robert

English - Turkish

Definition of robert in English Turkish dictionary
robert b. altman: b. robert Altman
robert norton noyce: robert kuzey Noyce
robert peel: robert soyma
herb robert: (Botanik, Bitkibilim) turnagagası
herbs robert: (Botanik, Bitkibilim) turnagagası

Turkish - Turkish

Definition of robert in Turkish Turkish dictionary
robert altman: Cephede Eğlence, Kansas City, Kaybetme Zamanı gibi filmleriyle tanınan ve geçenlerde 81 yaşındayken ölen ABD'li sinema yönetmeni

English - English

Definition of robert in English English dictionary: A male given name, one of the most common English names since the Norman Conquest
I hadn't even considered names for a girl. Robby it would be. Robert Douglas. Where the Douglas came from is another story, but the Robert came from me because I liked the sound. Robert was formal, dignified, important. Robert. And that was nearly as nice as as the chance I'd have to call my little brother Rob and Robby.; American army engineer and parliamentary authority. He designed the defenses for Washington, D.C., during the Civil War and later wrote Robert's Rules of Order (1876). orig. John Stewart, earl of Carrick born 1337 died April 4, 1406, Rothesay, Bute, Scot. King of Scotland (1390-1406). After having ruled in the name of his father, Robert II, from 1384 to 1388, he assumed the throne in his own right on his father's death. Physically disabled by a kick from a horse in 1388, he was never the real ruler of Scotland. His brother Robert, earl of Fife, later duke of Albany, governed during Robert II's last years and continued to govern throughout Robert III's reign, except for three years when Robert III's eldest son, David, duke of Rothesay, took his place. Robert III's other son became James I. known as Robert Curthose born 1054 died February 1134, Cardiff, Wales Duke of Normandy (1087-1106). The eldest son of William I, he was named heir to Normandy but rebelled twice ( 1077, 1082). Robert was exiled to Italy but returned as duke on his father's death. He pawned Normandy to his brother William II and joined the First Crusade, in which he fought bravely and helped capture Jerusalem (1099). He led an unsuccessful invasion of England after Henry I became king (1100); Henry then invaded Normandy (1105-06) and captured Robert, who spent the rest of his life as a prisoner. born March 2, 1316 died April 19, 1390, Dundonald, Ayrshire, Scot. King of Scotland (1371-90). Grandson of Robert I, he served as regent during the periods of exile and of imprisonment by the English of his uncle, David II, and took the throne on David's death in 1371 as the first Stuart king and thus was the founder of the house of Stuart. His reign proved anticlimactic; he had little effect on political and military affairs, taking no active part in the renewed war with England (1378-88). Succession after his death was disputed by his numerous children (legitimate and illegitimate) and their descendants. known as Robert the Bruce born July 11, 1274 died June 7, 1329, Cardross, Dumbartonshire, Scot. King of Scotland (1306-29). Though Robert was of Anglo-Norman ancestry and held lands in both England and Scotland, he sided with the Scots against England and supported the rebel William Wallace. He gained the Scottish throne in 1306 after stabbing a rival to death in a quarrel. Twice defeated by Edward I (1306), he became a fugitive, hiding on a remote island off the Irish coast. Within a year, Robert returned to Scotland and began gathering supporters, and in 1314 he defeated Edward II at the Battle of Bannockburn. Edward III finally recognized him and confirmed Scottish independence in 1328. Adam Robert Aldrich Robert Altman Robert B. Ashe Arthur Robert Jr. Baden Powell of Gilwell Robert Stephenson Smyth 1st Baron Bakewell Robert Baldwin Robert Ballard Robert Duane Bellarmine Saint Robert Benchley Robert Charles Bly Robert Elwood Robert Brackett Elliott Borden Sir Robert Laird David Robert Jones Boyle Robert Bresson Robert Bridges Robert Seymour Brown Robert Browning Robert Bunsen Robert Wilhelm Burns Robert Burton Robert Campin Robert Capa Robert Robert Leroy Parker Castlereagh Robert Stewart Viscount Cech Thomas Robert Cecil Robert 1st earl of Salisbury Chambers Robert and William Charles Robert of Anjou Clive of Plassey Robert 1st Baron Cotton Sir Robert Bruce Robert Joseph Cousy Crumb Robert Darwin Charles Robert De Niro Robert Delaunay Robert Dinwiddie Robert Robert Joseph Dole Dornberger Walter Robert Robert Allen Zimmerman Eden Robert Anthony 1st earl of Avon Essex Robert Devereux 2nd earl of Essex Robert Devereux 3rd earl of Robert William Andrew Feller Robert James Fischer Flaherty Robert Joseph Robert Louis Fosse Fowles John Robert Frank Robert Franz Robert Robert Franz Knauth Frost Robert Lee Fulton Robert Furchgott Robert Francis Pack Robert Gibson Gissing George Robert Goddard Robert Hutchings Graves Robert von Ranke Graves Robert James Grosseteste Robert Guggenheim Solomon Robert Harley Robert 1st earl of Oxford Hauptmann Gerhart Johann Robert Robert Lee Hayes Hayne Robert Young Heinlein Robert Anson Helpmann Sir Robert Murray Henri Robert Robert Henry Cozad Herrick Robert Hill David Octavius and Robert Adamson Hoe Robert and Hoe Richard March Holley Robert William Hooke Robert Robert Martin Hull Hutchins Robert Maynard Indiana Robert Robert Clark Jackson Robert Houghwout James Cyril Lionel Robert Joffrey Robert Johnson Robert Johnson Robert Wood Kennedy Robert Francis Kirchhoff Gustav Robert Koch Heinrich Hermann Robert La Follette Robert Marion La Salle René Robert Cavelier sieur de Lamennais Hugues Félicité Robert de Lee Robert Edward Leicester Robert Dudley earl of Liverpool Robert Banks Jenkinson 2nd earl of Livingston Robert R. Lowell Robert Lucas Robert E. Jr. Ludlum Robert Lynd Robert Staughton and Lynd Helen MacIver Robert Morrison Mallet Robert Malthus Thomas Robert Mapplethorpe Robert Robert Nesta Marley Robert Bruce Mathias Maxwell Ian Robert McCormick Robert Rutherford McNamara Robert Strange Menzies Sir Robert Gordon Merton Robert King Millikan Robert Andrews Mitchum Robert Charles Duran Morris Robert Moses Robert Motherwell Robert Mugabe Robert Gabriel Mundell Robert Alexander Mushet Robert Forester Nesselrode Karl Robert Vasilyevich Count Noyce Robert Norton Oppenheimer Julius Robert Robert Gordon Orr Owen Robert Owen Robert Dale Leroy Robert Paige Paine Robert Treat Park Robert Ezra Peary Robert Edwin Peel Sir Robert 2nd Baronet Pinsky Robert Rauschenberg Robert Redford Jr. Charles Robert Remak Robert Robert MacGregor Robert Guiscard Robert III Robert II Robert Curthose Robert I Robert the Bruce Robert Houdin Jean Eugène Jean Eugène Robert Rogers Robert Ryan Robert Schuman Robert Schumann Robert Alexander Scott Robert Falcon Service Robert William Sherwood Robert Emmet Smalls Robert Sobukwe Robert Mangaliso Solow Robert Merton Southey Robert Stephenson Robert Steptoe Patrick Christopher and Edwards Robert Geoffrey Stevens Robert Livingston Stevenson Robert Louis Balfour Stibitz George Robert Stockton Robert Field Stone Robert Anthony Sunderland Robert Spencer 2nd earl of Surtees Robert Smith Taft Robert Alphonso Toombs Robert Augustus Travis Merle Robert Turgot Anne Robert Jacques baron de l'Aulne Robert Edward Turner III Robert William Unser Van de Graaff Robert Jemison Venturi Robert Charles Wagner Robert Ferdinand Walpole Robert 1st earl of Orford Warren Robert Penn Watson Watt Sir Robert Alexander James Robert Wills Wilson Robert Woodrow Woodward Robert Burns Cecil of Chelwood Edgar Algernon Robert Gascoyne Cecil 1st Viscount Salisbury Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne Cecil 3rd marquess of; one of the most common English names since the Norman Conquest; {i} male first name; See Herb Robert, under Herb; United States parliamentary authority and author (in 1876) of Robert's Rules of Order (1837-1923)
Robert Capa: orig. Andrei Friedmann born 1913, Budapest, Hung. died May 25, 1954, Thai Binh, Viet. Hungarian-born U.S. photojournalist. In Paris he presented his photographs as the work of a fictitious rich American, Robert Capa; the deception was soon discovered but he kept the name. He first achieved fame as a war correspondent in the Spanish Civil War (1936). In World War II he covered the fighting in Africa, Sicily, and Italy for Life magazine; images of the Normandy invasion are among his most memorable works. In 1947 he founded Magnum Photos with Henri Cartier-Bresson and David Seymour. He was killed by a land mine while photographing the French Indochina war for Life
Robert (the) Bruce: the King of Scotland from 1307 till his death. Scotland was recognized as independent under him in 1328 (1274-1329)
Robert 1st Baron Clive: born Sept. 29, 1725, Styche, Shropshire, Eng. died Nov. 22, 1774, London British soldier and colonial administrator. In 1743 he was sent to Madras (Chennai) for the East India Company, where hostilities between it and the French East India Company allowed him to demonstrate his military skills. He made a fortune and returned to England in 1753 but was sent back to India in 1755. In 1757 his victory over the nawab of Bengal at the Battle of Plassey made him the virtual master of Bengal. His first government, though tainted by corruption and duplicity, was a model of generalship and statecraft. Back in England, he was elected to Parliament (1760) but failed to become a national statesman. He returned to India as governor and commander in chief of Bengal (1765-67). His reorganizing of the colony, including his fight against corruption, helped establish Britain's power in India. He himself was attacked by Parliament on charges of corruption; though exonerated, he later committed suicide
Robert 1st Baron Clive of Plassey: born Sept. 29, 1725, Styche, Shropshire, Eng. died Nov. 22, 1774, London British soldier and colonial administrator. In 1743 he was sent to Madras (Chennai) for the East India Company, where hostilities between it and the French East India Company allowed him to demonstrate his military skills. He made a fortune and returned to England in 1753 but was sent back to India in 1755. In 1757 his victory over the nawab of Bengal at the Battle of Plassey made him the virtual master of Bengal. His first government, though tainted by corruption and duplicity, was a model of generalship and statecraft. Back in England, he was elected to Parliament (1760) but failed to become a national statesman. He returned to India as governor and commander in chief of Bengal (1765-67). His reorganizing of the colony, including his fight against corruption, helped establish Britain's power in India. He himself was attacked by Parliament on charges of corruption; though exonerated, he later committed suicide
Robert 1st earl of Orford Walpole: born Aug. 26, 1676, Houghton Hall, Norfolk, Eng. died March 18, 1745, London English statesman generally regarded as the first British prime minister. Elected to the House of Commons in 1701, he became an active Whig parliamentarian. He served as secretary at war (1708-10) and as treasurer of the navy (1710-11). He was also a member of the Kit-Cat Club. The Tory government sought to remove his influence by impeaching him for corruption, and he was expelled from the Commons in 1712. With the accession of George I (1714), he regained his position and rose rapidly to become first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the Exchequer (1715-17, 1721-42). Although associated with the South Sea Bubble scandal, he restored confidence in the government and maintained the Whigs in office. He cultivated the support of George II from 1727 and used royal patronage for political ends, skillfully managing the House of Commons to win support for his trade and fiscal programs, including the sinking fund. With his consolidation of power, he effectively became the first British prime minister. He avoided foreign entanglements and kept England neutral until 1739 but was forced into the War of Jenkins' Ear. He resigned under pressure in 1742 and was created an earl. His acclaimed art collection, sold to Russia in 1779, became part of the Hermitage Museum collection
Robert 1st earl of Oxford Harley: born Dec. 5, 1661, London, Eng. died May 21, 1724, London English politician. Elected to Parliament in 1688, he led a coalition of Whigs and moderate Tories. He was speaker of the House of Commons (1701-05) and secretary of state (1704-08). A favourite of Queen Anne, he changed his politics to ally with the Tories. He became chancellor of the Exchequer and head of the Tory ministry in 1710. Created earl of Oxford (1711) and lord treasurer, he secured a reasonable peace at the Peace of Utrecht (1713). He was exiled from power by the Hanoverian succession and imprisoned (1715-17), after which he retired from politics
Robert 1st earl of Salisbury Cecil: born June 1, 1563, London, Eng. died May 24, 1612, Marlborough, Wiltshire English statesman. Trained in statesmanship by his father, William Cecil, Robert entered the House of Commons in 1584. He became acting secretary of state in 1590 and was formally appointed to the post by Elizabeth I in 1596. He succeeded his father as chief minister in 1598 and guided the peaceful succession of Elizabeth by James I, for whom he continued as chief minister from 1603 and lord treasurer from 1608. He negotiated the end of the war with Spain in 1604 and allied England with France
Robert ; and Lynd Helen Lynd: orig. Helen Merrell born Sept. 26, 1892, New Albany, Ind., U.S. died Nov. 1, 1970, Warren, Conn. born March 17, 1894, La Grange, Ill., U.S. died Jan. 30, 1982, Warren, Ohio U.S. sociologists. The Lynds taught for several decades at Columbia University and Sarah Lawrence College, respectively. In their collaboration on the studies Middletown (1929) and Middletown in Transition (1937), classics of sociological literature as well as popular successes, they became the first scholars to apply the methods of cultural anthropology to the study of a modern Western city (Muncie, Ind.)
