john

Definition of john in Turkish Turkish dictionary
john aitken: çift yıldızlar konusunda çalışmış, 3000 kadar çift yıldız bulmuş ABD'li astranom(1839-1919)
john bardeen: Tarihte Nobel Fizik ödülünü iki kez alan tek kişi
john dee: ingiltere'de Matematiğe ilginin yeniden canlandırılmasına katkıda bulunan bilim adamı
john dewey: Cumhuriyet Döneminde eğitimdeki aksaklıkları tespit etmesi amacıyla Türkiye'ye davet edilen ilk yabancı eğitimci

English - English

Definition of john in English English dictionary: Two persons of great importance to early Christianity: John the Baptist and John the Apostle, identified with John the Evangelist
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.; Used frequently to form an idea personified John Bull, John Barleycorn (see derivations below); A male given name very popular since the Middle Ages
The name I refer to is John. It has been borne by many illustrious men and an innumerable multitude of the obscure. - - - It is as fixed as the English landscape and the procession of seasons. It never becomes wearisome or tarnished. Nothing affects it; nothing can bring it into contempt; it stands like a rock amid the turbulent waves of human history, as fine and noble a thing now as it was when it first took shape on human lips. It is a name to live up to; but if one who bears it sinks into disrepute it falls not with him, but rather stays in the firmament above him, shining down upon him like a reproachful star.; A name used to address a man whose actual name is not known: John Doe; The Gospel of St. John, a book of the New Testament of the Bible. Traditionally the fourth of the four gospels; One of the books in the New Testament of the Bible, the epistles of John (1 John, 2 John and 3 John); A lavatory, toilet; A prostitute's client; A name often used as a generic reference to a male of European, North-American, or Australian origin, while travelling in East Asia; An outhouse privy. Also johnny house; {i} male first name; one of the 12 disciples of Jesus, author of the Gospel of John (Biblical); last of the four Gospels of the New Testament (Biblical); John the Baptist; One of the 12 Apostles and the brother of James the Great. He is traditionally considered the author of the fourth Gospel, three epistles, and the Book of Revelation. King of England (1199-1216). The youngest son of Henry II, he schemed against his father and his brother Richard I. During his reign, the English lost most of their possessions in France. The nobility rose against John and forced him to sign the Magna Carta (June 15, 1215). French Jean known as John the Good born April 16, 1319, near Le Mans, Fr.e died April 8, 1364, London, Eng. King of France (1350-64). At odds with England and Navarre, he tried to make peace with the Navarrese king Charles II, then had him imprisoned in 1356. Edward the Black Prince, son of Edward III of England, led an invasion of southern France, defeating and capturing John at the Battle of Poitiers (1356). John was forced to sign the treaties of Brétigny and Calais (1360), which fixed an extravagant ransom and surrendered most of southwestern France to the English. See also Hundred Years' War. Portuguese João known as John of Aviz born April 11, 1357, Lisbon died Aug. 14, 1433, Lisbon King of Portugal (1385-1433) and founder of the Aviz dynasty. The illegitimate son of Pedro I, he was elected king in 1385 despite the rivalry of Castilian candidates. He fought off a Castilian invasion (1385) and preserved Portugal's independence. He made an alliance with England (1386), but a joint invasion of León was unsuccessful. John signed a 10-year truce with Castile in 1389, but frontier warfare was intermittent until 1411. He and his sons (including the youngest, later Henry the Navigator) captured Ceuta in Morocco in 1415, thus beginning the era of Portuguese expansion. known as John Lackland born Dec. 24, 1167, Oxford, Eng. died Oct. 18/19, 1216, Newark, Nottinghamshire King of England (1199-1216). The youngest son of Henry II, he joined his brother Richard (later Richard I) in a rebellion against Henry (1189). John became lord of Ireland, and, when Richard was imprisoned in Germany on his way back from the Third Crusade, he tried to seize control of England (1193). On Richard's return, John was banished (1194), but the two were later reconciled. Crowned king in 1199, John lost Normandy (1204) and most of his other French lands in a war with Philip II (Philip Augustus). After Innocent III excommunicated him for refusing to recognize Stephen Langton as archbishop of Canterbury, John was obliged to declare England a fief of the Holy See (1213). He launched a military campaign against France in 1214 but made no lasting gains. His heavy taxes and aggressive assertion of feudal privileges led to the outbreak of civil war (1215). The barons forced him to sign the Magna Carta, but the civil war continued until his death. or John de Balliol born 1250 died April 1313, Château Galliard, Normandy, Fr. King of Scotland (1292-96). He was one of 13 claimants to the throne but won by primogeniture. John paid homage to Edward I of England but soon refused his request for military aid in Gascony and instead signed a treaty with the French. When Edward invaded Gascony in 1296, the Scots raided northern England. Within months Edward's army had captured strategic castles in Scotland, and John was forced to resign his kingdom to Edward. He was held in the Tower of London until 1299. John O'Bail John Lackland John de Balliol Abbott Sir John Joseph Caldwell Adams John Coolidge Adams John Adams John Quincy Alden John Altgeld John Peter André John John Chapman Arbuthnot John Arden John Ashbery John Lawrence Astor John Jacob Atanasoff John Vincent Austin John Austin John Langshaw Backus John Warner Baird John Logie Bardeen John Barry John Barth John Bartlett John Bartram John Baskerville John Bell John Belter John Henry Edgar John Bergren Berryman John Betjeman Sir John Biddle John Bidwell John Billings John Shaw Bishop John Michael Blow John Bolingbroke Henry Saint John 1st Viscount Boorman John Booth John Wilkes Borglum John Gutzon de la Mothe Breckinridge John Cabell Bricker John William Bright John Brown John Budge John Donald Bull John Bunyan John John Anthony Burgess Wilson Burgoyne John Burroughs John Bute John Stuart 3rd earl of John Stuart Cabot John Cage John Calhoun John Caldwell Calvin John Campbell John Archibald John William Carson Cassavetes John Chamberlain John Angus Charles XIV John Cheever John Cheke Sir John Chrysostom Saint John Clare John Clayton John Middleton Cleese John Marwood Coetzee John Michael Colet John Colter John Coltrane John William Comenius John Amos Commons John Rogers Constable John Coolidge John Calvin Copley John Singleton Corrigan Sir Dominic John Cotton John Crittenden John Jordan Dalton John Davenport John de la Mare Walter John Dean John Wesley III Deere John Dewey John Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickinson John Diefenbaker John George Dillinger John Herbert Dollond John and George Donne John Dos Passos John Roderigo Dowland John Dryden John Dulles John Foster Duns Scotus John Dunstable John Durham John George Lambton 1st earl of Eales John Eckert John Presper Jr. Eckert Wallace John Ehrlichman John Daniel Elder John Eliot John Elway John Albert Ericsson John Erigena John Scotus William John Evans Evans Sir Arthur John Evelyn John Fante John Fisher of Kilverstone John Arbuthnot Fisher 1st Baron Flaxman John Ford John Fortescue Sir John Fowles John Robert Franklin John Hope Frémont John Charles French John Denton Pinkstone 1st earl of Ypres Fuller John Frederick Charles Galbraith John Kenneth Galsworthy John Garand John Cantius Garner John Nance Gay John Gielgud Sir Arthur John John Birks Gillespie Herbert John Gleason Glenn John Herschel Jr. Gorey Edward St. John Gower John Guare John Gunther John Haldane John Burdon Sanderson Haldane John Scott Hale John Parker William John Clifton Haley Sir William John Hampden John Hancock John Harlan John Marshall Harrison John William John Hartack Hawkins Sir John Hay John Milton Heathcoat John Heinz Henry John Heisman John William Hersey John Richard John Charlton Carter Heywood John Hicks Sir John Richard John Cornelius Hodges John Henry Holliday Hoover John Edgar Houseman John Howard John Winston Hume John Hunter John Hurt John Huston John Irving John Winslow John Henry Brodribb Jackson John Hughlings Jay John Jeffers John Robinson Jellicoe John Rushworth Jellicoe 1st Earl John Birch Society John Day Fossil Beds National Monument John II Comnenus John III Ducas Vatatzes John III Sobieski John II John the Good John I John of Aviz John Maurice of Nassau John o'Groat's John of Brienne John of Damascus Saint Saint John Damascene John of Gaunt duke of Lancaster John of Paris John Quidort John the Deaf John of Salisbury John Paul II John the Baptist Saint John V Palaeologus John VI Cantacuzenus John VIII Palaeologus John XXIII John XXII John Augustus Edwin John Sir Elton Hercules John Arthur Johnson Johnson John Harold Jones John Paul John Paul Kaiser Henry John Kander John Kay John Keats John Kellogg John Harvey and Will Keith Kemeny John George Kendrew Sir John Cowdery Kennedy John Fitzgerald Keynes John Maynard Baron Keynes of Tilton Knowles John Knox John John Albert Kramer Law John Le Carré John David John Moore Cornwell Leech John John Uhler Lemmon III Lennon John Winston Lewis John Llewellyn Lilburne John Locke John Lofting Hugh John Lomax John John Griffith Chaney Lugard Frederick John Dealtry Lutuli Albert John Mvumbi Lyly John Macdonald Sir John Alexander MacLennan John Hugh Macleod John James Rickard Major John Mandeville Sir John Marin John Marlborough John Churchill 1st duke of Marriott John Willard Marshall John Marston John Masefield John Mauchly John William McAdam John Loudon McCarthy John McCormack John McEnroe John Patrick Jr. McGraw John Joseph McPhee John Angus John Herndon Mercer Mill John Stuart Millais Sir John Everett Milton John John Thomas Miner Mitchell John Newton Monsarrat Nicholas John Turney John Leslie Montgomery Morgan John Morgan John Pierpont Morgan John Pierpont Jr. Morley of Blackburn John Morley Viscount Mosby John Singleton Muir John Naber John Napier John Nash John Nash John Forbes Needham John Turberville Nelson John Byron Newbery John Newman John Henry Norman Gregory John Northrop John Howard Northumberland John Dudley duke of Noyes John Humphrey John Casey John Francis Whelan O'Hara John Henry O'Mahony John O'Neill John John Kingsley Orton Osborne John James Percy John Pershing John Joseph Pope John Porter Fitz John Powell John Wesley Pratt Edwin John Prester John Pringle Sir John Pym John Randolph John Rankine William John Macquorn Ransom John Crowe Raskob John Jakob Rathbone Philip St. John Basil Rawlings Jerry John Rawls John Ray John Rayleigh of Terling Place John William Strutt 3rd Baron Reed John Rennie John Apocalypse of John Rhodes Cecil John Richardson John John Stewart earl of Carrick Rochester John Wilmot 2nd earl of Rockefeller John Davison Roebling John Augustus Rolfe John Ross John Tsan Usdi Little John Ruskin John Russell of Kingston Russell John Russell 1st Earl Saint John Saint John River Saint John's Saint John's wort Sandwich John Montagu 4th earl of Sargent John Singer Sayles John Schlesinger John Richard Schuyler Philip John Sevier John Sheen Fulton John Sherman John Simcoe John Graves Skelton John Slidell John Sloan John French Smeaton John Smith John Soane Sir John Sousa John Philip Speke John Hanning John Rowlands Stark John Steinbeck John Ernst Stephens John Lloyd Stevens John Stevens John Paul Stewart John Innes Mackintosh Suckling Sir John Sullivan John Lawrence Sutter John Augustus Symonds John Addington Synge John Millington Tate John Orley Allen Taylor John John Taylor of Caroline Tenniel Sir John Thomson John Edgar Thomson Sir Joseph John Thorp John Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Trumbull John Trump Donald John Tyler John John Constantine Unitas Updike John Hoyer Vanbrugh Sir John Vanderlyn John von Neumann John Vorster John John Peter Wagner Walker James John Walter John Watson John Broadus Watson Thomas John Sr. Waugh Evelyn Arthur St. John Wayne John Weaver John Webster John Peter John Weissmuller Wesley John White John Whitney John Hay Whittier John Greenleaf Wideman John Edgar Wilbye John Wilkes John Wilkinson John Williams John Towner Wilson John Tuzo Winthrop John Witherspoon John Wyatt John Wycliffe John Zenger John Peter Zorn John Acton of Aldenham John Emerich Edward Dahlberg Acton 1st Baron Audubon John James Chelmsford of Chelmsford Frederic John Napier Thesiger 1st Viscount Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur J. Hector St. John Hoare Sir Samuel John Gurney 2nd Baronet John of the Cross Saint John the Apostle Saint St. John the Divine St. John the Evangelist Lawrence John Laird Mair Noel Baker of the City of Derby Philip John Noel Baker Baron Philip John Baker Palmerston of Palmerston Henry John Temple 3rd Viscount Saint John Perse Simon of Stackpole Elidor John Allsebrook Simon 1st Viscount President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy Hopkins Johns Johns Hopkins University Johns Jasper Saint Johns River; very popular since the Middle Ages; also Old John Emissary of King Random; {i} (Slang) toilet, bathroom; client of a prostitute; man, guy, fellow; a room equipped with toilet facilities; the last of the four Gospels in the New Testament; (1792-1855) and Sarah "Sally" (Parker) Hall (1790-1859) were married in 1812 at Rich Square John was the son of John and Miriam (Grant) Hall He was born in 1792 Sarah was the daughter of Jeremiah and Keren (Newby) Parker She was born in 1790 at Rich Square In 1818 they transferred to Whitewater Monthly Meeting in Wayne County, Indiana They were granted a certificate to Milford Monthly Meeting in Wayne County in 1830 There children were Martha (1812), Phinehas (1814), Robert (1817), Moses (1819), Sarah (1826), John (1828), and Joseph (1831) John died in 1855 Sarah died in 1859 They are buried in Hopewell Burying Ground in Dudley Township, Henry County, Indiana; youngest son of Henry II; King of England from 1199 to 1216; succeeded to the throne on the death of his brother Richard I; lost his French possessions; in 1215 John was compelled by the barons to sign the Magna Carta (1167-1216); A proper name of a man; 1 a policeman 2 the toilet; (1199-1216): He was the son of Henry II who faced major problems during his reign as English king He lost territory to the French king Philip II, was humiliated by Pope Innocent III, and faced opposition from the barons of England because of his efforts to increase their taxes In 1214, these nobles, in coalition with church officials and townsmen, revolted against John In 1215, they forced him to sign the Magna Carta, which protected them from undue control by the monarchy John's reign represented the beginning of a period when the English kings lost power in the 13th century; A lavatory; (New Testament) disciple of Jesus; traditionally said to be the author of the 4th Gospel and three epistles and the book of Revelation; a prostitute's customer; the last of the four Gospels in the New Testament (New Testament) disciple of Jesus; traditionally said to be the author of the 4th Gospel and three epistles and the book of Revelation youngest son of Henry II; King of England from 1199 to 1216; succeeded to the throne on the death of his brother Richard I; lost his French possessions; in 1215 John was compelled by the barons to sign the Magna Carta (1167-1216); A prostitutes client; People named John typically don't have last names They're only referred to by profession as John DaBanker, John DaCarpenter, John DaRoofer (or DaLeaker), or John DaPlumber A guy named Frank who ordered a cup of coffee in the diner everyday became known as John Caffee - Dan; Jn
John Adams: The second President of the United States, a Federalist
John Barleycorn: a personification of alcoholic drink, particularly beer and whisky
