Fall Guy (1925). He also wrote, directed, or produced many popular musicals, including The Boys from Syracuse (1938), Pal Joey (1940), Where's Charley (1948), Wonderful Town (1953), and Damn Yankees (1955). He was active in the theatre into the 1980s, directing a revival of On Your Toes at age 95
George Franklin Edmunds: born Feb. 1, 1828, Richmond, Vt., U.S. died Feb. 27, 1919, Pasadena, Calif. U.S. senator and expert on constitutional law. Despite little formal education, he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1849. He was a Republican member (1854-59) and speaker (1856-59) of the Vermont House of Representatives and a member and president pro tem (1861-62) of the Vermont Senate. He was appointed to the U.S. Senate in 1866 and served until 1891; he was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee (1872-79; 1882-91) and president pro tem of the Senate (1883-85). Edmunds was active in the impeachment (1868) of President Andrew Johnson and was a founding member of the commission that decided the election of 1876. The act for the suppression of polygamy (1882) bears his name, and he was principal author of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890)
George Frederick Blanda: born Sept. 17, 1927, Youngwood, Pa., U.S. U.S. football player. He played for the University of Kentucky. As a professional quarterback and kicker, he played for the Chicago Bears (1949-58), Houston Oilers (1960-66), and Oakland Raiders (1967-76), setting still-standing records for most seasons played (26), most games played (340), and most points after touchdowns (943). His record for most field goals (335) was broken in 1983
George Frederick Handel: a British composer, born in Germany, famous for his oratorios, such as the Messiah, and his orchestral music, particularly his Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks (1685-1759)
George Frederick Handel: {i} George Handel (1685-1759), German composer of Baroque music who lived most of his life in England, composer of the oratorio "Messiah
George Frideric Handel: orig. Georg Friedrich Händel born Feb. 23, 1685, Halle, Brandenburg died April 14, 1759, London, Eng. German-born British composer. Born to a barber-surgeon in Halle, he showed a marked gift for music and studied organ, violin, and composition. He moved to Hamburg in 1703 and played in the opera orchestra under Reinhard Keiser (1674-1739), and his first opera was produced there in 1705. A Medici prince invited him to Florence; there and in Rome, patronized by cardinals and nobility, he wrote oratorios, cantatas, and more operas. Hired as kapellmeister by the elector at Hannover (1710), he asked permission to visit London before assuming his responsibilities. There his opera Rinaldo (1711) immediately made his name; forsaking Hannover, he remained in England for the rest of his life. In 1714 the German elector was made George I of England; any annoyance at Handel's defection dissipated, and the king became one of his patrons. Handel was appointed musical director of the new Royal Academy of Music, an opera house that thrived until the public taste shifted away from Italian opera. In 1732 he revised his oratorio Esther for a public performance, the first public oratorio performance in England. Its success was followed by many more English-language oratorios, including his great Messiah (1741); by this time he had made oratorio and large-scale choral works the most popular musical forms in England. He was renowned as virtually the greatest organist and harpsichordist in the world. Handel wrote about 45 Italian operas, including Giulio Cesare (1723), Orlando (1733), and Alcina (1735). His oratorios include Israel in Egypt (1739), Saul (1739), and Jephtha (1752). His church music includes the Chandos Anthems (1718) and Coronation Anthems (1727). Though the bulk of his music was vocal, he composed a number of great orchestral works, such as the famous Water Music (1717) and Royal Fireworks Music (1749)
George Frisbie Hoar: born Aug. 29, 1826, Concord, Mass., U.S. died Sept. 30, 1904, Worcester, Mass. U.S. politician. He graduated from Harvard College (1846) and Harvard Law School (1849) and then went into private law practice in Worcester. He was an early supporter of the Free Soil Party in Massachusetts. With his brother, Ebenezer Hoar, and father, Samuel Hoar (1778-1856), he was instrumental in the formation of the Republican Party. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1869-77) and Senate (1877-1904). He championed civil-service reform, and he was an outspoken foe of the anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant American Protective Association
George Frost Kennan: born Feb. 16, 1904, Milwaukee, Wis., U.S. U.S. diplomat and historian. After graduating from Princeton University in 1925, he entered the U.S. foreign service, studied Russian language and culture at the University of Berlin (1929-31), and was assigned to the U.S. embassy in Moscow (1933-35). He served in Vienna, Prague, Berlin, and Lisbon, returning to Moscow during and after World War II. His concept of containment was presented in a highly influential article, signed "X," that appeared in Foregin Affairs magazine in July 1947. Kennan questioned the wisdom of conciliatory U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union, which he considered appeasement, and advocated instead U.S. counterpressure wherever the Soviets threatened to expand; this approach became the basis of U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union during the first decades of the Cold War. After brief service as an adviser to the State Department, he joined the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton as professor of historical studies (1956-74); his tenure there was interrupted by a stint as U.S. ambassador to Yugoslavia (1961-63). He won simultaneous Pulitzer Prizes and National Book Awards for Russia Leaves the War (1956) and Memoirs, 1925-50 (1967)
George G Meade: born , Dec. 31, 1815, Cádiz, Spain died Nov. 6, 1872, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S. U.S. general in the American Civil War. He was the son of a U.S. naval agent in Spain. After graduating from West Point in 1835, he worked as a surveyor. He reentered the army in 1842 and in 1861 was commissioned brigadier general in the Pennsylvania volunteers. He fought at Bull Run, Antietam, and Chancellorsville. Three days before the Battle of Gettysburg, he replaced Joseph Hooker as commander of the Army of the Potomac. At Gettysburg he repulsed the Confederate attack but was criticized for failing to pursue Robert E. Lee's forces. From 1864 he was subordinate to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, whom he served loyally. After the war he commanded several military departments
George Gabriel Stokes: {i} George Stokes (1819-1903), Irish mathematician and physicist
George Gallup: born Nov. 18, 1901, Jefferson, Iowa, U.S. died July 26, 1984, Tschingel, Switz. U.S. public-opinion statistician. He taught journalism at Drake University and Northwestern University until 1932, when a New York advertising firm hired him to conduct public-opinion surveys for its clients. He became a pioneer in the scientific sampling of public opinion, and his Gallup Poll, as well as other public-opinion polls, gained credibility after correctly forecasting the 1936 presidential victory of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Gallup founded the American Institute of Public Opinion (1935), the British Institute of Public Opinion (1936), and the Audience Research Institute (1939)
George Gamow: orig. Georgy Antonovich Gamov born March 4, 1904, Odessa, Russian Empire died Aug. 19, 1968, Boulder, Colo., U.S. Russian-born U.S. nuclear physicist and cosmologist. After studying at Leningrad University with Aleksandr Friedmann (1888-1925), he subsequently developed his quantum theory of radioactivity, the first successful explanation of the behaviour of radioactive elements. His "liquid drop" model of atomic nuclei served as the basis for modern theories of nuclear fission and fusion. After immigrating to the U.S. in 1934, he collaborated with Edward Teller in researching beta decay (1936) and developing a theory of the internal structures of red giant stars (1942). In the 1950s he became interested in biochemistry, proposing theories of genetic code structure that were later found to be true. Throughout his career he also wrote popular works on such difficult subjects as relativity and cosmology
George Gaylord Simpson: born June 16, 1902, Chicago, Ill., U.S. died Oct. 6, 1984, Tucson, Ariz. U.S. paleontologist. He earned a doctorate at Yale University. His contributions to evolutionary theory include a detailed classification of mammals, based on his studies of mammalian evolution, which is still the standard. He also is known for his studies of intercontinental migrations of animal species, especially South American mammals, in past geologic times. His books include Tempo and Mode in Evolution (1944; 1984), The Meaning of Evolution (1949), The Major Features of Evolution (1953), and The Principles of Animal Taxonomy (1961)
George Gemistus Plethon: born 1355, Constantinople died 1450/52, Mistra, Morea Byzantine philosopher and humanist scholar. He served as lay theologian with the Byzantine delegation to the 1438-45 general council of Ferrara-Florence. His treatise On the Difference Between Aristotle and Plato revived interest in Plato and led to founding of the Platonic Academy of Florence by Cosimo I. His clarification of the distinction between Platonic and Aristotelian thought proved seminal in determining the philosophic orientation of the Italian Renaissance