Robert A Heinlein: born July 7, 1907, Butler, Mo., U.S. died May 8, 1988, Carmel, Calif. U.S. science-fiction writer. He pursued graduate study in physics and mathematics and began his writing career in the pulp magazine Astounding Science Fiction in the 1930s. The first of his many novels and story collections was Rocket Ship Galileo (1947). Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), his best-known work, attracted a large cult following. His other books include Double Star (1956), Methuselah's Children (1958), Starship Troopers (1959), The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966), and I Will Fear No Evil (1970). He won an unprecedented four Hugo Awards, and his sophisticated works did much to develop the genre
Robert A Mundell: born Oct. 24, 1932, Kingston, Ont., Can. Canadian-born economist who received the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1999 for his work on monetary dynamics and optimum currency areas. Mundell earned degrees from the University of British Columbia (B.A., 1953), the University of Washington (M.A., 1954), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D., 1956). He taught economics at the University of Chicago (1956-57) and Columbia University (1974- ). Through research for the International Monetary Fund, Mundell analyzed the effect of exchange rates on monetary policies. In 1961 he theorized that an economic region characterized by free movement of labour and trade could support a single currency. His theories contributed to the creation of the euro, the single currency adopted by the European Union on Jan. 1, 1999
Robert A Taft: born Sept. 8, 1889, Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. died July 31, 1953, New York, N.Y. U.S. politician. The son of William H. Taft, he served in the Ohio legislature before being elected to the U.S. Senate (1939-53). He became known as a strong advocate of traditional conservativism and earned the nickname "Mr. Republican." He opposed centralizing power in the federal government and cosponsored the Taft-Hartley Act to restrict organized labour. An isolationist, he opposed U.S. involvement in postwar international organizations. He was a favourite-son candidate for president at Republican Party national conventions, especially in 1948 and 1952, but internationalists in the party opposed his conservative views. After the election of Dwight Eisenhower, Taft became Senate majority leader and Eisenhower's chief adviser in the Senate
Robert A Toombs: born , July 2, 1810, Wilkes county, Ga., U.S. died Dec. 15, 1885, Washington, Ga. U.S. politician. He was a plantation owner and a lawyer. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1845-53) and the Senate (1853-61), but he resigned his Senate seat to help form the Confederate States of America. Disappointed at not being chosen its president, he served briefly as secretary of state (1861). He criticized Jefferson Davis's extralegal policies during the American Civil War and after the war fled to England. He returned to Georgia in 1867 to rebuild his law practice and to help revise the state constitution and restore white supremacy
Robert Adam: a Scottish architect who designed many famous houses and other buildings, and influenced the development of the neoclassical style. He is also famous for designing furniture (1728-92). born July 3, 1728, Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scot. died March 3, 1792, London, Eng. Scottish architect and designer. Son of the architect William Adam, he apprenticed in his father's offices. He traveled in Europe in 1754-58, studying architectural theory and Roman ruins. On his return to London, he and his brother James (1732-94) developed an essentially decorative style known as the Adam style that was marked by a new lightness and freedom in the use of the Classical elements of architecture. This style is most remembered for its application in interiors, which were characterized by contrasting room shapes and delicate Classical ornaments. Robert Adam's executed works, mainly remodeled interiors and exteriors of private houses, include Osterley Park (1761-80) in Middlesex and Kedleston Hall ( 1765-70) in Derbyshire. Other works include the Adelphi development in London (1768-72) and the University of Edinburgh (1789). He was also a leading furniture designer; his style, popularized by designer George Hepplewhite, was meant to harmonize with his interior architecture down to the last detail
Robert Aldrich: born Aug. 9, 1918, Cranston, R.I., U.S. died Dec. 5, 1983, Los Angeles, Calif. U.S. film director and producer. He held various jobs at RKO from 1941, working under such directors as Jean Renoir and Charlie Chaplin. After directing his first feature film, The Big Leaguer (1953), he formed his own production company and earned a reputation for socially conscious yet often violent films, including Apache (1954), Kiss Me Deadly (1955), What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), and The Dirty Dozen (1967)
Robert Alexander Mundell: born Oct. 24, 1932, Kingston, Ont., Can. Canadian-born economist who received the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1999 for his work on monetary dynamics and optimum currency areas. Mundell earned degrees from the University of British Columbia (B.A., 1953), the University of Washington (M.A., 1954), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D., 1956). He taught economics at the University of Chicago (1956-57) and Columbia University (1974- ). Through research for the International Monetary Fund, Mundell analyzed the effect of exchange rates on monetary policies. In 1961 he theorized that an economic region characterized by free movement of labour and trade could support a single currency. His theories contributed to the creation of the euro, the single currency adopted by the European Union on Jan. 1, 1999
Robert Alexander Schumann: born June 8, 1810, Zwickau, Saxony died July 29, 1856, Endenich, near Bonn, Prussia German composer. Son of a bookseller, he considered becoming a novelist. Under family pressure he reluctantly entered law school, but he devoted his time to song composition and piano lessons. An injury to one of his fingers put an end to his hopes of a career as a virtuoso and confined him to composition. He embarked upon a prolific period, writing piano pieces and founding, in 1834, the New Journal for Music. His works from this fertile period include Papillons, Carnaval (both 1833-35), and Davidsbündlertänze (1837). He married the pianist Clara Wieck in 1840. That year he returned to the field of the solo song; in the span of 11 months he composed nearly all the songs on which much of his reputation rests, such as the song cycles Dichterliebe and Frauenliebe und Leben. The next year he widened his scope to orchestral music, producing Symphony No. 1, Symphony No. 4, and his piano concerto; in 1842 he concentrated on chamber music. In his last productive years, he turned to dramatic or semidramatic works. His mental deterioration (probably associated with both syphilis and a family history of mental illness) accelerated; in 1854 he was placed in a sanatorium, where he died two years later
Robert Alphonso Taft: born Sept. 8, 1889, Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. died July 31, 1953, New York, N.Y. U.S. politician. The son of William H. Taft, he served in the Ohio legislature before being elected to the U.S. Senate (1939-53). He became known as a strong advocate of traditional conservativism and earned the nickname "Mr. Republican." He opposed centralizing power in the federal government and cosponsored the Taft-Hartley Act to restrict organized labour. An isolationist, he opposed U.S. involvement in postwar international organizations. He was a favourite-son candidate for president at Republican Party national conventions, especially in 1948 and 1952, but internationalists in the party opposed his conservative views. After the election of Dwight Eisenhower, Taft became Senate majority leader and Eisenhower's chief adviser in the Senate
Robert Altman: born Feb. 20, 1925, Kansas City, Mo., U.S. U.S. film director. He learned filmmaking by directing industrial films, then directed several television series before making his first feature film, Countdown (1967). The successful antiwar comedy M*A*S*H (1970) established his reputation as an independent director whose work emphasizes character and atmosphere over plot. His most acclaimed films include McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971), Nashville (1976), The Player (1992), and Short Cuts (1993)
Robert Altman: {i} (born 1925) famous American film director, director of "Short Cuts" (1994) and "Ready To Wear/Prêt-à-Porter" (1994)
Robert Andrews Millikan: {i} United States physicist who isolated the electron and measured its charge, winner of the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physics for his measuring the charge of the electron
Robert Andrews Millikan: born March 22, 1868, Morrison, Ill., U.S. died Dec. 19, 1953, San Marino, Calif. U.S. physicist. He received his doctorate from Columbia University and taught physics at the University of Chicago (1896-1921) and the California Institute of Technology (from 1921). To measure electric charge, he devised the Millikan oil-drop experiment. He verified Albert Einstein's photoelectric equation and obtained a precise value for the Planck constant. He was awarded a 1923 Nobel Prize
Robert Anson Heinlein: born July 7, 1907, Butler, Mo., U.S. died May 8, 1988, Carmel, Calif. U.S. science-fiction writer. He pursued graduate study in physics and mathematics and began his writing career in the pulp magazine Astounding Science Fiction in the 1930s. The first of his many novels and story collections was Rocket Ship Galileo (1947). Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), his best-known work, attracted a large cult following. His other books include Double Star (1956), Methuselah's Children (1958), Starship Troopers (1959), The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966), and I Will Fear No Evil (1970). He won an unprecedented four Hugo Awards, and his sophisticated works did much to develop the genre
Robert Anthony 1st earl of Avon Eden: born June 12, 1897, Windlestone, Durham, Eng. died Jan. 14, 1977, Alvediston, Wiltshire British politician. After combat service in World War I, he was elected to the House of Commons in 1923. He became foreign secretary in 1935 but resigned in 1938 to protest Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement. He held the post again in 1940-45 and in 1951-55, and he helped to settle the Anglo-Iranian oil dispute and arranged an armistice in Indochina. Succeeding Winston Churchill as prime minister in 1955, he attempted to ease international tension by welcoming to Britain Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolay A. Bulganin of the Soviet Union. His fall began when Egypt seized the Suez Canal and he supported an Anglo-French intervention in Egypt (see Suez Crisis). He resigned in 1957, citing ill health
Robert Anthony Stone: born Aug. 21, 1937, New York, N.Y., U.S. U.S. novelist. He served in the U.S. Navy before attending New York and Stanford universities. Dog Soldiers (1974, National Book Award), his second novel, brought home the corruption of the Vietnam War. His later works include the novels A Flag for Sunrise (1981), Outerbridge Reach (1992), and Damascus Gate (1998) and the short-story collection Bear and His Daughter (1997)
Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil 3rd marquess of Salisbury: born , Feb. 3, 1830, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, Eng. died Aug. 22, 1903, Hatfield British prime minister (1885-86, 1886-92, 1895-1902). He served in Benjamin Disraeli's government as secretary for India (1874-78) and foreign secretary (1878-80), helping to convene the Congress of Berlin. He led the Conservative Party opposition in the House of Lords, then became prime minister on three occasions beginning in 1885, usually serving concurrently as foreign secretary. He opposed alliances, maintained strong national interests, and presided over an expansion of Britain's colonial empire, especially in Africa. He retired in 1902 in favour of his nephew, Arthur James Balfour