John Bull: A personification of England
John Doe: Any unknown or anonymous male person
John Doe: A fictitious name used in the legal documents for an unknown or anonymous male person
John Does: plural form of John Doe
John Dory: An edible marine fish Zeus faber or Zeus ocellata, having long dorsal spines
John Hancock: One's signature
Please put your John Hancock on the dotted line to close the deal.
John Henry: One's signature
John Law: A personification of law enforcement; a police officer
John Lennon glasses: A pair of eyeglasses (spectacles) with round lenses
A bookish young man with John Lennon glasses looked up, smiled, and answered in a northern accent. The tool is calibrated. Just waiting to hit total depth..
John Lennon spectacles: A pair of spectacles (glasses) with round lenses
A clamp-jawed man in his early thirties, a Program attorney named Sean, sat up front as well, next to a trim, bearded fellow of the same age — the good Dr. Henderson, complete with a yachtsman's physique and John Lennon spectacles.
John Q. Public: A generic individual; some hypothetical average or ordinary citizen
Even careful safety precautions in the factory do not make it a good place for John Q. Public to wander unattended.
John Thomas: The penis
John the Baptist: A New Testament prophet who baptized Jesus. He was executed by Herod Antipas at the request of Salome
In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
John-a-dreams: a man who is a daydreamer and therefore inactive
Yet I, / A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak / Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause, / and can say nothing.
john school: A police-run program in which men arrested for soliciting prostitutes agree to attend lectures from former prostitutes as an alternative to paying a fine or spending time in jail
John Lennon: (1940-1980) British singer songwriter and composer, member of the rock group "The Beatles" who was fatally shot by Mark David Chapman just outside his apartment building in New York on December 8th 1980
John 1st earl of Ypres French: born Sept. 28, 1852, Ripple, Kent, Eng. died May 22, 1925, Deal, Kent British military leader. A soldier from 1874, he successfully led the British cavalry in the South African War. He was appointed inspector general in 1907 and chief of the army general staff in 1913. As commander of the British Expeditionary Force from the beginning of World War I, he was criticized for his indecisive leadership at Ypres, Belg., and elsewhere that caused large numbers of British casualties. Forced to resign in 1915, he served as commander in chief in Britain and later as lord lieutenant of Ireland (1918-21)
John Jr. McEnroe: born Feb. 16, 1959, Wiesbaden, W.Ger. U.S. tennis player. He grew up in Douglaston, N.Y. An athletic serve-and-volley player, he won three consecutive U.S. Open singles titles (1979-81) and a fourth in 1984. He also won the Wimbledon singles in 1981, 1983, and 1984, as well as several doubles titles. Known for his temper tantrums and invective on court, he became the first player ejected from a grand-slam match in nearly 30 years
John Adams: the second President of the US, from 1797 to 1801 (1735-1826). born Feb. 15, 1947, Worcester, Mass., U.S. U.S. composer. After studying at Harvard University he taught at the San Francisco Conservatory and conducted widely. His compositions, initially strongly influenced by minimalism, became tempered by expressive elements. His Nixon in China (1987) and The Death of Klinghoffer (1991) are two of the best-known operas of the late 20th century. Other celebrated works include Harmonium (1980), Grand Pianola Music (1982), and Harmonielehre (1984-85). born Oct. 30, 1735, Braintree, Mass. died July 4, 1826, Quincy, Mass., U.S. U.S. politician, first vice president (1789-97) and second president (1797-1801) of the U.S. After graduating from Harvard College in 1755, he practiced law in Boston. In 1764 he married Abigail Smith (see Abigail Adams). Active in the American independence movement, he was elected to the Massachusetts legislature and served as a delegate to the Continental Congress (1774-78), where he was appointed to a committee with Thomas Jefferson and others to draft the Declaration of Independence. In 1776-78 he was appointed to many congressional committees, including one to create a navy and another to review foreign affairs. He served as a diplomat in France, the Netherlands, and England (1778-88). In the first U.S. presidential election, he received the second largest number of votes and became vice president under George Washington. Adams's term as president was marked by controversy over his signing of the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798 and by his alliance with the conservative Federalist Party. In 1800 he was defeated for reelection by Jefferson and retired to live a secluded life in Massachusetts. In 1812 he overcame his bitterness toward Jefferson, with whom he began an illuminating correspondence. Both men died on July 4, 1826, the Declaration's 50th anniversary. John Quincy Adams was his son
John Adams: (1735-1826) 2nd president of the United States (1797-1801)
John Addington Symonds: born Oct. 5, 1840, Bristol, Gloucestershire, Eng. died April 19, 1893, Rome English essayist, poet, and biographer. He traveled extensively for his health, finally settling in Switzerland. His chief work, Renaissance in Italy (1875-86), is a series of extended essays on cultural history. His writings include translations, travel sketches, and studies of personalities such as Percy B. Shelley, Ben Jonson, Sir Philip Sidney, Michelangelo, and Walt Whitman. His poetry served primarily as a release from his difficult emotional life. A Problem in Greek Ethics (written 1871) and A Problem in Modern Ethics (1881) were among the first serious works treating homosexuality
John Albert Elway: born June 28, 1960, Port Angeles, Wash., U.S. U.S. football player. He had an outstanding athletic career at Stanford University, then played professional baseball briefly before joining the Denver Broncos in 1983. He is one of only three quarterbacks to have passed for more than 45,000 yd; he holds the record for victories by a starting quarterback (148); and he ranks among the top three for pass attempts (7,250), pass completions (4,123), passing yardage (51,475), and passing touchdowns (300). Famous for last-minute heroics, he led a total of 47 fourth-quarter game-winning or game-tying touchdown drives. He announced his retirement in 1999 after leading the Broncos to a second consecutive Super Bowl victory
John Alden: born 1599?, England died Sept. 12, 1687, Duxbury, Mass. British-born American pilgrim. He was hired as a cooper by the London merchants who funded the Mayflower's expedition to the New World in 1620. Alden signed the Mayflower Compact and held various civic positions in the colony, including assistant to the governor (1623-41, 1650-86). He was mythologized as the first Pilgrim to set foot on Plymouth Rock and as the stand-in for Myles Standish in his suit for Priscilla Mullens's hand in marriage in the poem "The Courtship of Miles Standish" (1858) by Henry W. Longfellow. Alden in fact married Mullens in 1623
John Allsebrook Simon 1st Viscount Simon: born Feb. 28, 1873, Manchester, Eng. died Jan. 11, 1954, London British politician. A successful lawyer, he served in the House of Commons (1906-18, 1922-40). In the 1930s he led the Liberal National Party and served successively as foreign secretary (1931-35), home secretary (1935-37), and chancellor of the Exchequer (1937-40). Favouring rapprochement with Germany, he supported the appeasement policy of Neville Chamberlain and the Munich agreement. In 1940 Simon was appointed lord chancellor in Winston Churchill's wartime coalition ministry and was created a viscount
John Allsebrook Simon 1st Viscount Simon of Stackpole Elidor: born Feb. 28, 1873, Manchester, Eng. died Jan. 11, 1954, London British politician. A successful lawyer, he served in the House of Commons (1906-18, 1922-40). In the 1930s he led the Liberal National Party and served successively as foreign secretary (1931-35), home secretary (1935-37), and chancellor of the Exchequer (1937-40). Favouring rapprochement with Germany, he supported the appeasement policy of Neville Chamberlain and the Munich agreement. In 1940 Simon was appointed lord chancellor in Winston Churchill's wartime coalition ministry and was created a viscount
John Amos Comenius: Czech Jan Amos Komensky born March 28, 1592, Nivnice, Moravia died Nov. 15, 1670, Amsterdam, Neth. Czech educational reformer and religious leader. He favoured the learning of Latin to facilitate the study of European culture but emphasized learning about things rather than about grammar per se. His Janua Linguarum Reserata (1631), a textbook that described useful facts about the world in both Latin and Czech, revolutionized Latin teaching and was translated into 16 languages. He also produced one of the first illustrated schoolbooks, Orbis Sensualium Pictus (1658)
John Amos Comenius: {i} Comenius, Jan Amos Komensky (1592-1670), Moravian religious leader and teacher
John Angus Chamberlain: born April 16, 1927, Rochester, Ind., U.S. U.S. sculptor. He studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and at Black Mountain College. In 1957 he had his first one-man exhibition in Chicago. His Abstract Expressionist sculptures are often constructed of fragments of automobiles, crushed and jammed together, and painted in bright, industrial colours; these produce an effect of isolated, frozen movement. He also exhibited paintings, prints, and films
John Angus McPhee: born March 8, 1931, Princeton, N.J., U.S. U.S. journalist and nonfiction writer. He attended Princeton University. After working as an associate editor at Time (1957-64), he became a staff writer at The New Yorker in 1965. His nonfiction covers a wide variety of topics. His first book was on Bill Bradley; places he has written about include New Jersey, Alaska, the American West (several books), and Switzerland; other topics include the citrus industry, aeronautical engineering, the birch-bark canoe, and nuclear terrorism. He has taught journalism at Princeton since 1975. His later works include Annals of the Former World (1998, Pulitzer Prize)
John Arbuthnot: born April 1667, Inverbervie, Scot. died Feb. 27, 1735, London, Eng. Scottish mathematician, physician, and satirist. His satirical writings include a political allegory, The History of John Bull (1712), that established John Bull as a personification of England. He was a founding member of the famous Scriblerus Club, which aimed to ridicule bad literature and false learning. He was also chief contributor to and guiding spirit of the Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus (written 1713-14), a mocking exposure of pedantry that was written by club members
John Arbuthnot Fisher 1st Baron Fisher: born Jan. 25, 1841, Ceylon died July 10, 1920, London, Eng. British admiral and first sea lord. He entered the navy at 13 and saw combat in Crimea, China, and Egypt. Promoted to the Admiralty board in 1892, he became first sea lord in 1904. He reorganized and strengthened the British navy to counter the rapid expansion of the German navy, and his reforms and innovations including the conception of the battleship Dreadnought, which revolutionized naval construction ensured the Royal Navy's dominance in World War I. He retired in 1910; recalled in 1914 by Winston Churchill, he resigned the next year in protest against the Dardanelles Campaign
John Arbuthnot Fisher 1st Baron Fisher of Kilverstone: born Jan. 25, 1841, Ceylon died July 10, 1920, London, Eng. British admiral and first sea lord. He entered the navy at 13 and saw combat in Crimea, China, and Egypt. Promoted to the Admiralty board in 1892, he became first sea lord in 1904. He reorganized and strengthened the British navy to counter the rapid expansion of the German navy, and his reforms and innovations including the conception of the battleship Dreadnought, which revolutionized naval construction ensured the Royal Navy's dominance in World War I. He retired in 1910; recalled in 1914 by Winston Churchill, he resigned the next year in protest against the Dardanelles Campaign
John Archibald Campbell: born June 24, 1811, Washington, Ga., U.S. died March 12, 1889, Baltimore, Md. U.S. jurist. After being admitted to the bar at age 18, he moved to Alabama, where he gained a large private practice and served in the state legislature. Appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1853, he became known as a strict constructionist; his tenure was notable for his concurrence in the Dred Scott decision. Although he opposed secession as imprudent, he resigned from the Supreme Court in 1861 and cast his lot with the South in the American Civil War, serving as assistant secretary of war for the Confederacy. After the South's surrender he was imprisoned for four months on false charges. Upon his release he moved to New Orleans, where he established a law practice
John Arden: born Oct. 26, 1930, Barnsley, Yorkshire, Eng. British playwright. He studied architecture at Cambridge and the Edinburgh College of Art. His plays mix poetry and songs with colloquial speech in a boldly theatrical manner and involve strong conflicts purposely left unresolved. Arden's works include All Fall Down (1955), Serjeant Musgrave's Dance (1959), The Workhouse Donkey (1963), Vandaleur's Folly (1978), and the radio series Whose Is the Kingdom? (1988)
John Ashbery: born July 28, 1927, Rochester, N.Y., U.S. U.S. poet. He earned degrees from Harvard and Columbia universities and subsequently became known as an art critic. His poems, noted for their elegance, originality, and obscurity, are characterized by arresting images, exquisite rhythms, intricate form, and sudden shifts in tone and subject. His collections include The Double Dream of Spring (1970), Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1975, Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award), A Wave (1984), Flow Chart (1991), and Wakefulness (1998)
John Ashcroft: (born 1943) attorney and politician, President Bush's nominee for U.S. Attorney General
John Atanasoff: v. born Oct. 4, 1903, Hamilton, N.Y., U.S. died June 15, 1995, Frederick, Md. U.S. physicist. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. With Clifford Berry, he developed the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (1937-42), a machine capable of solving differential equations using binary arithmetic. In 1941 he joined the Naval Ordnance Laboratory; he participated in the atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll (1946). In 1952 he established the Ordnance Engineering Co., which he later sold to Aerojet Engineering Corp. In 1973, after a judge voided a patent owned by Sperry Rand Corp. on ENIAC, the Atanasoff-Berry Computer was credited as the first electronic digital computer
John Augustus Roebling: born , June 12, 1806, Mühlhausen, Prussia died July 22, 1869, Brooklyn Heights, N.Y., U.S. German-U.S. civil engineer, a pioneer in the design of suspension bridges. He immigrated to the U.S. in 1831. His best-known work is New York's Brooklyn Bridge. In the 1850s and '60s Roebling and his son Washington (1837-1926) built four suspension bridges: two at Pittsburgh, one at Niagara Falls (1855), and one at Cincinnati (1866). When his design for a bridge connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan was accepted, he was appointed chief engineer. He died from an injury he received as construction began. Washington completed the project in 1883; himself incapacitated from 1872 by decompression sickness, his completion of the work depended heavily on his wife, Emily Warren Roebling