George Geoffrey Dawson: orig. George Geoffrey Robinson born Oct. 25, 1874, Skipton-in-Craven, Yorkshire, Eng. died Nov. 7, 1944, London English journalist, influential editor of The Times of London. While in civil service in South Africa, he became editor of the Johannesburg Star as part of an effort to promote support for official policies. As editor of The Times in the years 1912-19 and 1923-41, he was associated with a group that sought to shape national policy through personal exchanges with leading statesmen; he saw himself as the "secretary-general of the Establishment." A firm believer in appeasement, he was instrumental in the policy that led to the Munich agreement of 1938
George Gershwin: a US composer who wrote both classical music and popular songs and tunes. He is famous especially for his opera Porgy and Bess and for Rhapsody in Blue. His brother Ira Gershwin (1896-1983) wrote the words for many of his popular songs (1898-1937). orig. Jacob Gershvin born Sept. 26, 1898, Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S. died July 11, 1937, Hollywood, Calif. U.S. composer. Born to Russian-Jewish immigrants, he heard jazz performed live from about age six. In his teens he worked as a song plugger (playing piano in Tin Pan Alley to demonstrate sheet music for potential customers), and in 1916 he published his first song. In 1919 his "Swanee" was performed by Al Jolson and achieved extraordinary success. Gershwin's first complete score was for the show La, La Lucille (1919). The bandleader Paul Whiteman commissioned from him the hugely successful orchestral work Rhapsody in Blue (1924). It was revolutionary for its incorporation of the jazz idiom (blue notes, syncopated rhythms, onomatopoeic instrumental effects) into a symphonic context. Gershwin's first major Broadway success, Lady, Be Good! (1924), was a collaboration with his brother, lyricist Ira Gershwin. They soon established themselves as one of the great teams in Broadway history; their shows included Oh, Kay! (1926), Strike Up the Band (1927), Funny Face (1927), Girl Crazy (1930), and the satire Of Thee I Sing (1931), the first musical to win a Pulitzer Prize. He also scored several successful films. His most ambitious work was the "folk opera" Porgy and Bess (1935), a collaboration with Ira and novelist DuBose Heyward. Gershwin's classical compositions include a piano concerto (1925) and the tone poem An American in Paris (1928). His early death was the result of a brain tumour
George Gershwin: {i} (1898-1937) American composer, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his compositions for the musical "Of Thee I Sing
George Gissing: born Nov. 22, 1857, Wakefield, Yorkshire, Eng. died Dec. 28, 1903, Saint-Jean-de-Luz, France British novelist. He had a brilliant academic career but an unhappy personal life; twice involved in miserable marriages, he experienced the life of near poverty and constant drudgery that he described in New Grub Street, 3 vol. (1891), his best-known work, and The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft (1903). Inspired by Honoré de Balzac, he wrote a cycle of 22 novels, which included Born in Exile (1892) and The Odd Women (1893). His realistic novels of lower-middle-class life are noted for their acute perception of women's social position and psychology
George Glenn Jones: born Sept. 12, 1931, Saratoga, Texas, U.S. U.S. country music singer and songwriter. He was born to an impoverished family, which moved to Beaumont, Texas, when he was 11 years old. He sang on the streets as a youngster, and he began recording in the early 1950s. His first hit, "Why, Baby, Why" (1955), was followed by "She Thinks I Still Care," "He Stopped Loving Her Today," and many others. In 1957 he joined the Grand Ole Opry. He continued to have hits into the 1980s, including many with his former wife Tammy Wynette. His rocky personal life and career only increased his fans' enduring affection
George Gordon Byron: {i} Lord Byron (1788-1824), English lord and poet
George Gordon Byron 6th Baron Byron: known as Lord Byron born Jan. 22, 1788, London, Eng. died April 19, 1824, Missolonghi, Greece British Romantic poet and satirist. Born with a clubfoot and extremely sensitive about it, he was 10 when he unexpectedly inherited his title and estates. Educated at Cambridge, he gained recognition with English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809), a satire responding to a critical review of his first published volume, Hours of Idleness (1807). At 21 he embarked on a European grand tour. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812-18), a poetic travelogue expressing melancholy and disillusionment, brought him fame, while his complex personality, dashing good looks, and many scandalous love affairs, with women and with boys, captured the imagination of Europe. Settling near Geneva, he wrote the verse tale The Prisoner of Chillon (1816), a hymn to liberty and an indictment of tyranny, and Manfred (1817), a poetic drama whose hero reflected Byron's own guilt and frustration. His greatest poem, Don Juan (1819-24), is an unfinished epic picaresque satire in ottava rima. Among his numerous other works are verse tales and poetic dramas. He died of fever in Greece while aiding the struggle for independence, making him a Greek national hero. born Dec. 26, 1751, London, Eng. died Nov. 1, 1793, London English instigator of the anti-Catholic Gordon riots. The third son of the duke of Gordon, he entered Parliament in 1774. In 1779 he organized the Protestant associations formed to secure the repeal of the Catholic Relief Act (1778). In 1780 he led a mob to Parliament to present a petition against the act. The ensuing riot lasted a week, causing great property damage and nearly 500 casualties. Gordon was charged with, but not convicted of, high treason. Convicted of libeling the queen of France in 1787, he was imprisoned in Newgate, where he died
George Gordon Meade: born , Dec. 31, 1815, Cádiz, Spain died Nov. 6, 1872, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S. U.S. general in the American Civil War. He was the son of a U.S. naval agent in Spain. After graduating from West Point in 1835, he worked as a surveyor. He reentered the army in 1842 and in 1861 was commissioned brigadier general in the Pennsylvania volunteers. He fought at Bull Run, Antietam, and Chancellorsville. Three days before the Battle of Gettysburg, he replaced Joseph Hooker as commander of the Army of the Potomac. At Gettysburg he repulsed the Confederate attack but was criticized for failing to pursue Robert E. Lee's forces. From 1864 he was subordinate to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, whom he served loyally. After the war he commanded several military departments
George Grenville: born Oct. 14, 1712 died Nov. 13, 1770, London, Eng. English politician. He entered Parliament in 1741, held a number of ministerial appointments, then served as prime minister (1763-65). His policy of taxing the American colonies, initiated by his Revenue Act of 1764 and the Stamp Act of 1765, started the train of events leading to the American Revolution. He was unpopular for the prosecution of John Wilkes for seditious libel and his clumsy handling of the Regency Act of 1765, alienating George III and leading to the fall of his ministry. In opposition thereafter, Grenville helped bring about the passage of the Townshend Acts (1767)
George Grosz: orig. Georg Grosz born July 26, 1893, Berlin, W.Ger. died July 6, 1959, West Berlin German-born U.S. painter, draftsman, and illustrator. After studying art in Dresden and Berlin, he began selling caricatures to magazines. During World War I he served in the German army; discharged as unfit in 1917, he moved into a garret studio in Berlin, and by the end of the war he had developed a graphic style that combined a highly expressive use of line with ferocious social satire. His depictions of war and depravity provided some of the most vitriolic social criticism of his time. From 1918 to 1920 he was a prominent member of the Dada group in Berlin. His Face of the Ruling Class (1921) and Ecce Homo (1922), collections of drawings featuring greedy capitalists, war profiteering, and social decadence, earned him an international reputation. In 1932 he immigrated to the U.S., where he taught at New York's Art Students League while continuing to produce magazine cartoons, nudes, and landscapes
George Gurdjieff: orig. George S. Georgiades born 1872?, Alexandropol, Armenia, Russian Empire died Oct. 29, 1949, Neuilly, near Paris, France Armenian mystic and philosopher. He apparently traveled in the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia as a young man. He taught in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and in 1919 he founded the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man at Tiflis (now Tbilisi), Georgia. In 1922 he reestablished the institute at Fontainebleau, France, gathering a group of followers who lived communally, engaging in philosophical dialogue, ritual exercises, and dance. His basic assertion was that ordinary living was akin to sleep and that through spiritual discipline it was possible to achieve heightened levels of vitality and awareness. The Fontainebleau centre closed in 1933, but Gurdjieff continued to teach in Paris until his death
George H Thomas: born July 31, 1816, Southampton county, Va., U.S. died March 28, 1870, San Francisco, Calif. U.S. general. He was a graduate of West Point. When the American Civil War broke out, he remained loyal to the Union despite his Southern birth. He commanded an independent force in eastern Kentucky, where he won the first important Union victory in the west in 1862. At the Battle of Chickamauga he organized an unyielding defense, earning promotion to brigadier general and the nickname "the Rock of Chickamauga." In 1864 he defeated the Confederate forces of Gen. John B. Hood (1831-79) in the Battle of Nashville, earning another promotion and the gratitude of Congress