Robert Augustus Toombs: born , July 2, 1810, Wilkes county, Ga., U.S. died Dec. 15, 1885, Washington, Ga. U.S. politician. He was a plantation owner and a lawyer. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1845-53) and the Senate (1853-61), but he resigned his Senate seat to help form the Confederate States of America. Disappointed at not being chosen its president, he served briefly as secretary of state (1861). He criticized Jefferson Davis's extralegal policies during the American Civil War and after the war fled to England. He returned to Georgia in 1867 to rebuild his law practice and to help revise the state constitution and restore white supremacy
Robert B Woodward: born April 10, 1917, Boston, Mass., U.S. died July 8, 1979, Cambridge, Mass. U.S. chemist. He attended MIT and taught at Harvard University (1938-79). Recognizing that physical measurement revealed molecular structure better than chemical reaction, in 1940-42 he developed "Woodward's rules" for determining structure by ultraviolet spectroscopy. In 1945 his methods finally clarified the structure of penicillin and of many more complex natural products. He proposed the correct biosynthetic pathway of steroid hormones. He was the most accomplished synthesist of complex organic compounds, including quinine (1944) and vitamin B12 (1971, in more than 100 reactions), a task that led to the fundamental concept of conservation of orbital symmetry. He received a 1965 Nobel Prize, and in 1963 the new Woodward Research Institute in Basel, Switz., was named for him
Robert B. Altman: born Feb. 20, 1925, Kansas City, Mo., U.S. U.S. film director. He learned filmmaking by directing industrial films, then directed several television series before making his first feature film, Countdown (1967). The successful antiwar comedy M*A*S*H (1970) established his reputation as an independent director whose work emphasizes character and atmosphere over plot. His most acclaimed films include McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971), Nashville (1976), The Player (1992), and Short Cuts (1993)
Robert Bakewell: born 1725, Dishley, Leicestershire, Eng. died Oct. 1, 1795, Dishley English agriculturist. He revolutionized English sheep and cattle breeding by methodical selection, inbreeding, and culling. He was one of the first to breed sheep and cattle for meat and the first to establish on a large scale the practice of letting animals for stud. His farm became famous as a model of scientific management
Robert Baldwin: born May 12, 1804, York, Upper Canada died Dec. 9, 1858, Toronto Canadian politician. Called to the bar in 1825, Baldwin began his political career as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada for York (1829-30). In 1842-43 he and Louis Hippolyte LaFontaine formed the first Liberal Party administration; when the Liberals returned to power in 1848, they were able to establish responsible, or cabinet, government. He resigned in 1851
Robert Banks Jenkinson 2nd earl of Liverpool: born June 7, 1770, London, Eng. died Dec. 4, 1828, Fife House, Whitehall, London British prime minister (1812-27). He entered the House of Commons in 1790 and became a leading Tory, serving as foreign secretary (1801-04), home secretary (1804-06, 1807-09), and secretary for war and the colonies (1809-12). The War of 1812 with the U.S. and the final campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars were fought during his premiership. He urged abolition of the slave trade at the Congress of Vienna (1814-15). Although sometimes overshadowed by his colleagues and by the duke of Wellington's military prowess, he conducted a sound administration
Robert Benchley: born Sept. 15, 1889, Worcester, Mass., U.S. died Nov. 21, 1945, New York, N.Y., U.S. U.S. drama critic, actor, and humorist. Benchley graduated from Harvard University and joined the staff of Life magazine in 1920. A regular member of the Algonquin Round Table, he was drama critic for The New Yorker 1929-40, for which he also wrote "The Wayward Press" column under the pseudonym Guy Fawkes. He had bit parts in many feature films, but he is best known for more than 40 short subjects, including How to Sleep (1934, Academy Award). His writing was warmly humorous, his satire sharp but not cruel
Robert Bly: born Dec. 23, 1926, Madison, Minn., U.S. U.S. poet and translator. Bly attended Harvard University and the University of Iowa. In 1958 he founded the magazine The Fifties (later The Sixties), which published the works of young poets. He helped found American Writers Against the Vietnam War, and he donated his 1968 National Book Award prize money (received for The Light Around the Body) to a draft resisters' organization. His best-selling Iron John (1990) probed the male psyche, and Bly became the best-known leader of the "men's movement." In 2001 he published The Night Abraham Called to the Stars, poems utilizing the Arabic ghazal form. He is also known for his translations of a wide range of poetry
Robert Boyle: born Jan. 25, 1627, Lismore Castle, County Waterford, Ire. died Dec. 31, 1691, London, Eng. Irish-born English chemist and natural philosopher. The son of Richard Boyle, the "Great Earl of Cork" (1566-1643), he settled at Oxford in 1654 and, with his assistant Robert Hooke, began his pioneering experiments on the properties of gases, including those expressed in Boyle's law (see gas laws). He demonstrated the physical characteristics of air, showing that it is necessary in combustion, respiration, and sound transmission. In The Sceptical Chymist (1661) he attacked Aristotle's theory of the four elements (earth, air, fire, and water), espousing a corpuscular view of matter that presaged the modern theory of chemical elements. A founding member of the Royal Society of London, he achieved great renown in his lifetime. His brother Roger Boyle, earl of Orrery (1621-79), was a general under Oliver Cromwell but eventually helped secure Ireland for Charles II
Robert Boyle: {i} (1627-1691) Irish born English physicist and chemist
Robert Bresson: born Sept. 25, 1901, Bromont-Lamonthe, Puy-de Dôme, France died Dec. 18, 1999 French film director. He worked as a painter and photographer before making his first film in 1934. His feature-length Les Anges du péché (1943) established his austere, intellectual style. Noted for intense psychological probing and the subordination of plot to visual imagery, he also directed The Diary of a Country Priest (1950), A Man Escaped (1956), Pickpocket (1959), Balthazar (1966), Lancelot of the Lake (1974), and L'Argent (1983)
Robert Bridges: born Oct. 23, 1844, Walmer, Kent, Eng. died April 21, 1930, Boar's Hill, Oxford English poet. He published several long poems and poetic dramas, but his reputation rests on the lyrics collected in Shorter Poems (1890, 1894), which reveal his mastery of prosody. His 1916 edition of the poetry of his friend Gerard Manley Hopkins rescued it from obscurity. He was poet laureate of England from 1913 until his death
Robert Brown: born Dec. 21, 1773, Montrose, Angus, Scot. died June 10, 1858, London, Eng. Scottish botanist. The son of a clergyman, he studied medicine in Aberdeen and Edinburgh before entering the British army as an ensign and assistant surgeon (1795). He obtained the post of naturalist aboard a ship bound to survey the coasts of Australia (1801), and on the journey he gathered some 3,900 plant species. He published some of the results of his trip in 1810 in his classic Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae..., laying the foundations of Australian botany and refining prevailing plant classification systems. In 1827 he transferred Joseph Banks's botanical collection to the British Museum and became keeper of the museum's newly formed botanical department. The following year he published his observation of the phenomenon that came to be called Brownian motion. In 1831 he noted the existence in plant cells of what he called the nucleus. He was the first to recognize the distinction between gymnosperms and angiosperms (flowering plants)
Robert Browning: {i} (1812-89) British poet, author of "The Ring and the Book
Robert Browning: a British poet, married to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, whose poems include The Ring and the Book and Home Thoughts from Abroad (1812-89). born May 7, 1812, London, Eng. died Dec. 12, 1889, Venice, Italy British poet. His early works include verse dramas, notably Pippa Passes (1841), and long poems, including Sordello (1840). In the years of his marriage (1846-61) to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, spent in Italy, he produced little other than Men and Women (1855), which contains dramatic lyrics such as "Love Among the Ruins" and the great monologues "Fra Lippo Lippi" and "Bishop Blougram's Apology." Dramatis Personae (1864), including "Rabbi Ben Ezra" and "Caliban upon Setebos," finally won him popular recognition. The Ring and the Book (1868-69), a book-length poem, is based on a 1698 murder trial in Rome. Browning influenced many modern poets through his development of the dramatic monologue (with its emphasis on individual psychology) and through his success in writing about the variety of modern life in language his contemporaries found often difficult as well as original
Robert Bunsen: {i} Robert Wilhelm Bunsen (1811-1899), German chemist, inventor of the Bunsen burner
Robert Bunsen: born March 31, 1811, Göttingen, Westphalia died Aug. 16, 1899, Heidelberg, Baden German chemist. With Gustav Robert Kirchhoff, he observed ( 1859) that each element emits light of a characteristic wavelength, opening the field of spectrochemical analysis. They discovered several new elements (including helium, cesium, and rubidium) by spectroscopy. His only book discussed methods of measuring volumes of gases. He invented the carbon-zinc battery, grease-spot photometer (see photometry), filter pump, ice calorimeter, and vapour calorimeter. Though often credited with inventing the Bunsen burner, he seems to have made only a minor contribution to its development
Robert Burns: a Scottish poet who wrote in the Scots dialect and is regarded as Scotland's national poet. He wrote about love, country life, and national pride, and his best-known poems include Tam o'Shanter and To a Mouse. Scottish people all over the world celebrate his birthday on 25 January, Burns Night (1759-96). born Jan. 25, 1759, Alloway, Ayrshire, Scot. died July 21, 1796, Dumfries, Dumfriesshire National poet of Scotland. The son of a poor farmer, he early became familiar with orally transmitted folk song and tales. His father's farm failed, and a farm he started himself quickly went bankrupt. Handsome and high-spirited, he engaged in a series of love affairs, some of which produced children, and celebrated his lovers in his poems. His Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (1786) brought acclaim but no financial security, and he eventually took a job as an exciseman. He later began collecting and editing hundreds of traditional airs for James Johnson's Scots Musical Museum (1787-1803) and George Thomson's Select Collection of Original Scotish Airs (1793-1818); he substantially wrote many of these songs, though he did not claim them or receive payment for them. Among his best-known songs are "Auld Lang Syne," "Green Grow the Rashes, O," "John Anderson My Jo," "A Red, Red Rose," and "Ye Banks and Braes o' Bonnie Doon." He freely proclaimed his radical opinions, his sympathies with the common people, and his rebellion against orthodox religion and morality
Robert Burns: {i} (1759-1796) Scottish poet known for his use of traditional Scottish style and dialect