John Augustus Sutter: orig. Johann August Suter born Feb. 15, 1803, Kandern, Baden died June 18, 1880, Washington, D.C., U.S. German-born U.S. pioneer. Fleeing financial failures, he left his family in Switzerland and arrived in the U.S. in 1834. He obtained a land grant from the Mexican governor and established the colony of Nueva Helvetia (later Sacramento, Calif.). On the American River he built Sutter's Fort, a frontier trading post, in 1841. When gold was found there in 1848, he tried to keep it a secret. In the resulting gold rush, squatters and gold seekers invaded his land and stole his goods and livestock. U.S. courts denied his claim to his Mexican land grant, and Sutter was bankrupt by 1852
John Austin: born March 3, 1790, Creeting Mill, Suffolk, Eng. died Dec. 1859, Weybridge, Surrey British jurist. Although initially unsuccessful in his law practice (1818-25), his analytical mind and intellectual honesty impressed colleagues, and he was named the first professor of jurisprudence at University College, London (1826). Distinguished men attended his lectures, but he failed to attract students, and he resigned his chair in 1832. His writings, especially The Province of Jurisprudence Determined (1832), sought to distinguish law from morality. He also helped to define jurisprudence as the analysis of fundamental legal concepts, as distinct from the criticism of legal institutions, which he called the "science of legislation." His work, largely unrecognized in his lifetime, influenced later jurists, including Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr
John B Watson: born Jan. 9, 1878, Travelers Rest, near Greenville, S.C., U.S. died Sept. 25, 1958, New York, N.Y. U.S. psychologist. Trained at the University of Chicago, Watson taught psychology at Johns Hopkins University (1908-20). He is remembered for codifying and publicizing behaviourism. In his epoch-making article, "Psychology as a Behaviorist Views It" (1913), he asserted that psychology should restrict itself to the objective, experimental study of the relations between environmental events and human behaviour. In Behavior (1914) he argued for the use of animal subjects in studying reflexes and conditioned responses, and in Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist (1919) he extended the principles and methods he employed in animal experiments. In 1920 he left academia to enter the advertising business
John Baldwin: {i} (born 1946) bassist and keyboard player for Led Zeppelin who uses the stage name "John Paul Jones
John Barbour: (1316?-1395) Scottish ecclesiastic and poet
John Bardeen: born May 23, 1908, Madison, Wis., U.S. died Jan. 30, 1991, Boston, Mass. U.S. physicist. He earned a Ph.D. in mathematical physics from Princeton University. He worked for the U.S. Naval Ordnance Laboratory during World War II, after which he worked for Bell Telephone Laboratories. His work there led to his sharing a 1956 Nobel Prize with William B. Shockley and Walter H. Brattain for the invention of the transistor. In 1972 he again shared a Nobel Prize, this time with Leon Cooper and J. Robert Schrieffer for developing the theory of superconductivity (1957); this theory (called the BCS theory, for Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer) is the basis for all later theoretical work in superconductivity. Bardeen was also the author of a theory explaining certain properties of semiconductors
John Barleycorn: A personification of alcoholic liquor. the personification (=the representation of a thing as a person, in literature or art) of alcoholic drink, especially strong drinks such as whisky
John Barry: born 1745, County Wexford, Ire. died Sept. 13, 1803, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S. Irish-born American naval officer. He immigrated to America in 1760 and was a merchant shipmaster out of Philadelphia at age
John Barry: He outfitted the first American fleet in 1776, and as captain of a frigate he captured several British ships. He fought the last battle of the American Revolution in March 1783 in the Straits of Florida, where he defeated three British ships. After the war he was recalled to active service as senior captain of the new U.S. Navy. He was often called the "Father of the Navy" because he trained many future naval officers
John Barth: orig. John Simmons Barth, Jr. born May 27, 1930, Cambridge, Md., U.S. U.S. writer. Barth grew up on Maryland's eastern shore, the locale of much of his writing, and from 1953 he taught principally at Johns Hopkins University. Apart from the experimental pieces in Lost in the Funhouse (1968), his best-known works are the novels The Floating Opera (1956), The End of the Road (1958), The Sot-Weed Factor (1960), Giles Goat-Boy (1966), and The Tidewater Tales (1987), most of which play with and parody traditional narrative forms, combining philosophical depth with biting satire and boisterous, often bawdy humour. In 2001 he published the experimental novel Coming Soon!!!: A Narrative, which was not well received
John Bartlett: born June 14, 1820, Plymouth, Mass., U.S. died Dec. 3, 1905, Cambridge, Mass. U.S. bookseller and editor. Bartlett was an employee and then owner of the Harvard University Bookstore. In 1855 he published the work for which he is best known, Familiar Quotations, based largely on a notebook he kept for his customers. It was greatly expanded in later editions; the 17th edition appeared in 2002. He also wrote a complete concordance to Shakespeare's dramatic works and poems (1894), outstanding for the number and fullness of its citations
John Bartram: born March 23, 1699, Marple, Pa., U.S. died Sept. 22, 1777, Kingsessing, Pa. naturalist and explorer, considered the "father of American botany. " Largely self-educated, he was a friend of Benjamin Franklin and the botanist for the American colonies to George III. He was the first North American experimenter to hybridize flowering plants, and he established near Philadelphia a botanical garden that became internationally famous. He explored the Alleghenies and the Carolinas and in 1743 was commissioned by the British crown to explore the wilderness north to Lake Ontario in Canada. In 1765-66 he explored extensively in Florida with his son William Bartram
John Baskerville: born Jan. 28, 1706, Wolverly, Worcestershire, Eng. died Jan. 8, 1775, Birmingham, Warwickshire British typographer. In 1757 he set up a printing house and published his first work, an edition of Virgil. His editions of the Latin classics, John Milton's poems (1758), and a folio Bible (1763) are characterized by clear and careful presswork rather than ornament; they are among the finest examples of the art of printing. He served as printer to Cambridge University (1758-68), and he created the widely used Baskerville typeface, which is still used and prized for its clarity and balance
John Bell: born Feb. 15, 1797, near Nashville, Tenn., U.S. died Sept. 10, 1869, Dover, Tenn. U.S. politician. He represented Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives (1827-41) and Senate (1847-59). Although a large slaveholder, he opposed efforts to expand slavery to U.S. territories and voted against admitting Kansas as a slave state. His defense of the Union brought him the 1860 nomination for president on the Constitutional Union ticket, but he carried only three states. He later supported the South in the American Civil War
John Berryman: born Oct. 25, 1914, McAlester, Okla., U.S. died Jan. 7, 1972, Minneapolis, Minn. U.S. poet. Berryman attended Columbia University and the University of Cambridge and later taught at various universities. Homage to Mistress Bradstreet (1956), one of his first experimental poems, assured his importance. His technical daring was also evident in 77 Dream Songs (1964, Pulitzer Prize), augmented to form a sequence of 385 "Dream Songs" in His Toy, His Dream, His Rest (1968). Later works include the deceptively offhand Love & Fame (1970) and Recovery (1973), an account of his struggle against alcoholism. He is noted for his confessional poetry laced with humour. Subject to deep depression, he committed suicide by jumping from a bridge
John Biddle: born 1615, Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire, Eng. died Sept. 22, 1662, London Father of English Unitarianism. He studied at the University of Oxford and became master of a free school in Gloucester. In 1644 he wrote Twelve Arguments Drawn Out of Scripture, denying the deity of the Holy Spirit. When the manuscript reached church authorities, he was arrested and imprisoned for two years. After its publication in 1647 he was again detained, and copies of the book were burned. His later writings attacked the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Freed from a third imprisonment in 1652, he began to meet for worship with his adherents, who came to be called Unitarians. After Biddle published his Two-Fold Catechism (1654), Oliver Cromwell prevented his execution by exiling him to the Scilly Isles. He returned in 1658; in 1662 he was again put in prison, where he died
John Bidwell: born Aug. 5, 1819, Chautauqua county, N.Y., U.S. died April 4, 1900, near Sacramento, Calif. U.S. political leader. He was a member of the first group to travel by wagon train to California from Independence, Mo. Reluctant to join the Bear Flag revolt of Americans in California against Mexico, he nonetheless helped draw up the Bear Flag Republic's resolution of independence in July 1846. He fought under John C. Frémont in the Mexican War and assisted in the recapture of Los Angeles in 1847. At the end of the war he returned to Sutter's Fort, where he was the first to find gold on the Feather River. Later he became a leading agriculturalist and played a prominent role in state politics. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1864 and later ran for governor three times, though he was never elected. In 1892 he became the presidential candidate of the Prohibition Party
John Birch Society: a very right-wing organization started in the US during the 1950s to fight Communism. Organization founded in 1958 by Robert H. Welch, Jr. (1899-1985), a retired American candymaker, to combat communism and promote ultraconservative causes. It was named for an American missionary and army intelligence officer killed by Chinese Communists in 1945, considered by the society the first hero of the Cold War. Its membership reached more than 70,000 in the 1960s. Its many publications warned of communist infiltration of the U.S. government and called for the impeachment of officials such as Earl Warren. The New American is the organization's biweekly magazine
John Blow: (baptized Feb. 23, 1649, Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, Eng. died Oct. 1, 1708, Westminster, London) British composer, organist, and teacher. He was appointed organist at Westminster Abbey in 1668; in 1774 he became master of the children at the Chapel Royal, and he later held various equally prominent posts, in which he influenced many students, including composer Henry Purcell. Of the many religious and secular ceremonial works he wrote in his official capacities, about 12 services and more than 100 anthems survive. His court masque Venus and Adonis (1685) represents a landmark in the development of English opera
John Boorman: born Jan. 18, 1933, Shepperton, Middlesex, Eng. British film director. As head of the BBC's documentary film unit in Bristol (1962-64) he produced the acclaimed Citizen 63 series. After directing his first feature film in 1965, Boorman directed Point Blank (1967) and Hell in the Pacific (1968) in the U.S. His successful Deliverance (1972) was a harrowing tale of endurance and survival. Later films include Excalibur (1981) and Hope and Glory (1987)
John Braxton Hicks: {i} (1823-1897) English gynecologist who in 1872 first described painless contractions of the uterus that occur towards the middle of pregnancy or even earlier
John Bright: born Nov. 16, 1811, Rochdale, Lancashire, Eng. died March 27, 1889, Rochdale British reform politician and orator. He entered Parliament in 1843 and served three times as a member of William E. Gladstone's cabinet. He was active in campaigns for free trade, lower grain prices, and parliamentary reform. His Quaker beliefs shaped his politics, which consisted mainly of demands for an end to inequalities between individuals and between peoples. He denounced the Crimean War, supported the Reform Bill of 1867, and was a cofounder (with Richard Cobden) of the Anti-Corn Law League
John Broadus Watson: born Jan. 9, 1878, Travelers Rest, near Greenville, S.C., U.S. died Sept. 25, 1958, New York, N.Y. U.S. psychologist. Trained at the University of Chicago, Watson taught psychology at Johns Hopkins University (1908-20). He is remembered for codifying and publicizing behaviourism. In his epoch-making article, "Psychology as a Behaviorist Views It" (1913), he asserted that psychology should restrict itself to the objective, experimental study of the relations between environmental events and human behaviour. In Behavior (1914) he argued for the use of animal subjects in studying reflexes and conditioned responses, and in Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist (1919) he extended the principles and methods he employed in animal experiments. In 1920 he left academia to enter the advertising business
John Brown: a US abolitionist (=someone who worked to end slavery) who tried to use violence to end slavery. With followers, he took over a government weapons establishment at Harper's Ferry, Virginia. He was caught and hanged for treason, During the American Civil War, a song called John Brown's Body became popular in the North. The song is still well known and contains the words John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,/But his soul goes marching on (1800-59). born 1735, Buncle, Berwickshire, Scot. died Oct. 17, 1788, London, Eng. British physician. He propounded the "excitability" theory published in Elementa medicinae (1780), which classified diseases as over-or understimulating and held that internal and external "exciting powers," or stimuli, operate on living tissues. Brown viewed diseases as states of decreased excitability, requiring stimulants, or increased excitability, requiring sedatives. Hermann von Helmholtz discredited the theory. born May 9, 1800, Torrington, Conn., U.S. died Dec. 2, 1859, Charles Town, Va. U.S. abolitionist. He grew up in Ohio, where his mother died insane when he was eight. He moved around the country working in various trades and raised a large family of 20 children. Though he was white, he settled in 1849 with his family in a black community founded at North Elba, N.Y. An ardent advocate of overt action to end slavery, he traveled to Kansas in 1855 with five of his sons to retaliate against proslavery actions in Lawrence. He and his group murdered five proslavery settlers (see Bleeding Kansas). In 1858 he proposed to establish a mountain stronghold in Maryland for escaping slaves, to be financed by abolitionists. He hoped that taking the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, W.Va., would inspire slaves to join his "army of emancipation." In 1859 his small force overpowered the arsenal's guard; after two days it was in turn overpowered by federal forces led by Col. Robert E. Lee. Brown was tried for treason, convicted, and hanged. His raid made him a martyr to northern abolitionists and increased the sectional animosities that led to the American Civil War
John Brown's Body: a US folk song about John Brown, a man who fought against slavery in the US. Some of the words are: John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,/But his soul goes marching on
John Bull: John bull. born 1562/63, Radnorshire, Wales? died March 12/13, 1628, Antwerp, Spanish Netherlands British composer. He became organist of Hereford Cathedral in 1582, then organist at the Chapel Royal in 1591. In 1613 he departed for the continent to escape punishment for adultery; he held important organist positions in Brussels and Antwerp until his death. He wrote many verse anthems but is remembered for his keyboard works. In an era of remarkable English music for the virginal (a small harpsichord), he produced works that, with their resourceful keyboard figurations, reflect his own brilliant technique