George H Whipple: born Aug. 28, 1878, Ashland, N.H., U.S. died Feb. 1, 1976, Rochester, N.Y. U.S. pathologist. He studied medicine at Johns Hopkins University. He and George Minot discovered that raw liver fed to chronically bled dogs reversed anemia; this led to introduction of raw liver in the diet to treat pernicious anemia, for which the two men shared a 1934 Nobel Prize with William Murphy (1894-1987). Whipple's study of bile pigments led to an interest in how the body makes hemoglobin (important in bile pigment production). His experiments in artificial anemia (1923-25) established iron as the most potent inorganic factor in red-blood-cell formation
George Halas: born Feb. 2, 1895, Chicago, Ill., U.S. died Oct. 31, 1983, Chicago U.S. gridiron football coach and team owner. He graduated from the University of Illinois and briefly played baseball for the New York Yankees. In 1920 he helped found the National Football League and established the team that would become the Chicago Bears. He served as the Bears' coach for most of the next 50 years (1920-30, 1933-43, 1946-55, 1958-67). He is noted for having revived the T-formation with a man in motion, variations of which are still in use today. Under his coaching, the Bears won seven league championships and four division titles
George Hamilton-Gordon 4th earl of Aberdeen: born Jan. 28, 1784, Edinburgh, Scot. died Dec. 14, 1860, London, Eng. British foreign secretary and prime minister (1852-55). As special ambassador to Austria in 1813, he helped form the coalition that defeated Napoleon. As foreign secretary (1828-30, 1841-46), he settled boundary disputes between Canada and the U.S. with the Webster-Ashburton Treaty and the Oregon Treaty (see Oregon Question). As prime minister, he formed a coalition government, but his indecision hampered peacekeeping efforts and led to Britain's involvement in the Crimean War. Constitutionally responsible for the mistakes of British generals in the war, he resigned in 1855
George Harrison: a British musician and songwriter who sang and played the guitar in The Beatles. After The Beatles separated, he made records on his own, including My Sweet Lord (1943-2001)
George Harrison: {i} (1943-2001) English rock star, guitarist member of the "Beatles" who died of a brain tumour
George Harrison Shull: born April 15, 1874, Clark county, Ohio, U.S. died Sept. 28, 1954, Princeton, N.J. U.S. botanist and geneticist. He acquired his doctorate in 1904 and worked thereafter primarily for the Carnegie Institute at Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., and at Princeton University. He developed a method of breeding corn that made the seed capable of thriving under various soil and climatic conditions, as a result of which corn yields per acre were increased 25-50%. Shull developed his first hybrids before 1910, though commercial production did not begin until 1922. He founded the journal Genetics in 1916. See also Edward Murray East
George Henry Crumb: born , Oct. 24, 1929, Charleston, W.Va., U.S. U.S. composer. Born to musician parents, he studied at the University of Michigan and from 1965 taught at the University of Pennsylvania. His style is known particularly for its unusual and hauntingly evocative timbres. Echoes of Time and the River (1967, Pulitzer Prize) and Ancient Voices of Children (1970) brought him wide fame. His other works include Madrigals, Books I-IV (1965-70), Night of the Four Moons (1969), Black Angels (1970), Makrokosmos I and II (1972, 1973), and Star-Child (1977)
George Henry Evans: born March 25, 1805, Bromyard, Herefordshire, Eng. died Feb. 2, 1856, Granville, N.J., U.S. British-born U.S. newspaper editor and social reformer. He immigrated to the U.S. in 1820. In 1829 he founded the Working Man's Advocate, the first major U.S. labour newspaper, and cofounded the Workingmen's Party. He organized the National Reform Association to lobby Congress for free homesteads in the West, arguing that the availability of free land would draw away excess workers from the East and keep wages high for those who remained (see Homestead Movement). His efforts led to the passage of the Homestead Act in 1862. He also fought for the abolition of slavery and advocated equal rights for women
George Henry Fox: {i} George Fox (1846-1937), United States dermatologist (Fox' sign named after him)
George Henry Thomas: born July 31, 1816, Southampton county, Va., U.S. died March 28, 1870, San Francisco, Calif. U.S. general. He was a graduate of West Point. When the American Civil War broke out, he remained loyal to the Union despite his Southern birth. He commanded an independent force in eastern Kentucky, where he won the first important Union victory in the west in 1862. At the Battle of Chickamauga he organized an unyielding defense, earning promotion to brigadier general and the nickname "the Rock of Chickamauga." In 1864 he defeated the Confederate forces of Gen. John B. Hood (1831-79) in the Battle of Nashville, earning another promotion and the gratitude of Congress
George Hepplewhite: died 1786, London, Eng. British cabinetmaker. He was apprenticed to a furniture maker in Lancaster and later opened a shop in London. His reputation is based on his Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide (1788), containing some 300 designs. Pieces based on his designs are rare and none can be definitely attributed to his firm, nor can his personal responsibility for the designs be established; the plates in the book are unsigned. The designs have the simplicity, elegance, and utility associated with the graceful Neoclassical style (e.g., chairs with straight, tapered legs and oval backs). His designs were borrowed by Thomas Sheraton and Duncan Phyfe
George Hepplewhite: {i} (unknown date of birth-1786) English cabinetmaker and designer of furniture
George Herbert: an English poet who wrote poetry in the metaphysical style (1593-1633). born April 3, 1593, Montgomery Castle, Wales died March 1, 1633, Bemerton, Wiltshire, Eng. British Metaphysical poet. He was elected orator of Cambridge University in 1620, a position that involved him with the royal court. He was later ordained and became a rector at a rural parish, to which he devoted himself unstintingly until his death. His poems, published only after his death in The Temple (1633), concern personal, doctrinal, and ritual matters, and they are noted for their mastery of metrical form, use of allegory and analogy, and religious devotion. Some are pattern poems, the lines forming a shape suggestive of the subject. (See also Metaphysical poetry.)
George Herbert Bush: the 41st President of the US (1989-93) (1924- )
George Herbert Hitchings: born April 18, 1905, Hoquiam, Wash., U.S. died Feb. 27, 1998, Chapel Hill, N.C. U.S. pharmacologist. He earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University. Over nearly 40 years, he and Gertrude Elion designed a variety of new drugs that work by interfering with replication or other vital functions of specific disease-causing agents; these drugs include those to treat leukemia, severe rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases (also useful for suppressing rejection after organ transplants), gout, malaria, urinary and respiratory-tract infections, and herpes simplex. In 1988 he shared a Nobel Prize with Elion and James Black
George Herbert Mead: born Feb. 27, 1863, South Hadley, Mass., U.S. died April 26, 1931, Chicago, Ill. U.S. philosopher, sociologist, and social psychologist prominent in the development of pragmatism. He studied at Oberlin College, graduated from Harvard University (B.A., 1888), and went on to study philosophy and psychology at the Universities of Leipzig and Berlin (1888-91). Mead then taught philosophy and psychology at the University of Michigan (1891-94) with John Dewey and Charles Horton Cooley. In 1894 he joined Dewey in moving to the University of Chicago and taught there the rest of his life. Mead's focus was the relationship between the self and society, particularly the emergence of the human self in the process of social interaction. His works include The Philosophy of the Present (1932) and Mind, Self, and Society (1934). See also interactionism
George Herbert Walker Bush: born June 12, 1924, Milton, Mass., U.S. 41st president of the U.S. (1989-93). Bush was the son of Prescott Bush, an investment banker and U.S. senator from Connecticut. He served in World War II as a torpedo bomber pilot on aircraft carriers in the Pacific, flying some 58 combat missions; he was shot down by the Japanese in 1944. After graduating from Yale University in 1948, he started an oil business in Texas. He was elected to a Republican seat in the U.S. House of Representatives (1966-70) and later served as ambassador to the UN (1971-72), chief of liaison to China (1974-76), and head of the CIA (1976-77). In 1980 he lost the Republican Party nomination for president to Ronald Reagan. Bush served as vice president under Reagan (1981-89), whom he succeeded as president, defeating Michael Dukakis. He made no dramatic departures from Reagan's policies. In 1989 he ordered a brief military invasion of Panama, which toppled that country's leader, Gen. Manuel Noriega. He helped impose a UN-approved embargo against Iraq in 1990 to force its withdrawal from Kuwait. When Iraq refused, he authorized a U.S.-led air offensive that began the Persian Gulf War. Despite general approval of his foreign policy, an economic recession led to his defeat by Bill Clinton in 1992. His son George W. Bush was elected governor of Texas in 1994 and president of the U.S. in 2000. Another son, Jeb Bush, was elected governor of Florida in 1998
George Herbert Walker Bush: {i} (born 1924) 41st president of the United States (1989-1993), father of President George Walker Bush
George Herriman: born 1881, New Orleans, La., U.S. died May 1944, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Calif. U.S. cartoonist. He grew up in California and "passed" as white, along with his Creole parents. He started cartooning after a fall from a scaffold prevented him from working as a house painter. His first comic strip, Lariat Pete, appeared in 1903 in the San Francisco Chronicle; it was followed by several others. His best-known strip, Krazy Kat, appeared in 1910 and settled in for a run of more than 30 years in the William Randolph Hearst newspapers. Krazy Kat's fantasy, drawing, and dialogue were of such high quality that some people consider it the finest comic strip ever published