Robert Burns Woodward: born April 10, 1917, Boston, Mass., U.S. died July 8, 1979, Cambridge, Mass. U.S. chemist. He attended MIT and taught at Harvard University (1938-79). Recognizing that physical measurement revealed molecular structure better than chemical reaction, in 1940-42 he developed "Woodward's rules" for determining structure by ultraviolet spectroscopy. In 1945 his methods finally clarified the structure of penicillin and of many more complex natural products. He proposed the correct biosynthetic pathway of steroid hormones. He was the most accomplished synthesist of complex organic compounds, including quinine (1944) and vitamin B12 (1971, in more than 100 reactions), a task that led to the fundamental concept of conservation of orbital symmetry. He received a 1965 Nobel Prize, and in 1963 the new Woodward Research Institute in Basel, Switz., was named for him
Robert Burton: (1577-1640) British scholar and writer. He spent most of his life as a vicar at Oxford. His great Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) describes the kinds, causes, symptoms, and cures of melancholy in a lively, elegant, and sometimes humorous style; a mine of classical erudition and curious information, it is an index to the philosophical and psychological ideas of its time. His Latin comedy Philosophaster (1606) is a vivacious exposure of charlatanism
Robert Cabana: {i} Robert D. Cabana (born 1949), American astronaut (Commander of the space shuttle flight to the new international space station)
Robert Campin: born 1378, Tournai, Fr. died April 26, 1444, Tournai Flemish painter. He is identified with the Master of Flémalle on stylistic grounds. Documents show that Campin was a master painter in Tournai in 1406; two students are listed as entering his studio in 1427: Rogier van der Weyden and Jacques Daret. Campin's principal surviving works are two large panels of an altarpiece once believed to have come from a nonexistent Abbey of Flémalle. The famous Mérode Altarpiece, a triptych of the Annunciation formerly regarded as his masterpiece, is now thought to be by a member of his workshop or circle. Characterized by a naturalistic conception of form and a poetic representation of the objects of daily life, Campin's work marks the break with the prevailing International Gothic style and prefigures the achievements of the painters of the Northern Renaissance. Despite much uncertainty about his life and work, he was one of the most important and influential Flemish artists of the 15th century
Robert Charles Benchley: a humorous US writer and theatre critic who wrote articles for the magazines Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. He was also an actor and he appeared in many films (1889-1945). born Sept. 15, 1889, Worcester, Mass., U.S. died Nov. 21, 1945, New York, N.Y., U.S. U.S. drama critic, actor, and humorist. Benchley graduated from Harvard University and joined the staff of Life magazine in 1920. A regular member of the Algonquin Round Table, he was drama critic for The New Yorker 1929-40, for which he also wrote "The Wayward Press" column under the pseudonym Guy Fawkes. He had bit parts in many feature films, but he is best known for more than 40 short subjects, including How to Sleep (1934, Academy Award). His writing was warmly humorous, his satire sharp but not cruel
Robert Charles Duran Mitchum: born Aug. 6, 1917, Bridgeport, Conn., U.S. died July 1, 1997, Santa Barbara county, Calif. U.S. film actor. Expelled from high school in New York City, he spent his teenage years wandering the country and working odd jobs. After joining an acting company in California, he made his screen debut in 1943, acting in several Hopalong Cassidy westerns. He won praise for his role in The Story of G.I. Joe (1945). With his trademark sleepy-eyed, tough-guy appearance, he usually played loners and villains, in movies (many of them B movies that have grown in critical esteem over time) such as Out of the Past (1947), The Lusty Men (1952), The Night of the Hunter (1955), Thunder Road (1958), Cape Fear (1962), The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973), and Farewell, My Lovely (1975). In his later years, he starred in the television miniseries Winds of War (1983) and War and Remembrance (1988-89)
Robert Charles Venturi: v. born June 25, 1925, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S. U.S. architect. He studied at Princeton University and in Rome at the American Academy. After working with Eero Saarinen and Louis Kahn, he formed a partnership with his wife, Denise Scott Brown, and John Rauch. His philosophy, set forth in the influential books Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966) and Learning from Las Vegas (1972), called for openness to the multiple influences of historical tradition, ordinary commercial architecture, and Pop art. He had such a profound impact on younger architects who were beginning to find similar constraints and limitations in the Modernist architectural aesthetic, that he became the unofficial dean of the postmodern movement in architecture. His buildings often exhibit ironic humour. Important commissions include buildings for Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania, the Seattle Art Museum (1985-91), and the Sainsbury Wing of London's National Gallery (1986-91). He won the 1991 Pritzker Architecture Prize
Robert Crumb: born Aug. 20, 1943, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S. U.S. cartoonist. He had no formal art training but was obsessed with drawing as a child. In 1960 he moved to Cleveland, Ohio, to work for a greeting-card company. In 1967 he moved to San Francisco and became a prominent member of the hippie counterculture and a founder of the genre of underground "comix," satirical magazines that poked fun at U.S. culture. His often obscene strips with their various obsessive themes, starring such characters as Fritz the Cat, the Furry Freak Brothers, and Mr. Natural, had great influence and are still regarded as classics of the genre
Robert D Ballard: born 1942, Wichita, Kan., U.S. U.S. oceanographer and marine geologist. He grew up near San Diego, Calif. As a marine scientist at the Woods Hole (Mass.) Oceanographic Research Institution, he pioneered the use of deep-diving submersibles, participated in the first manned exploration of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and discovered warm water springs and their unusual animal communities in the Galápagos Rift. He is best known for his dramatic discovery of the wreck of the Titanic in 1985. Since then he has gone on to discover ships lost in battle during World War II
Robert Dale Owen: born Nov. 9, 1801, Glasgow, Scot. died June 24, 1877, Lake George, N.Y., U.S. U.S. social reformer. In 1825 he emigrated with his father, Robert Owen, to establish a community at New Harmony, Ind. He edited the local newspaper, the New Harmony Gazette, until 1827, when he became associated with Fanny Wright. The two eventually settled in New York City, where Owen edited the Free Enquirer, and both were active in the Workingmen's Party. Owen returned to New Harmony in 1832. After serving in the Indiana legislature, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives (1843-47), where he introduced a bill establishing the Smithsonian Institution. He later served as U.S. minister to Italy (1855-58). A strong advocate of emancipation, he urged an end to slavery in an 1861 letter to Abraham Lincoln that was said to have influenced the president greatly
Robert David Muldoon: {i} Robert Muldoon, Sir Robert Muldoon, Sir Robert David ("Rob") Muldoon (1921-1992), former prime minister of New Zealand (from 1975 to 1984)
Robert De Niro: {i} (born 1943), American movie actor (starred in "Mean Streets", "Taxi Driver", "Raging Bull")
Robert De Niro: one of America's greatest film actors, known especially for appearing as characters who are violent or are involved in very violent situations. His films include Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), and Cape Fear (1991) (1943- ). born Aug. 17, 1943, New York, N.Y., U.S. U.S. film actor. He made his debut in 1968 and played in minor films until his critically acclaimed performance in Bang the Drum Slowly (1973). He starred in Mean Streets (1973) and other films directed by Martin Scorsese, including Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980, Academy Award), and GoodFellas (1990). Noted for his intensely committed performances, he also starred in The Godfather, Part II (1974, Academy Award), The Deer Hunter (1978), Once upon a Time in America (1984), Heat (1997), and Meet the Parents (2000). He directed his first film, A Bronx Tale, in 1993
Robert Delaunay: (1885-1941) modern French artist, member of the neo-impressionist and cubist movements
Robert Delaunay: born April 12, 1885, Paris, Fr. died Oct. 25, 1941, Montpellier French painter. He spent his early career as a part-time designer of stage scenery and came under the influence of Neo-Impressionism, Fauvism, and Cubism. In 1909-11 his colour experiments culminated in a series of paintings of the Eiffel Tower, which combined fragmented Cubist forms with dynamic movement and vibrant colour. The introduction of bright colour to Cubism a style that came to be known as Orphism distinguished his work from that of the more orthodox Cubist painters and influenced the artists of Der Blaue Reiter. With his wife, the Ukrainian-born painter and textile designer Sonia Terk Delaunay (1885-1979), he painted abstract mural decorations for the 1937 Paris Exposition
Robert Devereux 2nd earl of Essex: born Nov. 10, 1567, Netherwood, Herefordshire, Eng. died Feb. 25, 1601, London English soldier and courtier. He was the son of the 1st earl of Essex. As a young man, he became the aging Elizabeth I's favorite, though their relationship was stormy. In 1591-92 he commanded the English force in France that helped Henry IV fight the French Roman Catholics, and in 1596 he commanded forces in the sack of Cádiz. In 1599 Elizabeth sent him to Ireland as lord lieutenant, where he fought an unsuccessful campaign against Irish rebels and concluded an unfavorable truce, leading Elizabeth to deprive him of his offices in 1600. In 1601 he made an unsuccessful attempt to raise the populace of London in revolt against Elizabeth; he was captured, tried by his former mentor Francis Bacon, and beheaded
Robert Devereux 3rd earl of Essex: born 1591, London, Eng. died Sept. 14, 1646, London English military commander. Son of the 2nd earl of Essex, he began his military career in 1620 and commanded forces for Charles I until the Long Parliament deposed Charles's ministers (1640). As the English Civil Wars began, he was appointed to command the Parliamentary army. He fought against the Royalists at the indecisive Battle of Edgehill (1642) and advanced on London in 1643. His army was besieged at Lostwithiel, Cornwall, in 1644, and all surrendered except Essex, who escaped by sea. He resigned his command in 1645
Robert Dinwiddie: born 1693, Germiston, near Glasgow, Scot. died July 27, 1770, Clifton, Bristol, Eng. British colonial administrator. He entered government service in 1727 and was appointed surveyor general for the southern part of America (1739-51). As lieutenant governor of Virginia, he sent George Washington in 1753 to prevent the French from controlling the western frontier, an action that helped precipitate the French and Indian War. He tried to obtain intercolonial cooperation for the war effort, an issue taken up at the Albany Congress. In 1758 he returned to England
Robert Duane Ballard: born 1942, Wichita, Kan., U.S. U.S. oceanographer and marine geologist. He grew up near San Diego, Calif. As a marine scientist at the Woods Hole (Mass.) Oceanographic Research Institution, he pioneered the use of deep-diving submersibles, participated in the first manned exploration of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and discovered warm water springs and their unusual animal communities in the Galápagos Rift. He is best known for his dramatic discovery of the wreck of the Titanic in 1985. Since then he has gone on to discover ships lost in battle during World War II
Robert Dudley: {i} (c.1532-1588) 1st Earl of Leicester, British statesman