John Bull: {i} typical Englishman; the English people; cartoon character made to typify Britain which was popularized by Thomas Nast (American cartoonist)
John Bunyan: an English preacher who wrote The Pilgrim's Progress while he was in prison for his beliefs (1628-88). born November 1628, Elstow, Bedfordshire, Eng. died Aug. 31, 1688, London English minister and author. Bunyan encountered the seething religious life of various left-wing sects while serving in Oliver Cromwell's army in the English Civil Wars. He underwent a period of spiritual crisis, converted to Puritanism, and became a preacher. After the Restoration, he was jailed as a Nonconformist for 12 years, during which he wrote his spiritual autobiography, Grace Abounding (1666). He is best known for The Pilgrim's Progress (1678-84), a religious allegory expressing the Puritan religious outlook. A symbolic vision of the character Christian's pilgrimage through life, it was at one time second only to the Bible in popularity among ordinary readers. Despite his ministerial responsibilities, he published numerous works in his last 10 years
John Burdon Sanderson Haldane: born Nov. 5, 1892, Oxford, Oxfordshire, Eng. died Dec. 1, 1964, Bhubaneswar, India British geneticist. Son of John Scott Haldane, he began studying science as his father's assistant at age eight and later received his M.A. from Oxford. Haldane, R. A. Fisher, and Sewall Wright, in separate mathematical arguments based on analyses of mutation rates, population size, patterns of reproduction, and other factors, related Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory and Gregor Mendel's concepts of heredity. Haldane also contributed to the theory of enzyme action and to studies in human physiology
John Burgoyne: born 1722, Sutton, Bedfordshire, Eng. died June 4, 1792, London British general. After serving in the Seven Years' War he was elected to the British House of Commons in 1761 and 1768. Assigned to Canada in 1776, he began a campaign to join British forces from the north, south, and west to isolate the rebellious New England colonies. In 1777 his army captured Fort Ticonderoga, N.Y., but was stopped at the Hudson River by a larger army of colonists under Horatio Gates and Benedict Arnold. After several months of fighting, he surrendered to Gates at Saratoga Springs, N.Y.; he returned to England to face criticism for his defeat
John Burroughs: born April 3, 1837, near Roxbury, N.Y., U.S. died March 29, 1921, en route from California to New York U.S. essayist and naturalist. In his early years he worked as a teacher, farmer, and U.S. Treasury Department clerk. In 1873 he moved to a farm in the Hudson River valley. Traveling extensively, he hiked and camped with John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt, among other friends, and accompanied an expedition to Alaska. His many books helped establish the genre of the nature essay; they include Wake-Robin (1871), Birds and Poets (1877), Locusts and Wild Honey (1879), Ways of Nature (1905), and Field and Study (1919)
John Byron Nelson: born Feb. 4, 1912, Fort Worth, Texas, U.S. U.S. golfer. "Lord Byron," as he was known to the golf world, began his career as a caddie at the age of 12 and became a professional golfer in 1932. He won the U.S. Open (1939), the Masters (1937, 1942), and the PGA championship (1940, 1945), setting records in 1945 when he won 18 out of 30 tournaments, 11 in succession
John C Breckinridge: born Jan. 21, 1821, near Lexington, Ky., U.S. died May 17, 1875, Lexington U.S. politician, vice president (1857-61), and Confederate army officer. He practiced law and later served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1851-55). In 1856 he was elected vice president under James Buchanan. In 1860 the Democratic Party split into factions over the slavery issue, and Breckinridge became the Southern wing's nominee for president. Defeated by Abraham Lincoln, he worked for compromise; but after the firing on Fort Sumter he urged Kentucky to secede. He became a general in the Confederate army and took part in the Vicksburg, Wilderness, and Shenandoah Valley campaigns. He served as Confederate secretary of war in 1865. After the war he fled to England for three years before returning to Kentucky to resume his law practice
John C Calhoun: born March 18, 1782, Abbeville district, S.C., U.S. died March 31, 1850, Washington, D.C. U.S. politician. A graduate of Yale University, he became an ardent Jeffersonian Republican and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives (1811-17). As a leader of the War Hawks, he introduced the declaration of war against Britain in June 1812 (see War of 1812). From 1817 to 1825 he served as U.S. secretary of war. He was elected vice president in 1824 (under John Quincy Adams) and again in 1828 (under Andrew Jackson). In the 1830s he became an extreme advocate of strict construction of the U.S. Constitution, a champion of states' rights, a defender of slavery, and a supporter of nullification. In 1832 he resigned the vice presidency and was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he served until 1850; he was briefly secretary of state in 1844-45. His exuberant defense of slavery as a "positive good" aroused strong anti-Southern feeling in the free states
John Cabell Breckinridge: born Jan. 21, 1821, near Lexington, Ky., U.S. died May 17, 1875, Lexington U.S. politician, vice president (1857-61), and Confederate army officer. He practiced law and later served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1851-55). In 1856 he was elected vice president under James Buchanan. In 1860 the Democratic Party split into factions over the slavery issue, and Breckinridge became the Southern wing's nominee for president. Defeated by Abraham Lincoln, he worked for compromise; but after the firing on Fort Sumter he urged Kentucky to secede. He became a general in the Confederate army and took part in the Vicksburg, Wilderness, and Shenandoah Valley campaigns. He served as Confederate secretary of war in 1865. After the war he fled to England for three years before returning to Kentucky to resume his law practice
John Cabot: an Italian sailor and explorer who worked for the English king Henry VII, and who reached the coast of North America in 1497 (?1450-98). orig. Giovanni Caboto born 1450, Genoa? died 1499 Italian navigator and explorer. In the 1470s he became a skilled navigator in travels to the eastern Mediterranean for a Venetian mercantile firm. In the 1490s he moved to Bristol, Eng., and, with support from city merchants, he led an expedition in 1497 to find trade routes to Asia. After landing somewhere in North America, possibly southern Labrador or Cape Breton Island, he took possession of the land for Henry VII and conducted explorations along the coastline. On a second expedition in 1498, he may have reached America but probably was lost at sea. His two voyages for England helped lay the groundwork for the later British claim to Canada. Sebastian Cabot was his son
John Cabot: {i} (c1450-1499, as Giovanni Caboto) Italian explorer who led the English expedition discovering the mainland of North America in 1497 (in 1498 he sailed off for a second expedition, during which it is believed he died at sea)
John Cage: an American composer of very modern music, including Winter Music and Fontana Mix (1912-). in full John Milton Cage, Jr. born Sept. 5, 1912, Los Angeles, Calif., U.S. died Aug. 12, 1992, New York, N.Y. U.S. avant-garde composer and writer. The son of an inventor, Cage studied music with Arnold Schoenberg and Henry Cowell. From the early 1940s he was closely associated with the choreographer Merce Cunningham. Though he began as a 12-tone composer (see serialism), by 1943 his sonic experiments had marked him as notably original. He soon turned to Zen Buddhism and concluded that all activities that make up music are part of a single natural process and that all sounds are potentially musical; thenceforth he advocated indeterminism and endeavoured to ensure randomness in his works, using increasingly inventive notation and often relying on the Confucian classic Yijing. By the 1960s he had expanded into the realm of multimedia. His disparate works include Bacchanale for prepared piano (1938), Imaginary Landscape No. 4 for 12 radios (1951), Fontana Mix for tape (1958), HPSCHD for seven harpsichords, 51 tapes, and nonmusical media (1969), and Roaratorio (1979). His widely read books include Silence (1961), A Year from Monday (1967), Notations (1969), and M (1973). His international influence was far greater than that of any previous American composer
John Caldwell Calhoun: born March 18, 1782, Abbeville district, S.C., U.S. died March 31, 1850, Washington, D.C. U.S. politician. A graduate of Yale University, he became an ardent Jeffersonian Republican and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives (1811-17). As a leader of the War Hawks, he introduced the declaration of war against Britain in June 1812 (see War of 1812). From 1817 to 1825 he served as U.S. secretary of war. He was elected vice president in 1824 (under John Quincy Adams) and again in 1828 (under Andrew Jackson). In the 1830s he became an extreme advocate of strict construction of the U.S. Constitution, a champion of states' rights, a defender of slavery, and a supporter of nullification. In 1832 he resigned the vice presidency and was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he served until 1850; he was briefly secretary of state in 1844-45. His exuberant defense of slavery as a "positive good" aroused strong anti-Southern feeling in the free states
John Calvin: {i} (1509-1564) Swiss-born French theologian and reformer, leader of the Protestant Reformation
John Calvin: a French Protestant leader and theologian (=someone who studies religion and religious beliefs) , whose ideas strongly influenced the Reformation (=the time when many Christians left the Catholic religion and started the Protestant religion) (1509-64). French Jean Cauvin born July 10, 1509, Noyon, Picardy, France died May 27, 1564, Geneva, Switz. French Protestant theologian and major figure of the Reformation. He studied religion at the University of Paris and law in Orléans and Bourges. When he returned to Paris in 1531 he studied the Bible and became part of a movement that emphasized salvation by grace rather than by works. Government intolerance prompted him to move to Basel, Switz., where he wrote the first edition of Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536). Gaining a reputation among Protestant leaders, he went to Geneva to help establish Protestantism in that city. He was expelled by city fathers in 1538 but returned in 1541, when the town council instituted the church order outlined in his Ecclesiastical Ordinances, including enforcement of sexual morality and abolition of Catholic "superstition." He approved the arrest and conviction for heresy of Michael Servetus. By 1555 Calvin had succeeded in establishing a theocracy in Geneva, where he served as pastor and head of the Genevan Academy and wrote the sermons, biblical commentaries, and letters that form the basis of Calvinism
John Calvin Coolidge: born July 4, 1872, Plymouth, Vt., U.S. died Jan. 5, 1933, Northampton, Mass. 30th president of the U.S. (1923-29). He practiced law in Massachusetts from 1897 and served as lieutenant governor before being elected governor in 1918. He gained national attention by calling out the state guard during the Boston Police Strike in 1919. At the 1920 Republican convention, "Silent Cal" was nominated for vice president and elected on a ticket with Warren G. Harding. When Harding died in office in 1923, Coolidge became president. He restored confidence in an administration discredited by scandals and won the presidential election in 1924, easily defeating Democrat John W. Davis and Progressive Robert La Follette. He vetoed measures to provide farm relief and bonuses to World War I veterans. His presidency was marked by apparent prosperity. Congress maintained a high protective tariff and instituted tax reductions that favoured capital. Coolidge declined to run for a second term. His conservative policies of domestic and international inaction have come to symbolize the era between World War I and the Great Depression
John Cantius Garand: born Jan. 1, 1888, St. Rémi, Que., Can. died Feb. 16, 1974, Springfield, Mass., U.S. Canadian-born U.S. firearms engineer. He moved with his family to Connecticut in 1898. From 1919 he worked as a civilian employee at the Springfield Armory. There he devised a gas-operated weapon that was 43 in. (109 cm) long yet weighed only 9.5 lbs (4.3 kg). Adopted in 1936 as the U.S. Rifle, Caliber .30 M1, the Garand rifle became the world's first standard-issue autoloading infantry rifle. It gave U.S. troops in World War II such an advantage in firepower that George Patton called it "the greatest battle implement ever devised." More than five million M1s were manufactured before it was phased out in 1957. Garand signed over all patents of his invention to the U.S. government
John Cassavetes: born Dec. 9, 1929, New York, N.Y., U.S. died Feb. 3, 1989, Los Angeles, Calif. U.S. film director and actor. He acted in films and in television dramas before making his directorial debut with the critically praised Shadows (1961), a low-budget independent film in the cinéma vérité style. He played featured roles in such films as The Dirty Dozen (1967) and Rosemary's Baby (1968) and returned to directing independent films, including Faces (1968), Husbands (1970), and A Woman Under the Influence (1974), which dramatized marital problems
John Chamberlain: born April 16, 1927, Rochester, Ind., U.S. U.S. sculptor. He studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and at Black Mountain College. In 1957 he had his first one-man exhibition in Chicago. His Abstract Expressionist sculptures are often constructed of fragments of automobiles, crushed and jammed together, and painted in bright, industrial colours; these produce an effect of isolated, frozen movement. He also exhibited paintings, prints, and films
John Chambers: {i} President and General Manager of the Cisco Systems computer company in California (USA)
John Chapman: {i} Johnny Appleseed (1774-1845), legendary pioneer who traveled through the American wilderness and planted apple orchards (famous for his peaceful character and simple lifestyle)
John Cheever: born May 27, 1912, Quincy, Mass., U.S. died June 18, 1982, Ossining, N.Y. U.S. short-story writer and novelist. Cheever lived principally in southern Connecticut. His stories appeared notably in The New Yorker, his clear and elegant prose delineating the drama and sadness of life in comfortable suburban America, often through fantasy and ironic comedy. He has been called the Chekhov of the suburbs. His collections include The Enormous Radio (1953), The Brigadier and the Golf Widow (1964), and The Stories of John Cheever (1978, Pulitzer Prize). Among his novels are The Wapshot Chronicle (1957), The Wapshot Scandal (1964), and Falconer (1977). His revealing journals were published in 1991. Two of his children, Susan and Benjamin, also became writers