George Horace Gallup: born Nov. 18, 1901, Jefferson, Iowa, U.S. died July 26, 1984, Tschingel, Switz. U.S. public-opinion statistician. He taught journalism at Drake University and Northwestern University until 1932, when a New York advertising firm hired him to conduct public-opinion surveys for its clients. He became a pioneer in the scientific sampling of public opinion, and his Gallup Poll, as well as other public-opinion polls, gained credibility after correctly forecasting the 1936 presidential victory of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Gallup founded the American Institute of Public Opinion (1935), the British Institute of Public Opinion (1936), and the Audience Research Institute (1939)
George Hoyt Whipple: born Aug. 28, 1878, Ashland, N.H., U.S. died Feb. 1, 1976, Rochester, N.Y. U.S. pathologist. He studied medicine at Johns Hopkins University. He and George Minot discovered that raw liver fed to chronically bled dogs reversed anemia; this led to introduction of raw liver in the diet to treat pernicious anemia, for which the two men shared a 1934 Nobel Prize with William Murphy (1894-1987). Whipple's study of bile pigments led to an interest in how the body makes hemoglobin (important in bile pigment production). His experiments in artificial anemia (1923-25) established iron as the most potent inorganic factor in red-blood-cell formation
George Hunt Pendleton: born July 29, 1825, Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. died Nov. 24, 1889, Brussels, Belg. U.S. politician. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1857 to 1865 and was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for vice president (with George B. McClellan) in 1864. A member of the Greenback movement, he advocated the Ohio Idea for redeeming American Civil War bonds. From 1879 to 1885 he served in the U.S. Senate, where he sponsored the Pendleton Civil Service Act. He served as minister to Germany from 1885 to 1889
George I: Elector of Hanover (1698-1727) and king of Great Britain and Ireland (1714-1727) who left the affairs of his country in the hands of Sir Robert Walpole. King of Greece (1863-1913) who was elected by the Greek Assembly and introduced a democratic constitution (1864)
George II: King of Great Britain and Ireland and elector of Hanover (1727-1760). His 1743 victory at the Battle of Dettingen (a village of present-day south-central Germany) was the last time that a British monarch led his troops in the field. King of Greece (1922-1923 and 1935-1947). He was deposed by a military junta in 1923 but returned to the throne in 1935 after a plebiscite
George III: King of Great Britain and Ireland (1760-1820) and of Hanover (1815-1820). His government's policies fed American colonial discontent, leading to revolution in 1776
George IV: King of Great Britain and Ireland and of Hanover (1820-1830) who caused controversy when he attempted to divorce his estranged wife, Caroline of Brunswick
George Inness: born May 1, 1825, Newburgh, N.Y., U.S. died Aug. 3, 1894, Bridge of Allen, Stirling, Scot. U.S. landscape painter. He was largely self-taught. His early paintings were influenced by the Hudson River school. He spent much time in Europe studying the works of the Barbizon school, and from 1855 to 1874 he developed the luminous, atmospheric quality for which his landscapes are known. The influence of Camille Corot is evident in his intimately rendered images of far-reaching expanses. His later works are marked by the ascendancy of colour over form. His sense of mysticism intensified over time, and the pictures tended to dissolve into shimmering colour with no outlines or formal construction. See also luminism
George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff: orig. George S. Georgiades born 1872?, Alexandropol, Armenia, Russian Empire died Oct. 29, 1949, Neuilly, near Paris, France Armenian mystic and philosopher. He apparently traveled in the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia as a young man. He taught in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and in 1919 he founded the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man at Tiflis (now Tbilisi), Georgia. In 1922 he reestablished the institute at Fontainebleau, France, gathering a group of followers who lived communally, engaging in philosophical dialogue, ritual exercises, and dance. His basic assertion was that ordinary living was akin to sleep and that through spiritual discipline it was possible to achieve heightened levels of vitality and awareness. The Fontainebleau centre closed in 1933, but Gurdjieff continued to teach in Paris until his death
George J Stigler: born Jan. 17, 1911, Renton, Wash., U.S. died Dec. 1, 1991, Chicago, Ill. U.S. economist. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He taught at various institutions and in 1977 founded the Center for the Study of the Economy and the State at the University of Chicago. Stigler studied the economics of information, elaborating on the traditional understanding of how efficient markets operate. He also studied public regulation, concluding that it is usually detrimental to consumer interests. He won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1982
George Jones: born Sept. 12, 1931, Saratoga, Texas, U.S. U.S. country music singer and songwriter. He was born to an impoverished family, which moved to Beaumont, Texas, when he was 11 years old. He sang on the streets as a youngster, and he began recording in the early 1950s. His first hit, "Why, Baby, Why" (1955), was followed by "She Thinks I Still Care," "He Stopped Loving Her Today," and many others. In 1957 he joined the Grand Ole Opry. He continued to have hits into the 1980s, including many with his former wife Tammy Wynette. His rocky personal life and career only increased his fans' enduring affection
George Joseph Herriman: born 1881, New Orleans, La., U.S. died May 1944, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Calif. U.S. cartoonist. He grew up in California and "passed" as white, along with his Creole parents. He started cartooning after a fall from a scaffold prevented him from working as a house painter. His first comic strip, Lariat Pete, appeared in 1903 in the San Francisco Chronicle; it was followed by several others. His best-known strip, Krazy Kat, appeared in 1910 and settled in for a run of more than 30 years in the William Randolph Hearst newspapers. Krazy Kat's fantasy, drawing, and dialogue were of such high quality that some people consider it the finest comic strip ever published
George Joseph Stigler: born Jan. 17, 1911, Renton, Wash., U.S. died Dec. 1, 1991, Chicago, Ill. U.S. economist. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He taught at various institutions and in 1977 founded the Center for the Study of the Economy and the State at the University of Chicago. Stigler studied the economics of information, elaborating on the traditional understanding of how efficient markets operate. He also studied public regulation, concluding that it is usually detrimental to consumer interests. He won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1982
George Kastrioti: {i} Scanderbeg, Skanderbeg (~1403-1468), Albanian national hero and revolutionary leader (also known as: George Castriota, Iskander Bey)
George Kelly: orig. George Kelly Barnes, Jr. known as Machine Gun Kelly born 1897, Memphis, Tenn., U.S. died 1954, Alcatraz, Calif. U.S. gangster. He became notorious for committing a series of robberies and slayings in the Midwest. In 1933 he kidnapped the millionaire Charles F. Urschel; arrested soon afterward, he spent the rest of his life in Alcatraz prison. Though designated "Public Enemy No. 1," he was by no means the most dangerous criminal of his day
George Lansbury: born Feb. 21, 1859, near Halesworth, Suffolk, Eng. died May 7, 1940, London British politician. As a member of the House of Commons (1910-12, 1922-40), he became known as a socialist and poor-law reformer, and he led the British Labour Party from 1931 to 1935. Pacifist in his leanings, he was unwilling to call for economic sanctions against Italy for its aggression in Ethiopia (1935), fearing it might lead to war, and lost his party leadership post. In 1937 he visited Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in the vain hope that his personal influence could stop the movement toward war
George Lawrence Mikan: born June 18, 1924, Joliet, Ill., U.S. U.S. basketball player and executive. He was an outstanding centre at DePaul University, where he also took his law degree. Standing about 6 ft 10 in. (2.8 m), he was the first of the outstanding big men in post-World War II professional basketball. He played for the Minneapolis Lakers (1947-56), leading them to six championships. He was later named first commissioner of the American Basketball Association (1967-69). An Associated Press poll in 1950 named him the greatest basketball player of the first half of the 20th century
George Ledyard Stebbins: born Jan. 6, 1906, Lawrence, N.Y., U.S. died Jan. 19, 2000, Davis, Calif. U.S. botanist. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and later taught in the University of California system. In Variation and Evolution in Plants (1950) he became the first biologist to apply the modern synthetic theory of evolution a theory that distinguishes the basic processes of gene mutation and recombination, natural selection, changes in structure and number of chromosomes, and reproductive isolation to higher organisms. Working with polyploid plants (new species that originated by a spontaneous doubling of the chromosomes of an existing species), he employed a technique for doubling a plant's chromosomal number artificially to produce successful artificial polyploids from wild-grass species, becoming the first person to artificially hybridize a plant species that could thrive under natural conditions