Robert Dudley earl of Leicester: born June 24, 1532/33 died Sept. 4, 1588, Cornbury, Oxfordshire, Eng. English courtier and favourite of Elizabeth I. Imprisoned in 1553 for aiding the attempt by his father, the duke of Northumberland, to put Lady Jane Grey on the throne, he was released in 1554. Handsome and ambitious, he won Elizabeth's affection upon her accession (1558) and was made a privy councillor in 1559. When his wife died in 1560, it was rumoured that he had murdered her in order to marry Elizabeth. He became an active suitor of Elizabeth; though he failed to win the queen's hand, they remained close friends. In 1585 he was sent in command of an English force to assist the Netherlands in its revolt against Spain; he proved incompetent and was recalled (1587)
Robert E Lee: (1807-1870) general of the Confederate armies during the Civil War
Robert E Lee: born Jan. 19, 1807, Stratford, Westmoreland county, Va., U.S. died Oct. 12, 1870, Lexington, Va. U.S. and Confederate military leader. He was the son of Henry Lee. After graduating from West Point, he served in the engineering corps and in the Mexican War under Winfield Scott. He transferred to the cavalry in 1855 and commanded frontier forces in Texas (1856-57). In 1859 he led U.S. troops against the slave insurrection attempted by John Brown at Harpers Ferry. In 1861 he was offered command of a new army being formed to force the seceded Southern states back into the Union. Though opposed to secession, he refused. After his home state of Virginia seceded, he became commander of Virginia's forces in the American Civil War and adviser to Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy. Taking command of the Army of Northern Virginia (1862) after Joseph Johnston was wounded, Lee repulsed the Union forces in the Seven Days' Battles. He won victories at Bull Run, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. His attempts to draw Union forces out of Virginia by invading the North resulted in failures at Antietam and Gettysburg. In 1864-65 he conducted defensive campaigns against Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant that caused heavy Union casualties. Lee ended his retreat behind fortifications built at Petersburg and Richmond (see Petersburg Campaign). By April 1865 dwindling forces and supplies forced Lee, now general of all Confederate armies, to surrender at Appomattox Court House. After several months of recuperation, he accepted the post of president of Washington College (later Washington and Lee University), where he served until his death
Robert E Park: born Feb. 14, 1864, Harveyville, Pa., U.S. died Feb. 7, 1944, Nashville, Tenn. U.S. sociologist. After 11 years as a newspaper reporter, Park attended various universities and studied with scholars such as John Dewey, William James, Josiah Royce, and Georg Simmel. He then worked for Booker T. Washington and later taught at the University of Chicago where he was a leading figure in the "Chicago school" of sociology, characterized by empirical research and the use of human ecology models and at Fisk University. He is noted for his work on ethnic groups, particularly African Americans, and on human ecology, a term he has been credited with coining. Park wrote Introduction to the Science of Sociology (1921) and The City (1925) with Ernest W. Burgess; Race and Culture (1950) and Human Communities (1952) were published posthumously
Robert E Peary: born May 6, 1856, Cresson, Pa., U.S. died Feb. 20, 1920, Washington, D.C. U.S. explorer. He joined the U.S. Navy in 1881 but was granted leaves of absence to pursue his Arctic expeditions. He explored Greenland by dog sled in 1886 and 1891, finding evidence that it was an island, and returned there in 1893-94, 1895, and 1896 to transport large meteorites to the U.S. After announcing his intention to reach the North Pole, he made several attempts between 1898 and 1905, sailing on a specially built ship and sledding to within 175 mi (280 km) of the pole. On April 6, 1909, accompanied by Matthew Henson (1866-1955) and four Eskimo, he reached what he thought was the pole, and he became widely acknowledged as the first explorer to attain that goal. (The claim of his former colleague Frederick A. Cook to have reached the pole in 1908 was later discredited.) In 1911 Peary retired from the navy with the rank of rear admiral. Examination of Peary's expedition diary and new documents in the 1980s suggested that the point he reached may have been 30-60 mi (50-100 km) short of the pole
Robert E Sherwood: born April 4, 1896, New Rochelle, N.Y., U.S. died Nov. 14, 1955, New York, N.Y. U.S. playwright. Sherwood was a magazine editor in New York City and a member of the Algonquin Round Table, the centre of a New York literary coterie. He examined the pointlessness of war in his first play, The Road to Rome (1927). Idiot's Delight (1936), Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1938), and There Shall Be No Night (1940) won Pulitzer prizes. In 1938 he cofounded the Playwrights' Company, which became a major producing company. During World War II he wrote speeches for Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt and headed the overseas branch of the Office of War Information (1941-44). His book Roosevelt and Hopkins (1948) won a Pulitzer Prize. Many of his plays were adapted for film; his original screenplays include The Best Years of Our Lives (1946, Academy Award)
Robert E. Jr. Lucas: born Sept. 15, 1937, Yakima, Wash., U.S. U.S. economist. He studied at the University of Chicago and began teaching there in 1975. He questioned the influence of John Maynard Keynes in macroeconomics and the efficacy of government intervention in domestic affairs. He criticized the Phillips curve for failing to provide for the dampened expectations of companies and workers in an inflationary economy. His theory of rational expectations, which suggests that individuals may alter the expected results of national fiscal policy by making private economic decisions based on anticipated results, won him the 1995 Nobel Prize. See also econometrics; inflation
Robert Edward Lee: born Jan. 19, 1807, Stratford, Westmoreland county, Va., U.S. died Oct. 12, 1870, Lexington, Va. U.S. and Confederate military leader. He was the son of Henry Lee. After graduating from West Point, he served in the engineering corps and in the Mexican War under Winfield Scott. He transferred to the cavalry in 1855 and commanded frontier forces in Texas (1856-57). In 1859 he led U.S. troops against the slave insurrection attempted by John Brown at Harpers Ferry. In 1861 he was offered command of a new army being formed to force the seceded Southern states back into the Union. Though opposed to secession, he refused. After his home state of Virginia seceded, he became commander of Virginia's forces in the American Civil War and adviser to Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy. Taking command of the Army of Northern Virginia (1862) after Joseph Johnston was wounded, Lee repulsed the Union forces in the Seven Days' Battles. He won victories at Bull Run, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. His attempts to draw Union forces out of Virginia by invading the North resulted in failures at Antietam and Gettysburg. In 1864-65 he conducted defensive campaigns against Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant that caused heavy Union casualties. Lee ended his retreat behind fortifications built at Petersburg and Richmond (see Petersburg Campaign). By April 1865 dwindling forces and supplies forced Lee, now general of all Confederate armies, to surrender at Appomattox Court House. After several months of recuperation, he accepted the post of president of Washington College (later Washington and Lee University), where he served until his death
Robert Edward Turner,: orig. Robert Edward Turner, III born Nov. 19, 1938, Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. U.S. broadcasting entrepreneur. He took over his father's Atlanta-based advertising firm after the latter's 1963 suicide and restored it to profitability. In 1970 he bought the Atlanta television station WJRJ (later WTBS), which in 1975 became the superstation of the Turner Broadcasting System, broadcasting via satellite to cable systems nationwide. An avid sportsman, he purchased professional baseball and basketball franchises in Atlanta, and in 1977 he piloted his yacht, Courageous, to victory in the America's Cup race. He expanded his broadcasting empire with the 1980 launch of the Cable News Network (CNN) and the 1986 purchase of MGM/UA Entertainment (MGM) and its library of more than 4,000 movies. He married Jane Fonda in 1991 (divorced 2001). In 1996 he merged his broadcasting system with Time Warner and became its vice-chairman (see AOL Time Warner). In 2003 he resigned as vice-chairman of AOL Time Warner
Robert Edwin Peary: born May 6, 1856, Cresson, Pa., U.S. died Feb. 20, 1920, Washington, D.C. U.S. explorer. He joined the U.S. Navy in 1881 but was granted leaves of absence to pursue his Arctic expeditions. He explored Greenland by dog sled in 1886 and 1891, finding evidence that it was an island, and returned there in 1893-94, 1895, and 1896 to transport large meteorites to the U.S. After announcing his intention to reach the North Pole, he made several attempts between 1898 and 1905, sailing on a specially built ship and sledding to within 175 mi (280 km) of the pole. On April 6, 1909, accompanied by Matthew Henson (1866-1955) and four Eskimo, he reached what he thought was the pole, and he became widely acknowledged as the first explorer to attain that goal. (The claim of his former colleague Frederick A. Cook to have reached the pole in 1908 was later discredited.) In 1911 Peary retired from the navy with the rank of rear admiral. Examination of Peary's expedition diary and new documents in the 1980s suggested that the point he reached may have been 30-60 mi (50-100 km) short of the pole
Robert Elwood Bly: born Dec. 23, 1926, Madison, Minn., U.S. U.S. poet and translator. Bly attended Harvard University and the University of Iowa. In 1958 he founded the magazine The Fifties (later The Sixties), which published the works of young poets. He helped found American Writers Against the Vietnam War, and he donated his 1968 National Book Award prize money (received for The Light Around the Body) to a draft resisters' organization. His best-selling Iron John (1990) probed the male psyche, and Bly became the best-known leader of the "men's movement." In 2001 he published The Night Abraham Called to the Stars, poems utilizing the Arabic ghazal form. He is also known for his translations of a wide range of poetry
Robert Emmet Sherwood: born April 4, 1896, New Rochelle, N.Y., U.S. died Nov. 14, 1955, New York, N.Y. U.S. playwright. Sherwood was a magazine editor in New York City and a member of the Algonquin Round Table, the centre of a New York literary coterie. He examined the pointlessness of war in his first play, The Road to Rome (1927). Idiot's Delight (1936), Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1938), and There Shall Be No Night (1940) won Pulitzer prizes. In 1938 he cofounded the Playwrights' Company, which became a major producing company. During World War II he wrote speeches for Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt and headed the overseas branch of the Office of War Information (1941-44). His book Roosevelt and Hopkins (1948) won a Pulitzer Prize. Many of his plays were adapted for film; his original screenplays include The Best Years of Our Lives (1946, Academy Award)
Robert Ezra Park: born Feb. 14, 1864, Harveyville, Pa., U.S. died Feb. 7, 1944, Nashville, Tenn. U.S. sociologist. After 11 years as a newspaper reporter, Park attended various universities and studied with scholars such as John Dewey, William James, Josiah Royce, and Georg Simmel. He then worked for Booker T. Washington and later taught at the University of Chicago where he was a leading figure in the "Chicago school" of sociology, characterized by empirical research and the use of human ecology models and at Fisk University. He is noted for his work on ethnic groups, particularly African Americans, and on human ecology, a term he has been credited with coining. Park wrote Introduction to the Science of Sociology (1921) and The City (1925) with Ernest W. Burgess; Race and Culture (1950) and Human Communities (1952) were published posthumously