John Churchill 1st duke of Marlborough: born May 26, 1650, Ashe, Devon, Eng. died June 16, 1722, Windsor, near London British military commander. He served with distinction at Maastricht (1673), was promoted rapidly, and advanced at court, in part because his wife (see Sarah Jennings, duchess of Marlborough) was a confidant of Princess (later Queen) Anne. On the accession of James II in 1685, Churchill was made a lieutenant general and effective commander in chief. In 1688 he transferred his allegiance to William III, who rewarded him with the earldom of Marlborough and a succession of commands in Flanders and Ireland. His relationship with William deteriorated in the 1690s. Queen Anne appointed him commander of English and Dutch forces in the War of the Spanish Succession, and for his successes he was created duke of Marlborough (1702). His victory at the Battle of Blenheim (1704) helped change the balance of power in Europe. In gratitude, he was granted a royal manor, where Blenheim Palace was built. His outstanding military tactics continued to produce victories, notably at Ramillies (1706) and Oudenaarde (1708). His influence with Queen Anne and financial backing for the war were undermined by intrigue between Tories and Whigs. After his Whig allies lost the election of 1710, he was dismissed on charges of misuse of public money. He retired from public life, though he was restored to favour by George I in 1714. Considered one of England's greatest generals, he secured a reputation in Europe that was unrivaled until the rise of Napoleon
John Clare: {i} (1793-1864) English poet
John Clare: a British poet, who wrote mostly about the English countryside and country life (1793-1864). born July 13, 1793, Helpston, near Peterborough, Northamptonshire, Eng. died May 20, 1864, Northampton, Northamptonshire British poet. Clare grew up in extreme rural poverty, with little access to books, but he had a prodigious memory and absorbed folk ballads. His Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery (1820) brought a short period of celebrity, but later volumes, including The Shepherd's Calendar (1827) and The Rural Muse (1835), sold poorly. Suffering from penury and poor health, he fell prey to delusions and was placed in an asylum in 1837. After four years he briefly escaped; certified insane, he spent his final 23 years in another asylum, where he wrote some of his most lucid, lyrical poetry
John Cleese: born Oct. 27, 1939, Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, Eng. British actor and screenwriter. He wrote and performed comedy material for British television in the 1960s before helping create the popular comedy show Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969-74), which later won a large U.S. following with its surreal brand of humour. He cowrote and acted in the television series Fawlty Towers and collaborated with the rest of the Monty Python troupe on films such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), The Life of Brian (1979), and Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983). His other films include Silverado (1985) and A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
John Colet: born 1466/67, London, Eng. died Sept. 16, 1519, Sheen, Surrey British theologian. He studied mathematics and philosophy at Oxford and extended his studies abroad. Returning to England, he became ordained, sometime before 1499. He was appointed dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in 1504 and founded St. Paul's School around 1509. One of the chief Tudor humanists, he promoted Renaissance culture in England and influenced such humanists as Desiderius Erasmus, St. Thomas More, and Thomas Linacre
John Coltrane: a US jazz musician who played the saxophone and had a great influence on the development of modern jazz (1926-67). born Sept. 23, 1926, Hamlet, N.C., U.S. died July 17, 1967, Huntington, N.Y. U.S. saxophonist and composer. After growing up in Philadelphia, he gained early experience in the bands of Dizzy Gillespie and Johnny Hodges. Associations with Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk in the 1950s established Coltrane's place in the vanguard of modern jazz, and his quartet of the early 1960s is one of the outstanding groups in jazz history. His style encompassed the modal jazz first explored with Davis, the complex chord structures of his own compositions, and ultimately the extremes of timbre, dynamics, and register associated with free jazz. Coltrane's total mastery of the tenor and soprano saxophones, the rich harmonic density of his compositions, and his clear projection of emotion enabled him to reconcile technical virtuosity with an often spiritual profundity
John Coltrane: {i} (1926-1967) U.S. Jazz saxophonist, member of the Miles Davis Quintet
John Constable: a British painter famous for his paintings and drawings of the Suffolk countryside, especially 'The Haywain' (1776-1837). born June 11, 1776, East Bergholt, Suffolk, Eng. died March 31, 1837, London British painter. The artist's father was a wealthy man who owned mills at Flatford and Dedham, on the Suffolk and Essex banks of the Stour, respectively. Constable began his career in 1799 after entering the Royal Academy Schools in London. In the years 1809 to 1816 he established his mastery and evolved his individual manner, concentrating on the scenes that had delighted him as a boy: the village lanes, the fields and meadows running down to the Stour, barges drawn by tow horses, and the vessels passing the locks at Flatford or Dedham. In 1813-14 he filled two sketchbooks, which survive intact, with over 200 landscape drawings. After about 1816 Constable began to embody his concept of the Suffolk countryside in a series of canvases monumental enough to make an impression in exhibitions of the Royal Academy; his best-known work from this period is The Hay-Wain (1821). These works reveal Constable's detailed study of the formation of clouds, the colour of meadows and trees, and the effect of light glistening on leaves and water. Especially later in his career, he was considered a master of watercolour as well as oil painting on canvas. He is ranked with J.M.W. Turner as one of the greatest 19th-century British landscape painters
John Coolidge Adams: born Feb. 15, 1947, Worcester, Mass., U.S. U.S. composer. After studying at Harvard University he taught at the San Francisco Conservatory and conducted widely. His compositions, initially strongly influenced by minimalism, became tempered by expressive elements. His Nixon in China (1987) and The Death of Klinghoffer (1991) are two of the best-known operas of the late 20th century. Other celebrated works include Harmonium (1980), Grand Pianola Music (1982), and Harmonielehre (1984-85)
John Cotton: born Dec. 4, 1585, Derby, Derbyshire, Eng. died Dec. 23, 1652, Boston, Mass. Anglo-American Puritan leader. He studied at the University of Cambridge, where he first encountered Puritanism. From 1612 to 1633 he served as a vicar in Lincolnshire. When English church authorities filed charges against him for his Nonconformism, he sailed for New England in 1633. As "teacher" of the First Church of Boston (1633-52), he became an influential leader of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He wrote a widely used children's catechism and defended Puritan orthodoxy in such books as The Way of the Churches of Christ in New England (1645). He opposed freedom of conscience, as preached by Roger Williams, favoring a national theocratic society
John Crowe Ransom: born April 30, 1888, Pulaski, Tenn., U.S. died July 4, 1974, Gambier, Ohio U.S. poet and critic. Ransom attended and later taught at Vanderbilt University, where he became the leader of the Fugitives, a group of poets who shared a belief in the South and its agrarian traditions and published the influential journal The Fugitive (1922-25); he was among those Fugitives called Agrarian who contributed to I'll Take My Stand (1930). At Kenyon College, he founded and edited (1939-59) the Kenyon Review. His literary studies include The New Criticism (1941), which gave its name to an important critical movement (see New Criticism), and he became recognized as a leading theorist of the post-World War I Southern literary renaissance. His Selected Poems (1945; rev. ed., 1969) won the National Book Award
John Cusack: {i} (born 1966) U.S. movie actor who acted in "Say Anything
John D Ehrlichman: born March 20, 1925, Tacoma, Wash., U.S. died Feb. 14, 1999, Atlanta, Ga. U.S. presidential assistant who played a central role in the Watergate scandal. He received his law degree from Stanford University in 1951 and established a law firm in Seattle, Wash. In 1969 he became domestic affairs adviser to Pres. Richard Nixon. With H.R. Haldeman he formed the so-called "palace guard" that controlled access to the president and filtered information directed to him. Ehrlichman soon established a group known as the "plumbers," whose purpose was to acquire political intelligence and to repair "leaks" of information to the press. When members of the plumbers were caught breaking into Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate complex, Ehrlichman became involved in a cover-up of involvement by White House officials. He was forced to resign in 1973. Convicted of conspiracy, perjury, and obstruction of justice, he served 18 months in jail. See also Pentagon Papers
John D Rockefeller: born July 8, 1839, Richford, N.Y., U.S. died May 23, 1937, Ormond Beach, Fla. U.S. industrialist and philanthropist. He moved with his family to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1853, and in 1859 he established a commission business dealing in hay, grain, meats, and other goods. In 1863 he built an oil refinery that soon was the largest in the area. With a few associates he incorporated Standard Oil Co. (Ohio) in 1870. He bought out competitors to control the oil-refinery business in Cleveland (1872) and in the U.S. (1882). He placed the stock of the company and its affiliates in other states under control of a board of trustees, establishing the first major U.S. business trust company. As a result of antitrust proceedings, he later converted the trust into a holding company. In the 1890s he turned his attention to philanthropy. He founded the University of Chicago in 1892, the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (later Rockefeller University) in 1901, and the Rockefeller Foundation in 1913. He donated over $500 million in his lifetime, and his philanthropy continued through donations by his son, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (1874-1960), and other descendants
John D. Rockefeller: {i} (1839- 1937) U.S.A. industrialist and philanthropist, founder of the Standard Oil company (also founded the University of Chicago and the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research)
John D. Rockefeller: a US businessman and philanthropist, famous for being extremely rich, who started the Standard Oil Company in 1870. He used part of his great wealth to start the University of Chicago in 1892, the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (which is now Rockefeller University) in 1901, and the Rockefeller Foundation in 1913. His son, John D. Rockefeller II (1874-1960), gave the UN the land for its headquarters, and built the Rockefeller Center, a large group of buildings in New York City, which includes offices, concert halls, shops, and works of art (1839-1937)
John Dalton: {i} (1766-1844) famous English physicist and chemist who revived the atomic theory (namesake for the Dalton law of partial pressure)
John Dalton: born Sept. 5 or 6, 1766, Eaglesfield, Cumberland, Eng. died July 27, 1844, Manchester British chemist and physicist. He spent most of his life in private teaching and research. His work on gases led him to state Dalton's law (see gas laws). He devised a system of chemical symbols, ascertained the relative weights of atoms, and arranged them into a table. His masterpiece of synthesis was the atomic theory the theory that each element is composed of tiny, indestructible particles called atoms that are all alike and have the same atomic weight which elevated chemistry to a quantitative science. He was also the first to describe colour blindness (1794), and his lifelong meteorological journal contains more than 200,000 observations. He is remembered as one of the fathers of modern physical science
John Daniel Ehrlichman: born March 20, 1925, Tacoma, Wash., U.S. died Feb. 14, 1999, Atlanta, Ga. U.S. presidential assistant who played a central role in the Watergate scandal. He received his law degree from Stanford University in 1951 and established a law firm in Seattle, Wash. In 1969 he became domestic affairs adviser to Pres. Richard Nixon. With H.R. Haldeman he formed the so-called "palace guard" that controlled access to the president and filtered information directed to him. Ehrlichman soon established a group known as the "plumbers," whose purpose was to acquire political intelligence and to repair "leaks" of information to the press. When members of the plumbers were caught breaking into Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate complex, Ehrlichman became involved in a cover-up of involvement by White House officials. He was forced to resign in 1973. Convicted of conspiracy, perjury, and obstruction of justice, he served 18 months in jail. See also Pentagon Papers
John Davenport: born April 1597, Coventry, Warwickshire, Eng. died March 15, 1670, Boston, Mass. British-American Puritan clergyman. A vicar in London, he moved to Amsterdam in 1633 and served there as co-pastor of the English Church. In 1637 he left for America with Theophilus Eaton ( 1590-1658) and their followers. They founded a colony at Quinnipiac (New Haven) in 1638; Davenport became pastor of the New Haven church, and Eaton was chosen governor. After failing to prevent New Haven's union with the Connecticut colony, Davenport left in 1667 to lead the First Church in Boston
John Davison Rockefeller: born July 8, 1839, Richford, N.Y., U.S. died May 23, 1937, Ormond Beach, Fla. U.S. industrialist and philanthropist. He moved with his family to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1853, and in 1859 he established a commission business dealing in hay, grain, meats, and other goods. In 1863 he built an oil refinery that soon was the largest in the area. With a few associates he incorporated Standard Oil Co. (Ohio) in 1870. He bought out competitors to control the oil-refinery business in Cleveland (1872) and in the U.S. (1882). He placed the stock of the company and its affiliates in other states under control of a board of trustees, establishing the first major U.S. business trust company. As a result of antitrust proceedings, he later converted the trust into a holding company. In the 1890s he turned his attention to philanthropy. He founded the University of Chicago in 1892, the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (later Rockefeller University) in 1901, and the Rockefeller Foundation in 1913. He donated over $500 million in his lifetime, and his philanthropy continued through donations by his son, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (1874-1960), and other descendants
John Day: A river, about 452 km (281 mi) long, of northern Oregon flowing west and north to the Columbia River
John Day Fossil Beds National Monument: National monument, north-central Oregon, U.S. With an area of 14,014 acres (5,676 hectares), it is located along the John Day River (named after a Virginian scout of the 1811 Astor overland expedition). Fossils more than 30 million years old provide a paleontological record of five epochs of the Cenozoic Era
John Dee: {i} (1527-1608?) British mathematician and astrologer
John Deere: born Feb. 7, 1804, Rutland, Vt., U.S. died May 17, 1886, Moline, Ill. U.S. inventor and manufacturer of agricultural implements. He was apprenticed to a blacksmith and later set up his own smithy and moved to Illinois. There he found, through the frequent repairs he had to make, that wood and cast-iron plows, used in the eastern U.S. from the 1820s, were unsuited to the heavy, sticky prairie soils. By 1838 he had sold three steel plows of his own design; by 1846 he had sold about 1,000, and by 1857 10,000. In 1868 Deere & Co. was incorporated, and it went on to become the largest U.S. manufacturer of farm machinery
John Deere: {i} (1804-1886) United States journeyman blacksmith who developed and manufactured the world's first commercially successful steel plow; American corporation headquartered in Illinois, manufacturer of industrial and agricultural equipment