George Louis Palmella Busson du Maurier: born March 6, 1834, Paris, France. died Oct. 6, 1896, London, Eng. British caricaturist and novelist. Forced to abandon painting for drawing when he was blinded in one eye, his skilled draftsmanship and engaging personality quickly established his success. His drawings for Punch, Once a Week, and The Leisure Hour were acute commentaries on the Victorian scene. His highly successful novel Trilby (1894), about an artist's model who falls under the spell of the musician Svengali, has entered popular mythology. His other novels were Peter Ibbetson (1891) and The Martian (1897). His granddaughter Daphne du Maurier was also a writer
George Lucas: and two other films about the character Indiana Jones (1944- ) a US film director, producer, and film writer, who is most famous for making the Star Wars films. He also worked with Steven Spielberg to make Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). born May 14, 1944, Modesto, Calif., U.S. Film director and producer. He studied filmmaking at the University of Southern California. His first feature film, THX 1138 (1971), was followed by the surprise success American Graffiti (1973). He wrote and directed the immensely popular science-fiction movie Star Wars (1977), which made innovative use of computerized special effects. He formed the production company Lucasfilms (1978), its special-effects division Industrial Light and Magic, and produced the Star Wars sequels, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and The Return of the Jedi (1993), as well as Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and its sequels. He returned to directing with the first Star Wars "prequel," The Phantom Menace (1999), which was followed by other films in the series
George Lucas: {i} (born 1944) American film director and producer of fantasy and special effect movies including the "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" movies
George M Cohan: born July 3, 1878, Providence, R.I., U.S. died Nov. 5, 1942, New York, N.Y. U.S. actor, songwriter, playwright, and producer. Cohan with his parents and sister performed in vaudeville as The Four Cohans. He began writing for the New York stage in the early 1900s; his musical Little Johnny Jones (1904; film, 1930) included the classics "Give My Regards to Broadway" and "Yankee Doodle Dandy." Among his later productions were The Governor's Son (1901), The Talk of New York (1907), Broadway Jones (1912), Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913), and American Born (1925). He later appeared in shows such as Ah, Wilderness! (1933) and I'd Rather Be Right (1937). His best-known songs include "You're a Grand Old Flag," "Mary's a Grand Old Name," and the famous World War I recruiting song "Over There," for which he was awarded a special Congressional medal in 1940. Cohan was the subject of the film Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) and the musical George M! (1968)
George M Pullman: born March 3, 1831, Brocton, N.Y., U.S. died Oct. 19, 1897, Chicago, Ill. U.S. industrialist. He moved to Chicago as a young man and worked as a cabinetmaker for his brother. In 1858 he remodeled two day coaches for a local railroad company into sleeping coaches; eventually he set up his own firm, and the first true Pullman sleeping car appeared in 1865. Becoming wealthy from his invention, in 1867 he founded the Pullman Palace Car Company; the next year he created the first dining car. In 1880 he built the town of Pullman (now incorporated into Chicago) for its workers; a much-discussed social experiment, the town was also the scene of the famous Pullman Strike of 1894
George M. Cohan: a US actor, writer, and songwriter, who wrote several musical plays and many well-known songs, including Give My Regards to Broadway and I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy (1878-1942)
George MacDonald Fraser: born 1925 British novelist. He trained as a journalist and served as deputy editor of the Glasgow Herald (1968-69). The success of his first novel, Flashman (1969), led him to become a full-time writer. In it and subsequent novels filled with historical colour and detail, the bully of Thomas Hughes's Tom Brown's Schooldays is his hero. Recent novels include Black Ajax (1998) and Flashman and the Tiger (2000). He has also written screenplays
George Macauley Trevelyan: born Feb. 16, 1876, Welcombe, Warwickshire, Eng. died July 21, 1962, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire English historian. He is known for books accessible to general readers that often show an appreciation of the Whig tradition in English thought and reflect a keen interest in the Anglo-Saxon element in the English constitution. They include three on Giuseppe Garibaldi (1907, 1909, 1911), England in the Age of Wycliffe (1899), British History in the Nineteenth Century (1782-1901) (1922), History of England (1926), and The Seven Years of William IV (1952)
George Mallory: a British mountain climber, who died while attempting to climb Mount Everest. In 1999 his body was found 2,000 feet from the top of the mountain. Some people believe that he and another climber, Andrew Irvine, were the first people to reach the top of Everest, but died on the way down (1887-1924)
George Marshall: {i} George Catlett Marshall (1880-1959) American military man and statesman, one who conceived the Marshall Plan, Nobel peace prize winner in 1953
George Mason: born 1725, Fairfax county, Va. died Oct. 7, 1792, Fairfax county, Va., U.S. American Revolutionary statesman. The owner of a large plantation, he became active in efforts to promote the westward expansion of the colonies. In 1774 he helped his neighbour George Washington draft the Fairfax Resolves (1774), which called for a boycott of English goods. In 1776 he drafted the Virginia state constitution and the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which influenced Thomas Jefferson and was used as a model by other states. A member of the Virginia House of Delegates (1776-88), he attended the Constitutional Convention but did not sign the Constitution of the United States, which he believed granted large and indefinite powers to the central government
George Mason University: {i} public university that has a main campus in Fairfax (Virginia, USA) and two smaller campuses in Prince William and Arlington
George McClellan: a US general (=military leader) in the Union army in the American Civil War (1826-85)
George Meany: born Aug. 16, 1894, New York, N.Y., U.S. died Jan. 10, 1980, Washington, D.C. U.S. labour leader. A plumber by trade, he joined the United Association of Plumbers and Steam Fitters in 1915 and rose through the ranks as a union official. He was elected secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1939 and became its president in 1952. He led the merger of the AFL and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1955, helping reconcile the two federations despite their competitiveness and long-standing differences. Conservative and anticommunist, as president of the AFL-CIO (1955-79) he steered the U.S. labour movement away from radicalism. Feisty and often dictatorial, he expelled the Teamsters union from the AFL-CIO in 1957, and he lost the United Automobile Workers in 1967 after disputes with Walter Reuther. Meany wielded considerable influence in the Democratic Party through the 1970s
George Medal: an honour in the form of a red ribbon with five blue stripes. It is given for similar acts of bravery as the George Cross but is not such a high honour
George Meredith: a British writer whose works include the novel The Egoist and Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth (1828-1909). born Feb. 12, 1828, Portsmouth, Hampshire, Eng. died May 18, 1909, Box Hill, Surrey English novelist and poet. Though ostensibly launched on a law career at age 18, he concentrated instead on writing poems and articles and making translations. Because they brought in little money, he turned to writing prose. The novel The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859) is typical of his best work, rich in allusion, metaphor, lyrical prose, witty dialogue, and psychological insight. It failed to make him wealthy, and he was forced to begin reading manuscripts for a publisher. Writing in his spare time, he produced a comedy, Evan Harrington (1860), and a volume of poems, Modern Love (1862). He finally won critical and popular acclaim with the novels The Egoist (1879) and Diana of the Crossways (1885). His works are noted for their use of interior monologue and their treatment of women as equals of men
George Michael Cohan: born July 3, 1878, Providence, R.I., U.S. died Nov. 5, 1942, New York, N.Y. U.S. actor, songwriter, playwright, and producer. Cohan with his parents and sister performed in vaudeville as The Four Cohans. He began writing for the New York stage in the early 1900s; his musical Little Johnny Jones (1904; film, 1930) included the classics "Give My Regards to Broadway" and "Yankee Doodle Dandy." Among his later productions were The Governor's Son (1901), The Talk of New York (1907), Broadway Jones (1912), Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913), and American Born (1925). He later appeared in shows such as Ah, Wilderness! (1933) and I'd Rather Be Right (1937). His best-known songs include "You're a Grand Old Flag," "Mary's a Grand Old Name," and the famous World War I recruiting song "Over There," for which he was awarded a special Congressional medal in 1940. Cohan was the subject of the film Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) and the musical George M! (1968)