Robert F Furchgott: born June 4, 1916, Charleston, S.C., U.S. U.S. pharmacologist. He received his Ph.D. from Northwestern University. With Louis J. Ignarro and Ferid Murad, he found that nitric oxide acts as a signaling molecule in the cardiovascular system. Furchgott demonstrated that cells in the endothelium of blood vessels produce a molecule called endothelium-derived relaxing factor (EDRF), which signals smooth muscle cells in blood vessel walls to relax, dilating the vessels. Ignarro later concluded that EDRF was nitric oxide. The research done by Furchgott, Murad, and Ignarro was key to the development of the drug Viagra, which treats impotence. The three men shared a 1998 Nobel Prize
Robert F Kennedy: born Nov. 20, 1925, Brookline, Mass., U.S. died June 6, 1968, Los Angeles, Calif. U.S. politician. The son of Joseph P. Kennedy, he interrupted his education at Harvard University to serve in World War II; he was graduated from Harvard in 1948 and received a law degree from the University of Virginia in 1951. He managed the U.S. Senate campaign of his brother John F. Kennedy in 1952. In 1957 he became chief counsel to the Senate committee investigating labour racketeering; he resigned the post in 1960 to manage his brother's presidential campaign. As U.S. attorney general (1961-64), he led a drive against organized crime that resulted in the conviction of labour leader Jimmy Hoffa. In 1964 he was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York. He became a spokesman for liberal Democrats and a critic of the Vietnam policy of Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1968, while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination in Los Angeles, he was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian immigrant
Robert F Stockton: born Aug. 20, 1795, Princeton, N.J., U.S. died Oct. 7, 1866, Princeton U.S. naval officer. He joined the U.S. navy and rose to the rank of commander (1838). When the Mexican War broke out, he took command of U.S. land and naval forces in present-day California and proceeded to capture Los Angeles, a Mexican stronghold, on Aug. 13, 1846. Four days later, he set up a civil government and formally annexed California to the U.S., naming himself governor. Along with Col. Stephen Kearny and his troops he defeated an uprising by native Mexicans and ceded the entire province to the U.S. In 1850 he resigned from the navy and was elected to the U.S. Senate. Stockton, Calif., is named in his honour
Robert F Wagner: born June 8, 1877, Nastätten, Hesse-Nassau, Ger. died May 4, 1953, New York, N.Y., U.S. U.S. politician. He immigrated with his family to New York City in 1885. He became active in Democratic Party politics, serving in the state legislature (1904-19) and as a justice of the state court of appeals (1919-26). In the U.S. Senate (1927-49), he became an ally of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt and introduced New Deal labour and social-reform legislation, including the National Industrial Recovery Act (1933), the National Labor Relations Act (known as the Wagner Act), and the Social Security Act. He cosponsored the Wagner-Steagall Act (1937), which created the U.S. Housing Authority. His son, Robert F. Wagner, Jr. (1910-91), served as mayor of New York (1954-65)
Robert Falcon Scott: born June 6, 1868, Devonport, Devon, Eng. died March 29, 1912, Antarctica British explorer. He joined the Royal Navy in 1880, proved his competence leading an Antarctic expedition (1901-04), and was promoted to captain. In 1910 he embarked on a second expedition, and in October 1911 he and 11 others started overland for the South Pole. After their motor sledges broke down and seven men returned to base camp, Scott and four others trekked for 81 days to reach the pole in January 1912, only to find that Roald Amundsen had preceded them by about a month. Exhausted and beset by bad weather and insufficient supplies, the men died on the return trip, Scott and the last two survivors only 11 miles from their base camp. In England Scott was celebrated as a national hero for his courage, though his judgment has been questioned
Robert Ferdinand Wagner: born June 8, 1877, Nastätten, Hesse-Nassau, Ger. died May 4, 1953, New York, N.Y., U.S. U.S. politician. He immigrated with his family to New York City in 1885. He became active in Democratic Party politics, serving in the state legislature (1904-19) and as a justice of the state court of appeals (1919-26). In the U.S. Senate (1927-49), he became an ally of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt and introduced New Deal labour and social-reform legislation, including the National Industrial Recovery Act (1933), the National Labor Relations Act (known as the Wagner Act), and the Social Security Act. He cosponsored the Wagner-Steagall Act (1937), which created the U.S. Housing Authority. His son, Robert F. Wagner, Jr. (1910-91), served as mayor of New York (1954-65)
Robert Field Stockton: born Aug. 20, 1795, Princeton, N.J., U.S. died Oct. 7, 1866, Princeton U.S. naval officer. He joined the U.S. navy and rose to the rank of commander (1838). When the Mexican War broke out, he took command of U.S. land and naval forces in present-day California and proceeded to capture Los Angeles, a Mexican stronghold, on Aug. 13, 1846. Four days later, he set up a civil government and formally annexed California to the U.S., naming himself governor. Along with Col. Stephen Kearny and his troops he defeated an uprising by native Mexicans and ceded the entire province to the U.S. In 1850 he resigned from the navy and was elected to the U.S. Senate. Stockton, Calif., is named in his honour
Robert Flaherty: born Feb. 16, 1884, Iron Mountain, Mich., U.S. died July 23, 1951, Dummerston, Vt. U.S. filmmaker, considered the father of the documentary. He grew up in remote northern Canada and later led explorations of the area (1910-16). He lived with the Eskimos for 16 months and filmed their way of life. His resulting film, Nanook of the North (1922), was an international success and established the model for the documentary film. His later documentaries include Moana (1926), Tabu (1931), Man of Aran (1934), The Land (1942), and Louisiana Story (1948)
Robert Forester Mushet: born 1811, Coleford, Gloucestershire, Eng. died January 1891, Coleford British steelmaker. He was the son of the ironmaster David Mushet (1772-1847). Robert's discovery in 1868 that adding tungsten to steel greatly increases its hardness even after air cooling produced the first commercial steel alloy, a material that formed the basis for the development of tool steels for the machining of metals. Mushet also discovered that the addition of manganese to steel produced by the Bessemer process improved the steel's ability to withstand rolling and forging at high temperatures
Robert Fortune: {i} (1813-1880) British botanist and traveller who introduced to Europe many flowers and trees he brought back from his travels to India and Formosa and Japan
Robert Francis Furchgott: born June 4, 1916, Charleston, S.C., U.S. U.S. pharmacologist. He received his Ph.D. from Northwestern University. With Louis J. Ignarro and Ferid Murad, he found that nitric oxide acts as a signaling molecule in the cardiovascular system. Furchgott demonstrated that cells in the endothelium of blood vessels produce a molecule called endothelium-derived relaxing factor (EDRF), which signals smooth muscle cells in blood vessel walls to relax, dilating the vessels. Ignarro later concluded that EDRF was nitric oxide. The research done by Furchgott, Murad, and Ignarro was key to the development of the drug Viagra, which treats impotence. The three men shared a 1998 Nobel Prize
Robert Francis Kennedy: a US politician in the Democratic Party who was the brother of John F. Kennedy. He became a senator for New York in 1965. In 1968, when he was trying to become elected President of the US, he was shot (1925-68). born Nov. 20, 1925, Brookline, Mass., U.S. died June 6, 1968, Los Angeles, Calif. U.S. politician. The son of Joseph P. Kennedy, he interrupted his education at Harvard University to serve in World War II; he was graduated from Harvard in 1948 and received a law degree from the University of Virginia in 1951. He managed the U.S. Senate campaign of his brother John F. Kennedy in 1952. In 1957 he became chief counsel to the Senate committee investigating labour racketeering; he resigned the post in 1960 to manage his brother's presidential campaign. As U.S. attorney general (1961-64), he led a drive against organized crime that resulted in the conviction of labour leader Jimmy Hoffa. In 1964 he was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York. He became a spokesman for liberal Democrats and a critic of the Vietnam policy of Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1968, while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination in Los Angeles, he was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian immigrant
Robert Frank: born Nov. 9, 1924, Zürich, Switz. Swiss-born U.S. photographer. In the 1940s he worked as a fashion photographer for Harper's Bazaar in Paris. He abandoned fashion work in 1947 to travel in the U.S. and South America and explore the use of the 35-mm camera. His collection The Americans (1959), with its gritty, discordant images of 1950s America, had enormous influence and established him as a major figure. After 1959 Frank turned to filmmaking; his short film Pull My Daisy (1959), a collaboration with Jack Kerouac, became an underground classic. A major later collection is Robert Frank: Moving Out (1994)
Robert Franz: orig. Robert Franz Knauth born June 28, 1815, Halle, Saxony died Oct. 24, 1892, Halle, Ger. German song composer. In 1842 he became director of the Singakademie of his native Halle and organized choral festivals there. He sent Robert Schumann a set of songs, which Schumann had published in 1843 without consulting Franz. Franz Liszt became another influential supporter and published his own book about Franz in 1872. By 1867 Franz had become almost completely deaf and was obliged to relinquish his posts, including his professorship at the University of Halle. He was mentally unstable in his later years, when honours were increasingly heaped upon him. His more than 300 songs are remarkable for their sensitive musical prosody; he is a significant figure in the history of the lied
Robert Frost: a US poet who is one of America's best known and most popular poets. Some of his best known poems are Fire and Ice and Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening (1874-1963). born March 26, 1874, San Francisco, Calif., U.S. died Jan. 29, 1963, Boston, Mass. U.S. poet. Frost's family moved to New England early in his life. After stints at Dartmouth College and Harvard University and a difficult period as a teacher and farmer, he moved to England and published his first collections, A Boy's Will (1913) and North of Boston (1914). At the outbreak of war he returned to New England. He closely observed rural life and in his poetry endowed it with universal, even metaphysical, meaning, using colloquial language, familiar rhythms, and common symbols to express both its pastoral ideals and its dark complexities. His collections include New Hampshire (1923, Pulitzer Prize), Collected Poems (1930, Pulitzer Prize), A Further Range (1936, Pulitzer Prize), and A Witness Tree (1942, Pulitzer Prize). He was unique among American poets of the 20th century in simultaneously achieving wide popularity and deep critical admiration. Many of his poems, including "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," "Birches," "The Death of the Hired Man," "Dust of Snow," "Fire and Ice," and "Home Burial," are widely anthologized
Robert Fulton: (1765-1815) American artist and engineer, builder of one of the first steamboats to be widely used in the USA, inventor of the torpedo