John Dennis: {i} (1657-1734) British dramatist and critic
John Denton Pinkstone 1st earl of Ypres French: born Sept. 28, 1852, Ripple, Kent, Eng. died May 22, 1925, Deal, Kent British military leader. A soldier from 1874, he successfully led the British cavalry in the South African War. He was appointed inspector general in 1907 and chief of the army general staff in 1913. As commander of the British Expeditionary Force from the beginning of World War I, he was criticized for his indecisive leadership at Ypres, Belg., and elsewhere that caused large numbers of British casualties. Forced to resign in 1915, he served as commander in chief in Britain and later as lord lieutenant of Ireland (1918-21)
John Denver: {i} Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. (1943-1997), United States country singer who was killed while piloting an experimental fiberglass airplane
John Dewey: {i} (1859-1952) American philosopher and educator, one of the founders of the school of Pragmatism
John Dewey: born Oct. 20, 1859, Burlington, Vt., U.S. died June 1, 1952, New York, N.Y. U.S. philosopher and educator who was one of the founders of pragmatism, a pioneer in functional psychology, and a leader of the Progressive movement in U.S. education. He received a Ph.D. (1884) from Johns Hopkins University and taught 10 years at the University of Michigan before moving to the University of Chicago. Influenced by G. Stanley Hall and William James, he developed an instrumentalist theory of knowledge that conceived of ideas as tools for the solution of problems encountered in the environment. Believing the experimental methods of modern science provided the most promising approach to social and ethical problems, he applied this view to studies of democracy and liberalism. He asserted that democracy provided citizens with the opportunity for maximum experimentation and personal growth. His writings on education, notably The School and Society (1899) and The Child and the Curriculum (1902), emphasized the interests of the child and the use of the classroom to cultivate the interplay between thought and experience. At Chicago he created laboratory schools to test his theories. His work in psychology focused on the total organism in its efforts to adjust to the environment. In 1904 Dewey joined the Columbia University faculty. In 1925 he published his magnum opus, Experience and Nature
John Dickinson: born Nov. 8, 1732, Talbot county, Md. died Feb. 14, 1808, Wilmington, Del., U.S. American statesman. He represented Pennsylvania at the 1765 Stamp Act Congress and drafted the Congress's declaration of rights and grievances. He won fame in 1767-68 as the author of the Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies, which influenced opinion against the Townshend Acts. A delegate to the Continental Congress, he helped draft the Articles of Confederation. Hoping for conciliation with the British, he voted against the Declaration of Independence. As a Delaware delegate to the Constitutional Convention, he signed the U.S. Constitution and urged its adoption in a series of letters signed "Fabius." He is sometimes called the "penman of the Revolution
John Doe: used especially by the police to refer to a man whose name is not known Jane Doe
John Doe: {i} anonymous person, person whose identity is not known
John Doerr: {i} (born 1929) one of the leaders of the computer industry in Silicon Valley, investor in start-up companies and holder of many computer patents
John Donald Budge: born June 13, 1915, Oakland, Calif., U.S. died Jan. 26, 2000, Scranton, Pa. U.S. tennis player. He won his very first tournament, the California Boys State Singles title (1930). In 1936 he became the first lawn-tennis player to win the grand-slam (the Australian, French, British, and U.S. singles championships). At Wimbledon in both 1937 and 1938, he won not only the singles but also the men's doubles and mixed doubles. Representing the U.S. four times in the Davis Cup competition (1935-38), he won 25 of 29 matches. He turned professional in 1939. He is noted for having developed the backhand into an offensive stroke
John Donne: an English poet famous for his love poetry, and for being the greatest writer of metaphysical poetry, which combines strong feelings with clever arrangements of words and ideas (?1571-1631). born Jan. 24-June 19, 1572, London, Eng. died March 31, 1631, London English poet. Donne was born into a Roman Catholic family. He entered the University of Oxford at age 12; he later transferred to the University of Cambridge and subsequently studied law. An adventurer in youth, he hoped for a high public appointment, but his clandestine marriage to his employer's daughter ruined his prospects. He converted to Anglicanism; ordained in 1615, he became a preacher of great power and eloquence and was installed as dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in 1621. The greatest of the English Metaphysical poets (see Metaphysical poetry), he is noted for his love lyrics, religious verse and treatises, and sermons. His secular poetry, most written early in his career, is direct, intense, brilliantly witty, and daringly imaginative. Later his tone darkened with works such as the Anniversaries (1611-12), two long poems meditating on the decay of the world. His 19 famous Holy Sonnets (written 1607-13) were published posthumously. Among his prose works, many as dramatic and intimate as his poetry, the most enduring is Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1624)
John Dory: Either of two North Atlantic fish (Zeus faber or Z. ocellata) having a laterally compressed body and long spines on the dorsal fin
John Dos Passos: born Jan. 14, 1896, Chicago, Ill., U.S. died Sept. 28, 1970, Baltimore, Md. U.S. writer. Son of a wealthy lawyer, Dos Passos attended Harvard University. His wartime service as an ambulance driver and later work as a journalist led him to see the U.S. as "two nations," one for the rich and one for the poor. His reputation as social historian, radical critic of American life, and major novelist of the postwar "lost generation" rests primarily on his powerful U.S.A. trilogy, comprising The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919 (1932), and The Big Money (1936)
John Dowland: born 1562/63, Westminster, London, Eng. died Jan. 21, 1626, London English composer and lutenist. Educated at Oxford, he was refused a court position in 1594 and, believing his adoptive Catholicism had been the cause, he left for the continent. There he traveled extensively and took a position at the Danish court. In 1612, when his compositions had made him famous, he was finally appointed lutenist to the English court. He published three collections of songs, including about 90 works for solo lute and some 80 lute songs, including "Come again, sweet love does now endite," " Flow my tears," and "Weep you no more, sad fountains." His Lachrimae is a collection for viol-and-lute ensemble
John Dowland: {i} (1563-1626) English composer and lutist
John Dryden: {i} (1631-1700) English poet and playwright
John Dryden: an English writer of poetry and plays. His many plays include Marriage á la Mode and All for Love (1631-1700). born Aug. 9, 1631, Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire, Eng. died May 1, 1700, London British poet, dramatist, and literary critic. The son of a country gentleman, Dryden was educated at the University of Cambridge. His poetry celebrating the Restoration so pleased Charles II that he was named poet laureate (1668) and, two years later, royal historiographer. Even after losing the laureateship and his court patronage in 1688 with the accession of William III, he succeeded in dominating the literary scene with his numerous works, many attuned to politics and public life. Several of his nearly 30 comedies, tragedies, and dramatic operas including Marriage A-la-Mode (1672), Aureng-Zebe (1675), and All for Love (1677) were outstandingly successful. His Of Dramatick Poesie (1668) was the first substantial piece of modern dramatic criticism. Turning away from drama, he became England's greatest verse satirist, producing the masterpieces Absalom and Achitophel (1681) and Mac Flecknoe (1682). He also produced extensive translations of Latin poetry, including Virgil's Aeneid
John Dudley duke of Northumberland: born 1502 died Aug. 22, 1553, London, Eng. English politician. After serving as deputy governor of English-occupied Calais (1538) and lord high admiral (1542), he fought in the invasion of Scotland (1544) and captured the French city of Boulogne (1544). He was created earl of Warwick (1546) and in 1547 became a member of the regency council that governed for the young Edward VI. After engineering the fall of the duke of Somerset, Warwick assumed control of the regency (1550). He made himself duke of Northumberland in 1551 and ordered Somerset's arrest and execution in 1552. He imposed strict conformity to Protestant doctrine in support of the Reformation. In 1553 he persuaded the dying Edward VI to will the crown to Northumberland's daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey; thwarted by supporters of Mary Tudor (Mary I), he was arrested and executed for treason
John Duns Scotus: born 1266, Duns, Lothian, Scot. died Nov. 8, 1308, Cologne Medieval Scottish philosopher and Scholastic theologian. He studied and taught at Oxford, where he joined the Franciscans, and later taught at the University of Paris, from which he was briefly exiled for supporting Pope Boniface VIII in his quarrel with King Philip IV. In 1307 he became professor of theology at Cologne, perhaps to escape charges of heresy over his defense of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which the Dominicans and secular authorities opposed. His two major works are Ordinatio and Quaestiones quodlibetales, both left unfinished at his death
John Dunstable: born 1385, England died Dec. 24, 1453, London English composer. His life and career are almost completely obscure. After his death he came to be credited with the achievements of all his English contemporaries, including Leonel Power ( 1380-1445). He left at least 50 compositions, all for three and four voices and almost all sacred. Their full triadic harmony and frequent parallel motion in the voices represented an important innovation that influenced composers such as Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois ( 1400-60), softening the austerity of 14th-century polyphony
John Eales: born June 27, 1970, Brisbane, Austl. Australian rugby union player. Between 1990 and 2001 Eales, who stands 6 ft 7 in. (2.01 m), displayed exceptional all-around ability while playing second row forward (lock) for Queensland and Australia. With Australia he won two World Cups (1991, 1999) and two Tri-Nations Cups (2000, 2001) and served as captain of the Wallabies from 1996 to 2001. In 1999 he was awarded the Order of Australia (AM) for services to the community and rugby
John Edgar Hoover: born Jan. 1, 1895, Washington, D.C., U.S. died May 2, 1972, Washington, D.C. U.S. director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He entered the Department of Justice as a file reviewer in 1917; two years later, as special assistant to Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, he helped in the roundup and deportation of suspected Bolsheviks. In 1924 he was named director of the Bureau of Investigation, which he remade into a professional, merit-based organization. In the 1930s he successfully publicized the FBI's success in tracking down and capturing well-known criminals. During this time, both the FBI's size and its responsibilities grew steadily. In the late 1930s Hoover received authorization to investigate foreign espionage in the U.S. and the activities of communists and fascists alike. When the Cold War began in the late 1940s, the FBI undertook intensive surveillance of communists and other left-wing activists in the U.S. Hoover's animus toward radicals of every kind led him to investigate both the Ku Klux Klan and Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as other African American activists in the 1960s. At the same time, he maintained a hands-off policy toward the Mafia, which was allowed to conduct its operations nationwide practically free of FBI scrutiny or interference. Hoover habitually used the FBI's enormous surveillance and information-gathering powers to collect damaging information on politicians throughout the country, and apparently he was able to intimidate even sitting presidents by threatening to leak damaging disclosures about them. He retained his post for 48 years, until his death
John Edgar Thomson: In 1847 he was hired as chief engineer of the newly incorporated Pennsylvania Railroad Co., which aimed to compete with trade lines to the west originating in New York and other eastern states. He became its president in 1852 and oversaw construction of a railway that crossed the Alleghenies without using inclined grades. Over the next 22 years, Thomson consolidated a network of lines from Philadelphia to Chicago, expanding the company's track from 250 to 6,000 mi (400-10,000 km)
John Edgar Thomson: born , Feb. 10, 1808, Springfield Township, Pa., U.S. died May 27, 1874, Philadelphia, Pa. U.S. civil engineer and railroad executive. He joined the Pennsylvania engineer corps at age
John Edgar Wideman: born June 14, 1941, Washington, D.C., U.S. U.S. writer and educator. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania he became the second African American to receive a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University. He published his first novel, A Glance Away, in 1967. His first work of nonfiction was the acclaimed Brothers and Keepers (1984), in which he examines his relationship with his brother, who is serving a life sentence in prison. He won PEN/Faulkner Awards for Sent for You Yesterday (1983) and Philadelphia Fire (1990), a fictional account of the bombing of the militant black group MOVE combined with an examination of his relationship with his son, now in prison
John Elder: born March 8, 1824, Glasgow, Scot. died Sept. 17, 1869, London, Eng. Scottish marine engineer. In 1854 he developed the marine compound steam engine (using both high-and low-pressure steam), which enabled seagoing vessels to save 30-40% of the coal they had been burning and helped make practical long voyages on which refueling was impossible
John Eliot: born 1604, Widford, Hertfordshire, Eng. died May 21, 1690, Roxbury, Massachusetts Bay Colony English Puritan missionary to the Indians of Massachusetts Bay Colony. He emigrated to Boston in 1631 and became pastor of a church in nearby Roxbury. Supported by his congregation and fellow ministers, he began a mission to the American Indians that inspired the creation in 1649 of the first genuine missionary society (financed chiefly from England). His methods set the pattern of subsequent Native American missions for almost two centuries. His translation of the Bible into the Algonquian language was the first Bible printed in North America
John Elway: born June 28, 1960, Port Angeles, Wash., U.S. U.S. football player. He had an outstanding athletic career at Stanford University, then played professional baseball briefly before joining the Denver Broncos in 1983. He is one of only three quarterbacks to have passed for more than 45,000 yd; he holds the record for victories by a starting quarterback (148); and he ranks among the top three for pass attempts (7,250), pass completions (4,123), passing yardage (51,475), and passing touchdowns (300). Famous for last-minute heroics, he led a total of 47 fourth-quarter game-winning or game-tying touchdown drives. He announced his retirement in 1999 after leading the Broncos to a second consecutive Super Bowl victory