George Mifflin Dallas: born July 10, 1792, Philadelphia, Pa. died Dec. 31, 1864, Philadelphia U.S. politician. He was the son of Alexander J. Dallas, who served as secretary of the treasury (1814-16). He completed an unexpired term as U.S. senator (1831-33) and later served as minister to Russia (1835-39). He was elected vice president under James K. Polk (1845-49). As minister to Britain (1856-61), he obtained a renunciation of Britain's claimed right to search vessels on the high seas. Dallas, Texas, was named for him
George Mikan: born June 18, 1924, Joliet, Ill., U.S. U.S. basketball player and executive. He was an outstanding centre at DePaul University, where he also took his law degree. Standing about 6 ft 10 in. (2.8 m), he was the first of the outstanding big men in post-World War II professional basketball. He played for the Minneapolis Lakers (1947-56), leading them to six championships. He was later named first commissioner of the American Basketball Association (1967-69). An Associated Press poll in 1950 named him the greatest basketball player of the first half of the 20th century
George Minot: born Dec. 2, 1885, Boston, Mass., U.S. died Feb. 25, 1950, Brookline, Mass. U.S. physician. He received his medical degree from Harvard University. He reversed anemia in dogs (induced by excessive bleeding) with a diet of raw liver; subsequently he and William Murphy (1894-1987) found that eating raw liver reversed pernicious anemia in humans. They shared a Nobel Prize in 1934 with George Whipple for their treatment of the previously invariably fatal disease. He and Edwin Joseph Cohn prepared liver extracts that, taken orally, were the main treatment for pernicious anemia until 1948, when vitamin B12 was isolated
George Monck: {i} George Monk (1608-1670), English general who orchestrated the return of the Stuart monarch after the death of Oliver Cromwell
George Monk: {i} George Monck (1608-1670), English general who orchestrated the return of the Stuart monarch after the death of Oliver Cromwell
George Mortimer Pullman: born March 3, 1831, Brocton, N.Y., U.S. died Oct. 19, 1897, Chicago, Ill. U.S. industrialist. He moved to Chicago as a young man and worked as a cabinetmaker for his brother. In 1858 he remodeled two day coaches for a local railroad company into sleeping coaches; eventually he set up his own firm, and the first true Pullman sleeping car appeared in 1865. Becoming wealthy from his invention, in 1867 he founded the Pullman Palace Car Company; the next year he created the first dining car. In 1880 he built the town of Pullman (now incorporated into Chicago) for its workers; a much-discussed social experiment, the town was also the scene of the famous Pullman Strike of 1894
George Nathaniel Curzon Marquess Curzon: or Lord Curzon born Jan. 11, 1859, Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire, Eng. died March 20, 1925, London British viceroy of India (1898-1905) and foreign secretary (1919-24). Eldest son of a baron, he studied at Oxford and entered Parliament in 1886. A world tour left him with an infatuation for Asia, and in 1891 he became undersecretary of state for India; he was named viceroy in 1898. There he reduced taxes and ordered immediate punishment of any Briton who ill-treated Indian nationals. He presided over the unpopular Partition of Bengal and resigned after a clash with Lord Kitchener. He later served in the cabinets of H.H. Asquith and David Lloyd George
George Nathaniel Curzon Marquess Curzon of Kedleston: or Lord Curzon born Jan. 11, 1859, Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire, Eng. died March 20, 1925, London British viceroy of India (1898-1905) and foreign secretary (1919-24). Eldest son of a baron, he studied at Oxford and entered Parliament in 1886. A world tour left him with an infatuation for Asia, and in 1891 he became undersecretary of state for India; he was named viceroy in 1898. There he reduced taxes and ordered immediate punishment of any Briton who ill-treated Indian nationals. He presided over the unpopular Partition of Bengal and resigned after a clash with Lord Kitchener. He later served in the cabinets of H.H. Asquith and David Lloyd George
George Orson Welles: {i} (1915-1985), US movie actor producer and director who directed and starred in the 1941 movie "Citizen Kane
George Orson Welles: born May 6, 1915, Kenosha, Wis., U.S. died Oct. 10, 1985, Los Angeles, Calif. U.S. film director, actor, and producer. He began acting on stage at 16 and made his Broadway debut in 1934. He directed an all-African American cast in Macbeth for the Federal Theatre Project. In 1937 he and John Houseman formed the Mercury Theatre, creating a series of radio dramas, attempting to mount Marc Blitzstein's The Cradle Will Rock in the face of determined opposition, and winning notoriety with their panic-producing broadcast of War of the Worlds (1938). Welles then moved to Hollywood, where he cowrote, directed, produced, and acted in the classic Citizen Kane (1941), noted for its innovative narrative technique and atmospheric cinematography and considered among the most influential movies in film history. His other films include The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), The Stranger (1946), The Lady from Shanghai (1948), Touch of Evil (1958), and Chimes at Midnight (1966). His problems with Hollywood studios curtailed future productions, and he moved to Europe. He was also notable as an actor in Jane Eyre (1944), The Third Man (1949), and Compulsion (1959)
George Orwell: a British writer and journalist who wrote books about politics and who also wrote novels. His real name was Eric Blair. His books Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four are both about political systems in which ordinary people have no power, and are completely controlled by the government. Both novels have had a great influence on the way people think about and write about politics, and political systems like those described in the books are sometimes called Orwellian. Orwell fought on the Republican (=left wing) side in the Spanish Civil War (1903-1950). orig. Eric Arthur Blair born 1903, Motihari, Bengal, India died Jan. 21, 1950, London, Eng. British novelist, essayist, and critic. Instead of accepting a scholarship to a university, Orwell went to Burma to serve in the Indian Imperial Police (1922-27), an experience that changed him into a literary and political rebel. On returning to Europe, he lived in self-imposed poverty, gaining material for Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), and became a socialist. He went to Spain to report on the Spanish Civil War and stayed to join the Republican militia. His war experiences, which gave him a lifelong dread of communism (he would later provide British intelligence services with lists of his fellow British communists), are recounted in Homage to Catalonia (1938). His novels typically portray a sensitive, conscientious, emotionally isolated individual at odds with an oppressive or dishonest social environment. His most famous works are the anti-Soviet satirical fable Animal Farm (1945), and Nineteen Eighty-four (1949) a dystopic vision of totalitarianism whose influence was widely felt in the postwar decades. His literary essays are also admired
George Orwell: (1903-1950, born Eric Arthur Blair), English author born in India who is best known for his works "Animal Farm" and "1984
George Peabody: born Feb. 18, 1795, South Danvers [now Peabody], Mass., U.S. died Nov. 4, 1869, London, Eng. U.S. merchant and financier. Born in South Danvers, Mass. (renamed Peabody in his honour), he earned an early fortune as a partner in a wholesale dry-goods business and as president of the Eastern Railroad (from 1836). On a trip to England, he negotiated an $8 million loan for the near-bankrupt state of Maryland. In 1837 he moved to London permanently and founded a merchant banking house specializing in foreign exchange; his banking operations helped establish U.S. credit abroad. He spent most of his fortune on philanthropy to promote education and the arts; his gifts include a natural history museum at Yale University, an archaeology museum at Harvard University, and an Asian export art museum in Salem, Mass
George Pendleton: born July 29, 1825, Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. died Nov. 24, 1889, Brussels, Belg. U.S. politician. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1857 to 1865 and was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for vice president (with George B. McClellan) in 1864. A member of the Greenback movement, he advocated the Ohio Idea for redeeming American Civil War bonds. From 1879 to 1885 he served in the U.S. Senate, where he sponsored the Pendleton Civil Service Act. He served as minister to Germany from 1885 to 1889
George Pitt: {i} (1799-1855) British playwright, creator of the fictional character Todd
George Redmayne Murray: born June 20, 1865, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northumberland, Eng. died Sept. 21, 1939, Mobberley, Cheshire British physician. After receiving his M.D. from the University of Cambridge, he became a pioneer in the treatment of endocrine disorders. He was one of the first to use extracts of animal thyroid glands to relieve a form of hypothyroidism
George Richards Minot: born Dec. 2, 1885, Boston, Mass., U.S. died Feb. 25, 1950, Brookline, Mass. U.S. physician. He received his medical degree from Harvard University. He reversed anemia in dogs (induced by excessive bleeding) with a diet of raw liver; subsequently he and William Murphy (1894-1987) found that eating raw liver reversed pernicious anemia in humans. They shared a Nobel Prize in 1934 with George Whipple for their treatment of the previously invariably fatal disease. He and Edwin Joseph Cohn prepared liver extracts that, taken orally, were the main treatment for pernicious anemia until 1948, when vitamin B12 was isolated