Robert Fulton: a US engineer and inventor who designed and built several steamships (=large ships that use steam for power) (1765-1815). born Nov. 14, 1765, Lancaster county, Pa., U.S. died Feb. 24, 1815, New York, N.Y. U.S. inventor and engineer. Born to Irish immigrant parents, he studied painting with Benjamin West in London but soon turned to engineering. After designing a system of inland waterways, he tried unsuccessfully to interest the French and British governments in his prototypes of submarines (see Nautilus) and torpedoes. In 1801 he was commissioned by Robert R. Livingston to build a steamboat, and in 1807 Fulton's Clermont made the 150-mi (240-km) journey up the Hudson River from New York City to Albany in 32 hours, cutting 64 hours off the usual sailing time. It became the first commercially successful steamboat in the U.S. He later designed several other steamboats, including the world's first steam warship (1812). He was a member of the commission that recommended building the Erie Canal
Robert Gabriel Mugabe: Robert Mugabe (born 1924), president of Zimbabwe since 1987 and former prime minister of Zimbabwe (1980-1987)
Robert Gabriel Mugabe: born Feb. 21, 1924, Kutama, Southern Rhodesia First prime minister (1980-87) and executive president (from 1987) of Zimbabwe. With Joshua Nkomo, Mugabe led a Marxist-inspired guerrilla war that forced the white-dominated government of Ian Smith to accept universal elections, which Mugabe's party, Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), easily won. He formed a coalition government with Nkomo's Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), but he removed Nkomo in 1982. In 1984 the two parties were merged as ZANU-Patriotic Front, as Mugabe moved to convert Zimbabwe from a parliamentary democracy into a one-party socialist state. His rule was marked by violence and intimidation and by a decreasing tolerance of political opposition
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil 1st Viscount Cecil: born Sept. 14, 1864, London, Eng. died Nov. 24, 1958, Tunbridge Wells, Kent British statesman. The son of the marquess of Salisbury, he served during World War I as minister of blockade and as assistant secretary of state for foreign affairs. He was one of the principal draftsmen of the League of Nations covenant in 1919 and, as president of the League of Nations Union (1923-45), one of the League's most loyal workers until it was superseded by the United Nations. In 1937 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
Robert Goldwater: {i} (1907-1973), United States art historian
Robert Graves: a British poet and writer whose most famous works are his novels set in ancient Roman times, I, Claudius and Claudius the God, and for his description of his life as a soldier in World War I, Goodbye to All That (1895-1985). born July 24/26, 1895, London, Eng. died Dec. 7, 1985, Deyá, Majorca, Spain British man of letters. He served as an officer at the Western Front during World War I and his first three volumes of poetry were published during that time; they include some of the finest English love poems of the century. In 1926 he began a 13-year relationship with the American poet Laura Riding (1901-91), with whom he founded a press, briefly published a journal, and collaborated as a writer. After 1929 he lived principally in Majorca, Spain. The most famous of his more than 120 books are Good-bye to All That (1929), a grim memoir of the war; the historical novel I, Claudius (1934; televised in 1976); and erudite, controversial studies in mythology, notably The White Goddess (1948)
Robert Grosseteste: born 1175, Suffolk, Eng. died Oct. 9, 1253, Buckden, Buckinghamshire English bishop and scholar. He introduced Latin translations of Greek and Arabic writings in philosophy and science to Europe. After serving as chancellor of the University of Oxford ( 1215-21), he served as first lecturer in theology to the Franciscans, whom he greatly influenced. As bishop of Lincoln from 1235, he promoted a belief in the importance of the cure of souls, a centralized, hierarchical view of the church, and a belief in the superiority of the church over the state
Robert Guiscard: born 1015, Normandy died July 17, 1085, near Cephalonia, Greece, Byzantine Empire Norman adventurer and duke of Apulia (1059-85). Born into a family of Norman knights, he joined his brothers and half brothers in southern Italy, defeating the Byzantines, Lombards, and papacy (1053) and taking over Apulia. He allied with the papacy (1059), agreeing to oppose the Byzantines and expel the Arabs from Sicily. His brother Roger (later Roger I) helped him to conquer Sicily and Calabria, and he gained control of Salerno in 1076, making it the capital of his duchy. Robert made an abortive attempt to gain the Byzantine throne (1083) but returned to Italy to defend Pope Gregory VII from his enemies
Robert H Jackson: born Feb. 13, 1892, Spring Creek, Pa., U.S. died Oct. 9, 1954, Washington, D.C. U.S. jurist. He pleaded his first case while still a minor and was a lawyer by age
Robert H Jackson: He became corporation counsel for Jamestown, N.Y. As general counsel for the U.S. Bureau of Internal Revenue (1934), he successfully prosecuted Andrew W. Mellon for income-tax evasion. He served as U.S. solicitor general (1938-39) and attorney general (1940-41). In 1941 he was appointed by Pres. Franklin Roosevelt to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he served until 1954. He infused his well-worded opinions with a blend of liberalism and nationalism. In 1945-46 he served as chief U.S. prosecutor in the Nürnberg trials
Robert Henri: orig. Robert Henry Cozad born June 25, 1865, Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. died July 12, 1929, New York, N.Y. U.S. painter. He studied in Philadelphia and Paris, taught art in Philadelphia, and, after settling in New York City in 1900, became the leader of the young realist artists known as The Eight. He exhibited with The Eight in 1908 and later at the Armory Show (1913). As a portrait painter he demonstrated facile brushwork, lively colours, and an ability to catch fleeting gestures and expressions. He is best remembered as a teacher, principally at New York's Art Students League (1915-28), where he became one of the most influential art teachers in the U.S. and a powerful force in turning young artists away from academicism and toward the rich subject matter of modern city life. His belief in the artist as a social force led to the formation of the Ash Can school
Robert Herrick: (baptized Aug. 24, 1591, London, Eng. died October 1674, Dean Prior, Devonshire) English poet. Educated at Cambridge and later ordained, he became known as a poet in the 1620s and by the end of that decade had become a country vicar in Devonshire. A disciple of Ben Jonson, he wrote classically influenced lyrics whose appeal is in their freshness and their perfection of form and style. The only book he published was Hesperides (1648), containing 1,400 poems, mostly short, many of them epigrams. He is best remembered for the line "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
Robert Hooke: {i} (1635-1703) English philosopher and scientist known for his study of elasticity
Robert Hooke: born July 18, 1635, Freshwater, Isle of Wight, Eng. died March 3, 1703, London English physicist. From 1665 he taught at Oxford University. His achievements and theories were bewilderingly diverse. His important law of elasticity, known as Hooke's law (1660), states that the stretching of a solid is proportional to the force applied to it. He was one of the first to build and use a reflecting telescope. He suggested that Jupiter rotates on its axis, and his detailed sketches of Mars were later used to determine its rate of rotation. He suggested that a pendulum could be used to measure gravitation, and he attempted to show that the Earth and Moon follow an elliptical orbit around the Sun. He discovered diffraction and proposed the wave theory of light to explain it. He was one of the first proponents of the theory of evolution. He was the first to state in general that all matter expands when heated and that air is made up of particles separated from each other by relatively large distances. He invented a marine barometer, contributed improvements to clocks, the quadrant, and the universal joint, and anticipated the steam engine
Robert Houghwout Jackson: born Feb. 13, 1892, Spring Creek, Pa., U.S. died Oct. 9, 1954, Washington, D.C. U.S. jurist. He pleaded his first case while still a minor and was a lawyer by age
Robert Houghwout Jackson: He became corporation counsel for Jamestown, N.Y. As general counsel for the U.S. Bureau of Internal Revenue (1934), he successfully prosecuted Andrew W. Mellon for income-tax evasion. He served as U.S. solicitor general (1938-39) and attorney general (1940-41). In 1941 he was appointed by Pres. Franklin Roosevelt to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he served until 1954. He infused his well-worded opinions with a blend of liberalism and nationalism. In 1945-46 he served as chief U.S. prosecutor in the Nürnberg trials
Robert Hutchings Goddard: born Oct. 5, 1882, Worcester, Mass., U.S. died Aug. 10, 1945, Baltimore, Md. U.S. inventor, regarded as the father of modern rocketry. He received his doctorate (1911) from Clark University, where he taught for much of his career. In laboratory work there, he proved that thrust and consequent propulsion can take place in a vacuum and was the first to develop a rocket engine using liquid propellants (static tested in 1925). In 1926 Goddard successfully launched the world's first liquid-fueled rocket (gasoline and liquid oxygen) from a farm in Massachusetts. In 1935, having relocated his testing site to New Mexico, he was the first to send a liquid-fueled rocket faster than the speed of sound. He patented the first practical automatic steering apparatus for rockets, developed staged rockets designed to gain great altitudes, and developed the first rocket-fuel pumps, self-cooling rocket engines, and other components of a propulsion system designed for space exploration. Much of his work anticipated that of Wernher von Braun in Germany but was ignored by the U.S. government until after his death at the end of World War II
Robert Indiana: orig. Robert Clark born Sept. 13, 1928, New Castle, Ind., U.S. U.S. painter, sculptor, and graphic artist. After studies at the Art Institute of Chicago, he settled in New York City and became a leading exponent of Pop art. He achieved wide recognition for paintings and prints featuring geometric shapes emblazoned with lettering and vivid colours. In 1964 he collaborated with Andy Warhol on the film Eat and was commissioned to produce an EAT sign for the New York pavilion at the New York World's Fair. His most famous image, LOVE, first lettered on canvas in 1965, became a universal symbol for the hippie generation
Robert J Van de Graaff: v. born Dec. 20, 1901, Tuscaloosa, Ala., U.S. died Jan. 16, 1967, Boston, Mass. U.S. physicist. He worked as an engineer, then as a physics researcher at the University of Oxford (1925-29). From 1931 he continued his research at MIT, as a professor (1934-60). He developed a high-voltage electrostatic generator (later called the Van de Graaff generator) that served as a type of particle accelerator. In 1946 he cofounded the High Voltage Engineering Corp. to manufacture his accelerator. Widely used in atomic research, the device was also adapted to produce high-energy X rays for medical and industrial uses
Robert James Graves: born 1796, Dublin, Ire. died March 20, 1853, Dublin Irish physician. In 1821 he set up the Park Street School of Medicine, where he gave his advanced students responsibility for patients (under supervision) and lectured in English, not Latin. He was a founder and editor of the Dublin Journal of Medical Science. His Clinical Lectures on the Practice of Medicine (1848) established his reputation. He introduced timing of the pulse by watch and giving patients with fevers nourishment instead of withholding it. He was a leader of the Irish (Dublin) school of diagnosis, which stressed observation of patients, and was one of the first to fully describe exophthalmic goitre (Graves disease)