John Emerich Edward Dahlberg Acton 1st Baron Acton: born Jan.10, 1834, Naples, Kingdom of Naples died June 19, 1902, Tegernsee, Bavaria, German Empire English historian. He served in the House of Commons (1859-65). Editor of the Roman Catholic monthly The Rambler (1859-64), he resigned because of papal criticism of his scientific approach to history. An adviser to William E. Gladstone from 1865, he was raised to the peerage in 1869. In 1895 he was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge. He later coordinated the massive publication project of The Cambridge Modern History. A critic of nationalism, he coined the familiar aphorism "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely
John Emerich Edward Dahlberg Acton 1st Baron Acton of Aldenham: born Jan.10, 1834, Naples, Kingdom of Naples died June 19, 1902, Tegernsee, Bavaria, German Empire English historian. He served in the House of Commons (1859-65). Editor of the Roman Catholic monthly The Rambler (1859-64), he resigned because of papal criticism of his scientific approach to history. An adviser to William E. Gladstone from 1865, he was raised to the peerage in 1869. In 1895 he was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge. He later coordinated the massive publication project of The Cambridge Modern History. A critic of nationalism, he coined the familiar aphorism "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely
John Ericsson: born July 31, 1803, Långbanshyttan, Swed. died March 8, 1889, New York, N.Y., U.S. Swedish-U.S. naval engineer and inventor. He moved to England in 1826, where he constructed a steam locomotive (1829) and later devised a caloric engine and patented a screw propeller. He immigrated to the U.S in 1839. During the Civil War he proposed, designed, and built a novel warship, the Monitor. Its battle with the Confederacy's Merrimack led the government to place an order for many more such vessels. Wholly steam-powered and with a screw propeller and an armoured revolving turret, it set a new pattern for U.S. warships that continued until the 20th century. He later developed a torpedo and investigated solar-powered motors
John Ernst Steinbeck: born Feb. 27, 1902, Salinas, Calif., U.S. died Dec. 20, 1968, New York, N.Y. U.S. novelist. Steinbeck intermittently attended Stanford University and worked as a manual labourer before his books attained success. He spent much of his life in Monterey county, Calif. His reputation rests mostly on the naturalistic novels on proletarian themes that he wrote in the 1930s. Among them are Tortilla Flat (1935), In Dubious Battle (1936), Of Mice and Men (1937), and the acclaimed The Grapes of Wrath (1939, Pulitzer Prize), which aroused widespread sympathy for the plight of migratory farm workers. In World War II he served as a war correspondent. His later novels include Cannery Row (1945), The Pearl (1947), The Wayward Bus (1947), and East of Eden (1952). He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962
John Evelyn: born Oct. 31, 1620, Wotton, Surrey, Eng. died Feb. 27, 1706, Wotton British writer. A country gentleman from a wealthy landowning family, he wrote some 30 books on the fine arts, forestry, and religious topics. His Diary (published 1818), which he kept from 1631 to 1706, is an invaluable source of information on 17th-century social, cultural, religious, and political life. His Life of Mrs. Godolphin (published 1847) is one of the most moving of 17th-century biographies
John Everett Millais: {i} Sir John Everett Millais (1829-1896), English painter
John F Kennedy: born May 29, 1917, Brookline, Mass., U.S. died Nov. 22, 1963, Dallas, Texas 35th president of the U.S. (1961-63). The son of Joseph P. Kennedy, he graduated from Harvard University in 1940 and joined the navy the following year. He commanded a patrol torpedo (PT) boat in World War II and was gravely injured in an attack by a Japanese destroyer; he was later decorated for heroism. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1946 and the U.S. Senate in 1952, he supported social-welfare legislation and became increasingly committed to civil rights; in foreign affairs, he supported the Cold War policies of the Truman administration. In 1960 he won the Democratic nomination for president, beating out Lyndon B. Johnson, who became his running mate. In his acceptance speech Kennedy declared, "We stand on the edge of a New Frontier"; thereafter the phrase "New Frontier" was associated with his programs. After a vigorous campaign managed by his brother Robert F. Kennedy and aided financially by his father, he narrowly defeated the Republican candidate, Richard Nixon. He was the youngest person and the first Roman Catholic elected president. In his inaugural address he called on Americans to "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." His legislative program, including massive income-tax cuts and a sweeping civil-rights measure, received little support in the Congress, though he did win approval of the Peace Corps and the Alliance for Progress. In 1961 he committed the U.S. to land a man on the Moon by the end of the decade. In foreign affairs he approved a plan drawn up during the Eisenhower administration to land an invasion force of Cuban exiles on their homeland, but the Bay of Pigs invasion (1961) was a fiasco. Determined to combat the spread of communism in Asia, he sent military advisers and other assistance to South Vietnam. During the Cuban missile crisis (1962) he imposed a naval blockade on Cuba and demanded that the Soviet Union remove its nuclear missiles from the island. In 1963 he successfully concluded the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty with Britain and the Soviet Union. In November 1963, while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, he was assassinated by a sniper, allegedly Lee Harvey Oswald. The killing is considered the most notorious political murder of the 20th century. Kennedy's youth, energy, and charming family brought him world adulation and sparked the idealism of a generation, for whom the Kennedy White House became known as "Camelot." Revelations about his powerful family and his personal life, especially concerning his extramarital affairs, tainted his image in later years. See also Jackie Kennedy Onassis
John F. Kennedy: {i} John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963), 35th president of the United States (1961-63), founder of many post-World War II economic and social reforms, president who gave final approval for the Bay of Pigs Invasion in Cuba, assassinated in Dallas (Texas) on November 22nd 1963
John F. Kennedy Jr.: (1960-1999) American lawyer and publisher (son of U.S. President John F. Kennedy) who was killed along with his wife and her sister when their private airplane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean
John Fante: born April 8, 1909, Denver, Colo., U.S. died May 8, 1983, Woodland Hills, Calif. U.S. writer. Born to Italian immigrant parents, Fante moved to Los Angeles in the early 1930s. His first novel, Wait Until Spring, Bandini (1938), was followed by his best-known book, Ask the Dust (1939), the first of his novels set in Depression-era California. Other books included the story collection Dago Red (1940) and the novels Full of Life (1952) and Brotherhood of the Grape (1977). He also wrote numerous screenplays, including Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Full of Life (1956), and A Walk on the Wild Side (1962). Long eclipsed, he began to be rediscovered in the 1990s
John Fitzgerald Kennedy: a US politician in the Democratic Party, also known as Jack Kennedy and JFK, who was President of the US from 1961 to 1963. He was an extremely popular president, and he planned to improve education, the system of medical care, and civil rights in the US, although it was Lyndon B. Johnson who achieved most of these plans after Kennedy's death. In 1961 Kennedy ordered the invasion of the Bay of Pigs in Cuba, and he was strongly criticized for this. Two years later he was shot in Dallas, Texas, and Lee Harvey Oswald was accused of killing him (1917-63). born May 29, 1917, Brookline, Mass., U.S. died Nov. 22, 1963, Dallas, Texas 35th president of the U.S. (1961-63). The son of Joseph P. Kennedy, he graduated from Harvard University in 1940 and joined the navy the following year. He commanded a patrol torpedo (PT) boat in World War II and was gravely injured in an attack by a Japanese destroyer; he was later decorated for heroism. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1946 and the U.S. Senate in 1952, he supported social-welfare legislation and became increasingly committed to civil rights; in foreign affairs, he supported the Cold War policies of the Truman administration. In 1960 he won the Democratic nomination for president, beating out Lyndon B. Johnson, who became his running mate. In his acceptance speech Kennedy declared, "We stand on the edge of a New Frontier"; thereafter the phrase "New Frontier" was associated with his programs. After a vigorous campaign managed by his brother Robert F. Kennedy and aided financially by his father, he narrowly defeated the Republican candidate, Richard Nixon. He was the youngest person and the first Roman Catholic elected president. In his inaugural address he called on Americans to "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." His legislative program, including massive income-tax cuts and a sweeping civil-rights measure, received little support in the Congress, though he did win approval of the Peace Corps and the Alliance for Progress. In 1961 he committed the U.S. to land a man on the Moon by the end of the decade. In foreign affairs he approved a plan drawn up during the Eisenhower administration to land an invasion force of Cuban exiles on their homeland, but the Bay of Pigs invasion (1961) was a fiasco. Determined to combat the spread of communism in Asia, he sent military advisers and other assistance to South Vietnam. During the Cuban missile crisis (1962) he imposed a naval blockade on Cuba and demanded that the Soviet Union remove its nuclear missiles from the island. In 1963 he successfully concluded the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty with Britain and the Soviet Union. In November 1963, while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, he was assassinated by a sniper, allegedly Lee Harvey Oswald. The killing is considered the most notorious political murder of the 20th century. Kennedy's youth, energy, and charming family brought him world adulation and sparked the idealism of a generation, for whom the Kennedy White House became known as "Camelot." Revelations about his powerful family and his personal life, especially concerning his extramarital affairs, tainted his image in later years. See also Jackie Kennedy Onassis
John Fitzgerald Kennedy: {i} John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) ,35th president of the United States (1961-63), founder of many post-World War II economic and social reforms, president who gave final approval for the Bay of Pigs Invasion in Cuba, assassinated in Dallas (Texas) on November 22nd 1963
John Flaxman: born July 6, 1755, York, Eng. died Dec. 7, 1826, London British sculptor, illustrator, and designer. In 1770 he entered the Royal Academy schools. After 1775 he worked for pottery designer Josiah Wedgwood, producing designs based on Classical antiquity. He directed the Wedgwood studio in Rome (1787-94), but his book illustrations were of far greater importance; his illustrations for the Iliad (1793), Odyssey (1795), and Divine Comedy (1807) became very well known. The leading Neoclassical artist in England, he became the Royal Academy's first professor of sculpture (1810). In his own day his reputation as a sculptor, notably of monuments with large groups of free-standing figures, was exceeded only by that of Antonio Canova and Bertel Thorvaldsen
John Fogerty: (born 1945) American rock singer and guitarist, member of the rock and roll band "Creedence Clearwater Revival
John Forbes Nash: born June 13, 1928, Bluefield, W.Va., U.S. U.S. mathematician. He earned a doctorate from Princeton University at
John Forbes Nash: He began teaching at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1951 but left in the late 1950s because of mental illness; thereafter he was informally associated with Princeton. Beginning in the 1950s with his influential thesis "Non-cooperative Games," Nash established the mathematical principles of game theory. His theory, known as the Nash solution or Nash equilibrium, attempted to explain the dynamics of threat and action among competitors. Despite its practical limitations, it was widely applied by business strategists. He shared the 1994 Nobel Prize in Economics with John C. Harsanyi (b. 1920) and Reinhard Selten (b. 1930). A film version of his life, A Beautiful Mind (2001), won an Academy Award for best picture
John Ford: {i} (1895-1973) U.S.A. film director (directed: "Rio Grande, " "Grapes of Wrath " and many others)
John Ford: a US film director famous for his westerns (=films about the American west in the 19th century) . His films include Stagecoach (1939), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), and The Searchers (1956) (1895-1973). orig. Sean Aloysius O'Feeney or O'Fearna born Feb. 1, 1895, Cape Elizabeth, Maine, U.S. died Aug. 31, 1973, Palm Desert, Calif. U.S. film director. In 1914 Ford went to Hollywood to join his brother, who was there acting in films. Ford became a director of westerns, achieving success with The Iron Horse (1924). His distinctive style united action with colourful characterization and reflected his sense of American identity. He is best remembered for such westerns as Stagecoach (1939), My Darling Clementine (1946), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), many of which starred John Wayne. He also directed such historical dramas as Mary of Scotland (1936) and Young Mr. Lincoln (1939). He received Academy Awards for The Informer (1935), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1941), and The Quiet Man (1952), and also for his wartime documentaries The Battle of Midway (1942) and December 7th (1943). (baptized April 17, 1586, Ilsington, Devon, Eng. died 1639?) British dramatist. Early in his career he studied law and wrote collaboratively with several other playwrights, but little more is known of his life, and the dating of many of his works is uncertain. His revenge tragedies are characterized by scenes of austere beauty, insight into human passions, and poetic diction of a high order. His reputation rests on the first four plays he wrote alone, only one of which can be dated with certainty: The Broken Heart; The Lover's Melancholy (1628); Perkin Warbeck; and 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, an eloquently sympathetic story of incestuous lovers that is his best-known work
John Foster Dulles: a US lawyer and politician in the Republican Party, who was Secretary of State (=the minister who deals with foreign policy and foreign governments) from 1953 to 1959. He strongly influenced the US's anti-Communist policy during the Cold War (1888-1959). born Feb. 25, 1888, Washington, D.C., U.S. died May 24, 1959, Washington, D.C. U.S. secretary of state (1953-59). He was counsel to the American Peace Commission at Versailles, France, and later helped oversee the payment of World War I reparations. He helped prepare the charter of the UN and was a delegate to its General Assembly (1946-49). He negotiated the complex Japanese peace treaty (1949-51). As secretary of state under Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower, he advocated active opposition to Soviet actions and developed the Eisenhower Doctrine. His critics considered him inflexible and harsh and a practitioner of "brinkmanship" for raising international tensions and bringing the country to the brink of war; later assessments credit his firmness in checking communist expansion