George Ripley: born Oct. 3, 1802, Greenfield, Mass., U.S. died July 4, 1880, New York, N.Y. U.S. journalist and reformer. He became a Unitarian minister after graduating from Harvard Divinity School. A member of the Transcendental Club and an editor of The Dial, its literary magazine, he founded the utopian community Brook Farm in 1841 and served as its director and leading promoter. When it closed in 1847, he took a job with the New York Tribune to pay off its debts. His own financial position did not become secure until he published The Cyclopedia (1862), a popular reference book
George River: A river of northeast Quebec, Canada, rising on the Quebec-Labrador border and flowing about 563 km (350 mi) northward to Ungava Bay
George Robert Gissing: {i} (1857-1903) English novelist
George Robert Gissing: born Nov. 22, 1857, Wakefield, Yorkshire, Eng. died Dec. 28, 1903, Saint-Jean-de-Luz, France British novelist. He had a brilliant academic career but an unhappy personal life; twice involved in miserable marriages, he experienced the life of near poverty and constant drudgery that he described in New Grub Street, 3 vol. (1891), his best-known work, and The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft (1903). Inspired by Honoré de Balzac, he wrote a cycle of 22 novels, which included Born in Exile (1892) and The Odd Women (1893). His realistic novels of lower-middle-class life are noted for their acute perception of women's social position and psychology
George Robert Stibitz: born April 20, 1904, York, Pa., U.S. died Jan. 31, 1995, Hanover, N.H. U.S. mathematician and inventor. He received a Ph.D. from Cornell University. In 1940 he and Samuel Williams, a colleague at Bell Labs, built the Complex Number Calculator, considered a forerunner of the digital computer. He accomplished the first remote computer operation by inputting problems via Teletype, and he pioneered computer applications in biomedical areas, such as the movement of oxygen in the lungs, brain cell structure, diffusion of nutrients and drugs in the body, and capillary transport. The holder of 38 patents, he was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame in 1983
George Robertson: {i} (born 1946) British Minister of Defense in Tony Blair's government
George Rogers Clark: born Nov. 19, 1752, Albemarle county, Va. died Feb. 13, 1818, near Louisville, Ky., U.S. Frontier military leader in the American Revolution. The brother of William Clark, he worked as a surveyor in Kentucky in the mid-1770s. During the Revolution he raised troops and defended the region against the British and Indians. He captured settlements along the Mississippi River in the Old Northwest (Illinois), and in 1780 he helped defeat a British attempt to capture St. Louis. Appointed an Indian commissioner, he helped conclude a treaty with the Shawnee. In 1793 he became involved in the Citizen Genêt Affair
George Romney: born Dec. 15, 1734, Dalton-in-Furness, Lancashire, Eng. died Nov. 15, 1802, Kendal, Westmorland British portrait painter. Son of a Lancashire cabinetmaker, he began his career by touring the northern counties, painting portraits for a few guineas each. In 1762 he established himself as a portraitist in London and quickly won favour among society patrons. His success depended on the flattery of his likenesses; he avoided any suggestion of the sitter's character or sensibilities. Infatuated with Emma Hart (later Lady Hamilton) 1781-82, he went on to paint more than 50 images of her. Line, rather than colour, dominates his work, and the flowing rhythms and easy poses of Roman Classical sculpture underlie the smooth patterns of his compositions
George Romney: {i} (1734-1802) British painter
George S Kaufman: born Nov. 16, 1889, Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S died June 2, 1961, New York, N.Y. U.S. playwright and director. He was drama critic for The New York Times (1917-30). Known for his caustic wit and talent for brilliant satire, he wrote many plays in collaboration with other writers, including Marc Connelly, Morrie Ryskind (1895-1985), and Edna Ferber. His most memorable collaboration was with Moss Hart, with whom he wrote Once in a Lifetime (1930), You Can't Take It with You (1936, Pulitzer Prize), and The Man Who Came to Dinner (1939)
George S McGovern: born July 19, 1922, Avon, S.D., U.S. U.S. politician. After earning a doctorate in history at Northwestern University, he taught at Dakota Wesleyan University in South Dakota. Active in Democratic politics from 1948, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives (1957-61) and the U.S. Senate (1963-81), where he held important hearings on hunger in the U.S. He was a leading critic of the U.S. role in the Vietnam War. In 1972 he won the Democratic presidential nomination but lost the general election to Pres. Richard Nixon by a large margin. He was reelected to the Senate in 1974 but lost his seat in 1980. He returned to to teaching, lecturing, and writing and remained a prominent spokesman for liberal causes
George S Patton: born Nov. 11, 1885, San Gabriel, Calif., U.S. died Dec. 21, 1945, Heidelberg, Ger. U.S. army officer. He graduated from West Point and fought in World War I with the newly formed tank corps. He was later promoted to major general and given command of the 2nd Armored Division (1940). In World War II he led military operations in Morocco (1942) and Sicily (1943) and then commanded the 3rd Army in its sweep across northern France (1944) into Germany (1945). His strategy of bold and highly mobile operations in tank warfare, coupled with his strict, highly disciplined leadership, earned him his troops' respect and the nickname "Old Blood-and-Guts." Criticized for striking a hospitalized soldier he suspected of malingering, he later publicly apologized. He died in a car crash in Germany. See also Battle of the Bulge
George Saintsbury: born Oct. 23, 1845, Southampton, Hampshire, Eng. died Jan. 28, 1933, Bath, Somerset English literary historian and critic. When the school at which he was teaching failed in 1876, he decided to write for a living. He produced several successful volumes of criticism of French literature and extensive writings on English literature. Though he formulated no philosophy of criticism, his works were influential because they combined authoritative scholarship with the popular appeal of entertaining prose. They include A History of Criticism and Literary Taste in Europe from the Earliest Texts to the Present Day (1900-04), one of the first surveys of critical literary theory and practice
George Sand: a French female writer of novels, whose real name was Amandine Aurore Dupin. She is famous for her long relationship with the composer Chopin, and for wearing men's clothes to show her belief that women should have the same rights as men (1804-76). orig. Amandine-Aurore-Lucile Dupin born July 1, 1804, Paris, France died June 8, 1876, Nohant French writer. During childhood she gained a love of the countryside that would inform most of her works. Married in 1822, she soon tired of her husband, Casimir Dudevant, and began a series of liaisons; her lovers included Prosper Mérimée, Alfred de Musset, and, most importantly, Frédéric Chopin. She became famous (under her pseudonym) with her novel Indiana (1832), a protest against conventions that bind an unhappy wife to her husband. Lélia (1833) extended her iconoclastic views on social and class associations. Similar themes, along with her sympathy for the poor, are evident in her finest works, the so-called rustic novels, including The Devil's Pool (1846), The Country Waif (1848), and Little Fadette (1849)
George Santayana: orig. Jorge Augustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santillana born Dec. 16, 1863, Madrid, Spain died Sept. 26, 1952, Rome, Italy Spanish-born U.S. philosopher, poet, and humanist. Santayana moved to the U.S. as a boy in 1872. After graduating from Harvard, he taught philosophy there (with William James and Josiah Royce) from 1889 to 1912, and he began producing important contributions to aesthetics, speculative philosophy, and literary criticism, including The Sense of Beauty (1896), Interpretations of Poetry and Religion (1900), and The Life of Reason (1905-06). He returned to Europe in 1912. Scepticism and Animal Faith (1923) best conveys his theory of immediately apprehended essences and describes the role played by "animal faith" in various forms of knowledge. He also wrote a novel, The Last Puritan (1935), and an autobiography, Persons and Places, 3 vol. (1944-53)
George Savile: {i} (1633-1695) English statesman and 1st Marquis of Halifax
George Seferis: orig. Girgios Stylianou Seferiads or Yeoryios Stilianou Sepheriades born March 13, 1900, Smyrna, Anatolia, Ottoman Empire died Sept. 20, 1971, Athens, Greece Greek poet, essayist, and diplomat. He studied law in Paris and held various diplomatic posts from 1926 to 1962. His poetry appeared in a number of collections beginning with I strofí (1931; "The Turning Point"). He is considered the leading Greek poet of "the generation of the '30s," which introduced Symbolism to modern Greek literature. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1963
George Segal: born Nov. 26, 1924, New York, N.Y., U.S. died June 9, 2000, South Brunswick, N.J. U.S. sculptor. Segal began his artistic career as an abstract painter. In 1958 he started creating sculptures from chicken wire and plaster and two years later turned to plaster casts, often using family members and friends as models. Though he was associated with members of the burgeoning Pop art movement in the late 1950s, Segal's sculptures, which were frequently outfitted with the bland commercial props of the Pop idiom, are distinguished from that characteristically ironic movement by a mute, ghostly anguish. His casting technique, in which the live model is wrapped in strips of plaster-soaked cheesecloth, imparts a rough texture and a minimum of surface detail to the figures, thus heightening the sense of anonymity and isolation