John Fowles: born March 31, 1926, Leigh upon Sea, Essex, Eng. British novelist. His richly allusive and descriptive works combine psychological probings chiefly of sex and love with an interest in the social and philosophical context of human behaviour. His first novel, The Collector (1963; film, 1965), about a shy man who kidnaps a girl in a hapless search for love, was followed by The Magus (1966; film, 1968) and The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969; film, 1981), his most famous work, set in Victorian England. Later works include The Ebony Tower (1974; film made for television, 1984) and Daniel Martin (1977)
John Frederick Charles Fuller: born Sept. 1, 1878, Chichester, Sussex, Eng. died Feb. 10, 1966, Falmouth, Cornwall British military theoretician and historian. He served as chief of staff of the British tank corps in World War I. He planned the surprise attack of 381 tanks at the Battle of Cambrai (Nov. 20, 1917), the first massed tank assault in history. After the war he launched a crusade for the mechanization and modernization of the British army. His emphasis on the armoured offensive met with resistance among English military tacticians, but his teachings were largely vindicated in World War II. His works include Tanks in the Great War (1920), Machine Warfare (1942), and A Military History of the Western World (1954-56)
John French Sloan: born Aug. 2, 1871, Lock Haven, Pa., U.S. died Sept. 7, 1951, Hanover, N.H. U.S. artist. He worked as a commercial newspaper artist in Philadelphia, where he studied with Robert Henri. He followed Henri to New York City, where in 1908 with six others they exhibited as The Eight. Sloan's realistic urban paintings gave rise to the epithet Ash Can school. Works such as Sunday, Women Drying Their Hair (1912) and Backyards, Greenwich Village (1914) are sympathetic portrayals of working men and women; occasionally he evoked a mood of romantic melancholy
John G Diefenbaker: born Sept. 18, 1895, Grey county, Ont., Can. died Aug. 16, 1979, Ottawa Prime minister of Canada (1957-63). After serving in World War I, he practiced law in Saskatchewan. He was elected to the Canadian House of Commons in 1940. He became leader of the Progressive Conservative Party in 1956 and served as prime minister from 1957 to 1963, when his party lost its majority in the House of Commons. He resigned as party leader in 1967. He was chancellor of the University of Saskatchewan from 1969 until his death
John Galle: {i} Johann Gottfried Galle (1812-1910 ), German astronomer who discovered Neptune in 1846 with Heinrich Louis d'Arrest
John Galsworthy: a British writer of books and plays who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1932. His most famous work is a series of novels called The Forsyte Saga, about a wealthy English family called the Forsytes (1867-1933). born Aug. 14, 1867, Kingston Hill, Surrey, Eng. died Jan. 31, 1933, Grove Lodge, Hampstead English novelist and playwright. Galsworthy gave up a law career to become a writer, and many of his works have legal themes. He published several works before The Man of Property (1906), the first novel of The Forsyte Saga (completed 1922). The family chronicle by which he is chiefly remembered, it consists of three novels linked by two interludes. He continued the story of the Forsytes in three further novels collected in A Modern Comedy (1929). His plays, written in a naturalistic style, usually examine a controversial ethical or social problem; they include The Silver Box (1906), Strife (1909), Justice (1910), and Loyalties (1922). He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1932
John Galsworthy: {i} (1867-1933) English novelist and dramatist, winner of the 1932 Nobel prize in Literature
John Gay: born , June 30, 1685, Barnstaple, Devon, Eng. died Dec. 4, 1732, London British poet and dramatist. From an ancient but impoverished Devonshire family, Gay was apprenticed to a silk mercer in London but was released early. He soon cofounded the journal The British Apollo. His poetry collections included Rural Sports (1713) and Trivia (1716). He is best known for the ballad opera The Beggar's Opera (1728), which ran for 62 performances (the longest run to that date). The play, with music by John C. Pepusch (1667-1752), was a cynical tale of thieves and highwaymen intended to mirror the moral degradation of society; its success made it a landmark in music-theatre history. It was adapted by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill as The Threepenny Opera (1928). Gay was buried in Westminster Abbey
John George Diefenbaker: born Sept. 18, 1895, Grey county, Ont., Can. died Aug. 16, 1979, Ottawa Prime minister of Canada (1957-63). After serving in World War I, he practiced law in Saskatchewan. He was elected to the Canadian House of Commons in 1940. He became leader of the Progressive Conservative Party in 1956 and served as prime minister from 1957 to 1963, when his party lost its majority in the House of Commons. He resigned as party leader in 1967. He was chancellor of the University of Saskatchewan from 1969 until his death
John George Kemeny: born May 31, 1926, Budapest, Hung. died Dec. 26, 1992, Hanover, N.H., U.S. Hungarian-born U.S. mathematician and computer scientist. He emigrated to the U.S. with his family at
John George Kemeny: He took a year off from his undergraduate studies at Princeton University to work on the Manhattan Project and was later a research assistant to Albert Einstein. He received a Ph.D. in 1949 and joined the Dartmouth College faculty in 1953, where he worked to develop the mathematics department. In the mid 1960s he and Thomas E. Kurtz (b. 1928) developed the BASIC computer programming language. He was a pioneer in the promotion of "new math" and the use of computers in education. He served as president of Dartmouth (1970-91)
John George Lambton 1st earl of Durham: born April 12, 1792, London died July 28, 1840, Cowes, Isle of Wight, Eng. British colonial administrator in Canada. He was a member of the British House of Commons (1813-28) and served in the cabinet of Earl Grey (1830-33). In 1838 he was appointed governor-general and lord high commissioner of Canada. He appointed a new executive council to placate the rebellious French Canadians of Lower Canada (later Quebec). Criticized in England for his action, he resigned. He later issued the Durham Report, which advocated the union of Lower Canada and Upper Canada and the expansion of self-government to preserve Canadian loyalty to Britain
John Glenn: {i} (born 1921) U.S. astronaut and US Senator from Ohio, first American to orbit the Earth (in 1962), oldest man to travel in space (in 1998)
John Glenn: the first US astronaut to make a journey in space in 1962. In 1974 he became a member of the US Senate for the Democratic Party, representing the state of Ohio. In 1998, he again went into space, becoming the oldest man to do so (1921-)
John Gower: born 1330? died 1408, London? English poet. His works, in the tradition of courtly love and moral allegory, strongly influenced other poets of his day. His friend Geoffrey Chaucer called him "moral Gower." His Speculum meditantis ( 1374-78), written in French, is an allegorical work on vices and virtues. Vox clamantis (1385?), his major Latin poem, owes much to Ovid. His greatest work in English is the Confessio Amantis (begun 1386), a long collection of exemplary tales of love
John Gower: {i} 1325-1408 English poet
John Graves Simcoe: born Feb. 25, 1752, Cotterstock, Northamptonshire, Eng. died Oct. 26, 1806, Exeter, Devonshire British soldier and colonial administrator in Canada. He served in the American Revolution as commander of the Queen's Rangers (1777-79). He was taken prisoner (1779) but later released (1781) and invalided back to England. After the Constitutional Act was passed, he served as the first lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada (now Ontario) from 1792 to 1796. He encouraged immigration and agriculture and supported defense and road building
John Greenleaf Whittier: born Dec. 17, 1807, near Haverhill, Mass., U.S. died Sept. 7, 1892, Hampton Falls, Mass. U.S. poet and reformer. A Quaker born on a farm, Whittier had limited education but was early acquainted with poetry. He became involved in journalism and published his first volume of poems in 1831. During 1833-42 he embraced the abolitionism of William Lloyd Garrison and became a prominent antislavery crusader. Thereafter he continued to support humanitarian causes while publishing further poetry volumes. After the Civil War he was noted for his vivid portrayals of rural New England life. His best-known poem is the nostalgic pastoral "Snow-Bound" (1866); others include "Maud Muller" (1854) and "Barbara Frietchie" (1863)
John Grisham: (born 1955) U.S. author of "The Firm" and "The Pelican Brief
John Guare: born Feb. 5, 1938, New York, N.Y., U.S. U.S. dramatist. After studying at the Yale School of Drama he began staging short plays in New York City. In 1971 he earned critical acclaim for his farcical play The House of Blue Leaves. Two Gentlemen of Verona (1972, with Mel Shapiro), a rock-musical version of William Shakespeare's comedy, won him Tony and New York Drama Critics Circle awards. His later works include Six Degrees of Separation (1990; film, 1993) and Four Baboons Adoring the Sun (1992)
John Gunther: born Aug. 30, 1901, Chicago, Ill., U.S. died May 29, 1970, New York, N.Y. U.S. journalist and author. He worked for the Chicago Daily News London bureau (1924-36) before publishing Inside Europe (1936), the first of his highly successful sociopolitical books describing and interpreting various regions of the world, including Inside Asia (1939), Inside Latin America (1941), Inside Africa (1955), Inside Russia Today (1958), Inside Europe Today (1961), and Inside South America (1967). He was also a war correspondent and radio commentator
John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum: born March 25, 1867, St. Charles, Idaho, U.S. died March 6, 1941, Chicago, Ill. U.S. sculptor. Born to Danish immigrant parents, he studied art in Paris. In 1901 he opened a studio in New York City. His bronze group The Mares of Diomedes was the first U.S. sculpture purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He carved the head of Abraham Lincoln in the U.S. Capitol rotunda. In 1916 he was commissioned to sculpt a memorial to the Confederacy on Stone Mountain, Ga., but disputes with his patrons caused him to abandon the project in 1924; it was completed by others. His most notable project was the Mount Rushmore National Memorial (completed 1941)
John H Johnson: born Jan. 19, 1918, Arkansas City, Ark., U.S. U.S. magazine and book publisher. He moved to Chicago with his family and became a journalist. He introduced Negro Digest, a periodical for blacks, in 1942. Three years later he launched Ebony, a magazine he modeled on Life; by 2002 the magazine had a circulation of more than 1.8 million. Through Johnson Publishing Co., he also published black-oriented books and other magazines, and he later moved into radio broadcasting, insurance, and cosmetics manufacturing
John H Jr. Glenn: born , July 18, 1921, Cambridge, Ohio, U.S. U.S. astronaut and senator. He flew 59 missions as a Marine Corps pilot in World War II and 90 during the Korean War. The oldest of the seven astronauts selected in 1959 for the Mercury project's spaceflight training, he was a backup pilot for Alan B. Shepard and Virgil I. Grissom (1926-67), who made the first two U.S. suborbital flights into space. Glenn was selected for the orbital flight, and in February 1962 his space capsule, Friendship 7, was launched and made three orbits. He retired from the space program in 1964 and pursued his interest in politics, serving as U.S. Senator from Ohio (1975-99). In 1998, at age 77, he made his second spaceflight (as part of the crew of the space shuttle Discovery), becoming the oldest person to go into space
John Hampden: born 1594, London, Eng. died June 24, 1643, Thame, Oxfordshire, Eng. English Parliamentary leader. In 1635 he refused to pay 20 shillings in ship money, a levy by Charles I for outfitting his navy, on the ground that only Parliament was empowered to levy taxes. Though the court ruled in favour of Charles, resistance to the tax became widespread. In the Long Parliament (1640), Hampden attacked royal policies and was one of the five members who evaded arrest by the king in 1642. The ship-money episode was one of the controversies that led to the English Civil Wars, in which Hampden was mortally wounded
John Hancock: {i} (1737-1793) U.S.A. statesman, first signer of the Declaration of Independence
John Hancock: A person's signature. a US politician who was the president of the Continental Congress before the US became an independent country, and was the first person to write his name on the Declaration of Independence (1737-93). born Jan. 12, 1737, Braintree, Mass. died Oct. 8, 1793, Quincy, Mass., U.S. American Revolutionary leader. He entered the mercantile business of his wealthy uncle in Boston in 1754. His adherence to the patriot cause dates from the Stamp Act, which, as a leading merchant, he protested. In 1769, soon after the British seized one of his ships, he was elected to the Massachusetts legislature, and he chaired the Boston town committee formed after the Boston Massacre. He became president of the provincial congress (1774-75), and he and Samuel Adams led the Massachusetts Patriots. In 1775 both were forced to flee from British troops sent to arrest them for treason. Hancock was a member of the Continental Congress (1775-80), serving as its president (1775-77); the bold flourish with which he signed the Declaration of Independence has made his name synonymous with "signature." As governor of Massachusetts (1780-85, 1787-93), he presided over the state's ratification of the Constitution in 1788
John Hanning Speke: born May 3, 1827, Bideford, Devon, Eng. died Sept. 15, 1864, Corsham, Wiltshire British explorer. He was a member of Richard Burton's expedition, and in 1858 Speke and Burton became the first Europeans to reach Lake Tanganyika. On the return trip he left Burton and struck out northward alone. In July 1858 he reached a great lake, which he named Lake Victoria, for the queen. His claim that it was the source of the Nile was questioned, but on a second expedition (1860-63) he found the Nile's exit from the lake. Speke's claim to have found the Nile's source was again challenged in England. He was killed by his own gun while hunting on the very day he was to debate Burton publicly
John Harold Johnson: born Jan. 19, 1918, Arkansas City, Ark., U.S. U.S. magazine and book publisher. He moved to Chicago with his family and became a journalist. He introduced Negro Digest, a periodical for blacks, in 1942. Three years later he launched Ebony, a magazine he modeled on Life; by 2002 the magazine had a circulation of more than 1.8 million. Through Johnson Publishing Co., he also published black-oriented books and other magazines, and he later moved into radio broadcasting, insurance, and cosmetics manufacturing
John Harrison: born March 1693, Foulby, Yorkshire, Eng. died March 24, 1776, London British horologist. The son of a carpenter, in 1735 he invented the first practical marine chronometer. He followed it with three later instruments, each smaller and more accurate than its predecessor, and in 1762 his No. 4 chronometer was found to be in error by only five seconds (1 1/4 longitude) after a voyage from England to Jamaica. Chronometers gave mariners their first practical method of fixing position at sea from celestial observations. See also Ferdinand Berthoud

Turkish - English

Definition of john in Turkish English dictionary: John

john

Hyphenation

John

Turkish pronunciation

cän

Synonyms

sir, boy, bro, gov, guv, guvnor, mac, man, mate, mister, son

Pronunciation

/ˈʤän/ /ˈʤɑːn/

Etymology

[ 'jän ] (noun.) 1856. From Latin Iōhannēs (variant of Iōannēs), from New Testament Greek Ἰωάννης (Iōannēs), contraction from Hebrew יוֹחָנָ (Johanan) Jōħānān, perhaps from a former יְהוֹחָנָן (Yehochanan) Jəhôħānān, meaning "God is gracious".