George Seldes: born Nov. 16, 1890, Alliance, N.J., U.S. died July 2, 1995, Hartland Four Corners, Vt. U.S. journalist. He became a reporter in 1909. From 1918 to 1928 he worked for the Chicago Tribune, then quit to pursue independent journalism. In You Can't Print That (1928) he criticized censorship and strictures on journalists, a continuing theme in his career. He reported on the rise of fascism in Italy and Spain in the 1930s, and he and his wife published In Fact, a journal devoted to press criticism, in the years 1940-50. His other targets included the tobacco industry and J. Edgar Hoover. He published his memoirs, Witness to a Century, in 1987. His brother, the critic Gilbert Seldes (1893-1970), was managing editor of The Dial during the 1920s. George Seldes's best-known book was The Seven Lively Arts (1924). He was a columnist for the New York Evening Journal and the Saturday Evening Post, film critic for The New Republic, first director of television for CBS News, and first dean of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication
George Simon Kaufman: {i} (1889-1961) U.S. playwright
George Simon Kaufman: born Nov. 16, 1889, Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S died June 2, 1961, New York, N.Y. U.S. playwright and director. He was drama critic for The New York Times (1917-30). Known for his caustic wit and talent for brilliant satire, he wrote many plays in collaboration with other writers, including Marc Connelly, Morrie Ryskind (1895-1985), and Edna Ferber. His most memorable collaboration was with Moss Hart, with whom he wrote Once in a Lifetime (1930), You Can't Take It with You (1936, Pulitzer Prize), and The Man Who Came to Dinner (1939)
George Smith: born March 19, 1824, London, Eng. died April 6, 1901, Byfleet, near Weybridge, Surrey British publisher. He took over his father's bookselling and publishing business in 1846. Under his leadership the firm issued works by such noted Victorian writers as John Ruskin, the Brontë sisters, Charles Darwin, William Thackeray, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Wilkie Collins, Matthew Arnold, Harriet Martineau, and Anthony Trollope. His most important publication was the first edition of the Dictionary of National Biography, 66 vol. (1885-1901), later continued by Oxford University Press. He also began the illustrated literary journal Cornhill Magazine (1860) and the Pall Mall Gazette (1865), a literary newspaper
George Smith Patton: a US army general who was one of the most important US military leaders in World War II, and was known as "Old Blood and Guts" (1885-1945). born Nov. 11, 1885, San Gabriel, Calif., U.S. died Dec. 21, 1945, Heidelberg, Ger. U.S. army officer. He graduated from West Point and fought in World War I with the newly formed tank corps. He was later promoted to major general and given command of the 2nd Armored Division (1940). In World War II he led military operations in Morocco (1942) and Sicily (1943) and then commanded the 3rd Army in its sweep across northern France (1944) into Germany (1945). His strategy of bold and highly mobile operations in tank warfare, coupled with his strict, highly disciplined leadership, earned him his troops' respect and the nickname "Old Blood-and-Guts." Criticized for striking a hospitalized soldier he suspected of malingering, he later publicly apologized. He died in a car crash in Germany. See also Battle of the Bulge
George Soros: a rich Hungarian-born businessman living in the US. He is an international financial businessman who is powerful enough to change the value of national currencies. He started the Soros Foundation, which gives money to help people in need (1930-). born Aug. 12, 1930, Budapest, Hung. Hungarian-U.S. financier. He left his native Hungary in 1944 and settled in London in 1947, where he studied and joined a merchant bank. He moved to New York City in 1956 and initially worked as an analyst of European securities. By 1979 his daring investments and currency speculation brought large profits, some of which he used to found Soros Foundations, dedicated to creating open societies in many eastern European countries and Russia. Other Soros programs have been dedicated to enlarging public debate on a wide range of controversial issues. In 1992 he reached new heights of wealth, making a profit of about $1 billion when Britain devalued the pound sterling, but in 1998 he suffered large losses from currency speculation in Russia
George Stanley Halas: born Feb. 2, 1895, Chicago, Ill., U.S. died Oct. 31, 1983, Chicago U.S. gridiron football coach and team owner. He graduated from the University of Illinois and briefly played baseball for the New York Yankees. In 1920 he helped found the National Football League and established the team that would become the Chicago Bears. He served as the Bears' coach for most of the next 50 years (1920-30, 1933-43, 1946-55, 1958-67). He is noted for having revived the T-formation with a man in motion, variations of which are still in use today. Under his coaching, the Bears won seven league championships and four division titles
George Stanley McGovern: born July 19, 1922, Avon, S.D., U.S. U.S. politician. After earning a doctorate in history at Northwestern University, he taught at Dakota Wesleyan University in South Dakota. Active in Democratic politics from 1948, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives (1957-61) and the U.S. Senate (1963-81), where he held important hearings on hunger in the U.S. He was a leading critic of the U.S. role in the Vietnam War. In 1972 he won the Democratic presidential nomination but lost the general election to Pres. Richard Nixon by a large margin. He was reelected to the Senate in 1974 but lost his seat in 1980. He returned to to teaching, lecturing, and writing and remained a prominent spokesman for liberal causes
George Steiner: born April 23, 1929, Paris, France French-born U.S.-Swiss critic. Steiner became a U.S. citizen in 1944 but spent much of his time in Europe, teaching principally at Cambridge University and the University of Geneva. He studied the relationship between literature and society, particularly in light of modern history, and his writings on language and the Holocaust reached a wide nonacademic audience. Among his works are The Death of Tragedy (1960), Language and Silence (1967), essays on the dehumanizing effects of World War II on literature, After Babel (1975), on the intersection of culture and linguistics, In Bluebeard's Castle (1971), and several works of fiction
George Stephenson: a British engineer who developed the first steam-powered railway engine. He also built the first public railway to carry passengers in 1825 (the Stockton and Darlington Railway in northern England). His most famous steam train was called The Rocket (1781-1848). born June 9, 1781, Wylam, Northumberland, Eng. died Aug. 12, 1848, Chesterfield, Derbyshire English engineer, principal inventor of the locomotive. Son of a coal-mine mechanic, he himself became chief mechanic at a coal mine, where his interest in steam engines led to experiments on a machine to pull coal-filled cars out of the mines. In 1815 he devised a powerful "steam blast" system that made the locomotive practical. In 1825 he built a steam locomotive for the first passenger railway, from Stockton to Darlington, which could carry 450 people at 15 mph (24 km/hr). In 1829, assisted by his son Robert Stephenson, he built his improved locomotive, the Rocket, which won a speed competition at 36 mph (58 km/hr) and became the model for later locomotives. His company built all eight locomotives for the new Liverpool-Manchester railway (1830)
George Stevens: born Dec. 18, 1904, Oakland, Calif., U.S. died March 8, 1975, Lancaster, Calif. U.S. film director. Both of his parents were actors, and Stevens was the stage manager of his father's company until 1921, when he went to Hollywood to become a cameraman. He photographed many of Laurel and Hardy's (see Laurel, Stan; and Hardy, Oliver) comedies before turning to directing in 1933. Noted for his brilliant camera techniques, careful craftsmanship, and a romanticized view of life, he achieved fame with Alice Adams (1935) and Swing Time (1936). His later films include Woman of the Year (1942), I Remember Mama (1948), A Place in the Sun (1951, Academy Award), the classic western Shane (1953), and Giant (1956, Academy Award)
George Stokes: {i} Sir George Gabriel Stokes (1819-1903), Irish mathematician and physicist
George Stubbs: a British artist whose best-known works are his paintings of horses and other animals (1724-1806). born Aug. 24, 1724, Liverpool, Eng. died July 10, 1806, London British animal painter and anatomical draftsman. Son of a prosperous tanner, he was briefly apprenticed to a painter but was basically self-taught. His masterly depictions of hunters and racehorses brought him innumerable commissions. Perhaps more impressive than the single portraits are his pictures of informal groups of horses, such as Mares and Foals in a Landscape ( 1760-70). He also painted many other animals, including lions, tigers, giraffes, monkeys, and rhinoceroses, which he was able to observe in private menageries. His book The Anatomy of the Horse (1762), containing 18 masterfully engraved plates, was widely acclaimed
George Szell: born June 7, 1897, Budapest, Hung., Austria-Hungary died July 30, 1970, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. Hungarian-born U.S. conductor. He made his debut as a pianist at age 11, and before his 20th birthday he had appeared with the Berlin Philharmonic as pianist, conductor, and composer. He established himself as an opera conductor in various German cities, including Berlin (1924-30) and Prague (1930-36). When World War II broke out, he settled in the U.S., conducting at the Metropolitan Opera (1942-46) and then serving as musical director of the Cleveland Orchestra (1946-70). There he imposed stern discipline but won his players' devotion by his own fierce dedication. Under his direction the orchestra became known for its precision in playing and was considered one of the world's finest