Robert Jemison Van de Graaff: v. born Dec. 20, 1901, Tuscaloosa, Ala., U.S. died Jan. 16, 1967, Boston, Mass. U.S. physicist. He worked as an engineer, then as a physics researcher at the University of Oxford (1925-29). From 1931 he continued his research at MIT, as a professor (1934-60). He developed a high-voltage electrostatic generator (later called the Van de Graaff generator) that served as a type of particle accelerator. In 1946 he cofounded the High Voltage Engineering Corp. to manufacture his accelerator. Widely used in atomic research, the device was also adapted to produce high-energy X rays for medical and industrial uses
Robert Jemison Van de Graaff: {i} (1901-1967) United States physicist who invented the Van de Graaff generator
Robert Joffrey: an American ballet dancer and Choreographer (=someone who arranges how dancers will move) . He started the American Ballet Centre, a school for dancers, in 1953, and a ballet group in 1956. His ballet group later became the Joffrey Ballet, one of the most important ballet groups in the US (1930-1988). orig. Abdullah Jaffa Bey Khan born Dec. 24, 1930, Seattle, Wash., U.S. died March 25, 1988, New York, N.Y. U.S. dancer and choreographer, founder-director of the Joffrey Ballet. He was the son of an Afghan father and an Italian-born mother. He studied dance in Seattle and later in New York, opened a ballet school in 1953, and in 1954 formed the first of several groups. In 1956 he founded the Robert Joffrey (later simply Joffrey) Ballet with Gerald Arpino (b. 1928). The company gained international fame and toured widely. In 1965 it became affiliated with the New York City Center. Joffrey's ballets include Persephone (1952), Astarte (1967), Remembrances (1973), and Postcards (1980). After Joffrey's death, Arpino became director; in 1995 he moved the company to Chicago, renaming it the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago
Robert Johnson: born 1911, Hazlehurst, Miss., U.S. died Aug. 16, 1938, near Greenwood, Miss. U.S. blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Born to a sharecropping family, he learned harmonica and guitar, probably influenced by personal contact with Delta bluesmen such as Eddie "Son" House and Charley Patton. He traveled widely throughout the South and as far north as Chicago and New York City, playing at house parties, juke joints, and lumber camps. In 1936-37 he recorded songs by House and others, as well as originals such as "Me and the Devil Blues," "Hellhound on My Trail," and "Love in Vain." He is said to have died, at age 27, after drinking strychnine-laced whiskey (possibly the work of a jealous husband) in a juke joint. His eerie falsetto and masterly slide guitar influenced many later blues and rock musicians
Robert Joseph Flaherty: born Feb. 16, 1884, Iron Mountain, Mich., U.S. died July 23, 1951, Dummerston, Vt. U.S. filmmaker, considered the father of the documentary. He grew up in remote northern Canada and later led explorations of the area (1910-16). He lived with the Eskimos for 16 months and filmed their way of life. His resulting film, Nanook of the North (1922), was an international success and established the model for the documentary film. His later documentaries include Moana (1926), Tabu (1931), Man of Aran (1934), The Land (1942), and Louisiana Story (1948)
Robert K Merton: orig. Meyer R. Schkolnick born July 4, 1910, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S. died Feb. 23, 2003, New York, N.Y. U.S. sociologist. After receiving a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1936, Merton taught there and at Tulane University before moving to Columbia University, where he was a professor from 1941 to 1979. His diverse interests included deviant behaviour, the sociology of science, and mass communications, and he generally advanced a functionalist approach to the study of society. He was awarded a National Medal of Science in 1994. Among his writings are Mass Persuasion (1946), Social Theory and Social Structure (1949), On the Shoulders of Giants (1965), and The Sociology of Science (1973). See also bureaucracy; functionalism
Robert King Merton: orig. Meyer R. Schkolnick born July 4, 1910, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S. died Feb. 23, 2003, New York, N.Y. U.S. sociologist. After receiving a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1936, Merton taught there and at Tulane University before moving to Columbia University, where he was a professor from 1941 to 1979. His diverse interests included deviant behaviour, the sociology of science, and mass communications, and he generally advanced a functionalist approach to the study of society. He was awarded a National Medal of Science in 1994. Among his writings are Mass Persuasion (1946), Social Theory and Social Structure (1949), On the Shoulders of Giants (1965), and The Sociology of Science (1973). See also bureaucracy; functionalism
Robert Koch: born Dec. 11, 1843, Clausthal, Hannover died May 27, 1910, Baden-Baden, Ger. German physician. As the first to isolate the anthrax bacillus, observe its life cycle, and develop a preventive inoculation for it, he was the first to prove a causal relationship between a bacillus and a disease. He perfected pure-culture techniques, based on Louis Pasteur's concept. He isolated the tuberculosis organism and established its role in the disease (1882). In 1883 he discovered the causal organism for cholera and how it is transmitted and also developed a vaccination for rinderpest. Koch's postulates remain fundamental to pathology: the organism should always be found in sick animals and never in healthy ones; it must be grown in pure culture; the cultured organism must make a healthy animal sick; and it must be reisolated from the newly sick animal and recultured and still be the same. Awarded a Nobel Prize in 1905, he is considered a founder of bacteriology
Robert Koch: {i} Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch (1843-1910), German doctor and bacteriologist, discoverer of the bacteria associated with tuberculosis, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1905
Robert Lansing: (1864-1928) American politician, Secretary of State during the Wilson administration, head of the U.S. delegation to the Paris Peace Conference
Robert Laughlin: (born 1950) Physicist from Stanford University (USA), winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1998
Robert Lawson: {i} (1892-1957) Unites States illustrator and author of children's books
Robert Lee Frost: born March 26, 1874, San Francisco, Calif., U.S. died Jan. 29, 1963, Boston, Mass. U.S. poet. Frost's family moved to New England early in his life. After stints at Dartmouth College and Harvard University and a difficult period as a teacher and farmer, he moved to England and published his first collections, A Boy's Will (1913) and North of Boston (1914). At the outbreak of war he returned to New England. He closely observed rural life and in his poetry endowed it with universal, even metaphysical, meaning, using colloquial language, familiar rhythms, and common symbols to express both its pastoral ideals and its dark complexities. His collections include New Hampshire (1923, Pulitzer Prize), Collected Poems (1930, Pulitzer Prize), A Further Range (1936, Pulitzer Prize), and A Witness Tree (1942, Pulitzer Prize). He was unique among American poets of the 20th century in simultaneously achieving wide popularity and deep critical admiration. Many of his poems, including "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," "Birches," "The Death of the Hired Man," "Dust of Snow," "Fire and Ice," and "Home Burial," are widely anthologized
Robert Livingston Stevens: born Oct. 18, 1787, Hoboken, N.J., U.S. died April 20, 1856, Hoboken U.S. engineer and ship designer. The son of John Stevens, he tested the first steamboat to use screw propellers. He designed the railway T-rail in 1830, and later the railroad spike. He found that rails laid on wooden ties, with crushed stone or gravel beneath, provided a roadbed superior to any known before; his construction remains in universal use
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson: born Nov. 13, 1850, Edinburgh, Scot. died Dec. 3, 1894, Vailima, Samoa Scottish essayist, novelist, and poet. He prepared for a law career but never practiced. He traveled frequently, partly in search of better climates for his tuberculosis, which would eventually cause his death at age
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson: He became known for accounts such as Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (1879) and essays in periodicals, first collected in Virginibus Puerisque (1881). His immensely popular novels Treasure Island (1883), Kidnapped (1886), and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), and The Master of Ballantrae (1889) were written over the course of a few years. A Child's Garden of Verses (1885) is one of the most influential children's works of the 19th century. In his last years he lived in Samoa and produced works moving toward a new maturity, including the story "The Beach of Falesá" (1892) and the novel Weir of Hermiston (1896), his unfinished masterpiece
Robert Louis Stevenson: {i} (1850-1894) Scottish author and poet, author of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and "Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson: He became known for accounts such as Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (1879) and essays in periodicals, first collected in Virginibus Puerisque (1881). His immensely popular novels Treasure Island (1883), Kidnapped (1886), and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), and The Master of Ballantrae (1889) were written over the course of a few years. A Child's Garden of Verses (1885) is one of the most influential children's works of the 19th century. In his last years he lived in Samoa and produced works moving toward a new maturity, including the story "The Beach of Falesá" (1892) and the novel Weir of Hermiston (1896), his unfinished masterpiece
Robert Louis Stevenson: a Scottish writer whose books Treasure Island and Kidnapped are among the best-known adventure stories in English. He also wrote The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1850-94). born Nov. 13, 1850, Edinburgh, Scot. died Dec. 3, 1894, Vailima, Samoa Scottish essayist, novelist, and poet. He prepared for a law career but never practiced. He traveled frequently, partly in search of better climates for his tuberculosis, which would eventually cause his death at age
Robert Lowell: a US poet and writer of plays, who was also concerned about social questions and opposed to the Vietnam War. Two of his most famous poems are The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket and Colloquy in Black Rock (1917-77). orig. Robert Traill Spence Lowell, Jr. born March 1, 1917, Boston, Mass., U.S. died Sept. 12, 1977, New York, N.Y. U.S. poet. Lowell was a descendant of a distinguished family that included James Russell Lowell and Amy Lowell. Though he turned away from his Puritan heritage, it forms the subject of much of his poetry. His first major work, Lord Weary's Castle (1946, Pulitzer Prize), contains "The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket." Life Studies (1959) contains an autobiographical essay and 15 complex, confessional poems largely based on his family history and personal life, which included time in mental institutions. His activities in liberal causes in the 1960s influenced his next three volumes, including For the Union Dead (1964). His later collections include The Dolphin (1973, Pulitzer Prize)
Robert Ludlum: born May 25, 1927, New York, N.Y., U.S. died March 12, 2001, Naples, Fla. U.S. author of spy thrillers. He worked in the theatre as an actor and a successful producer and acted for television before turning to writing. Among his best-sellers were The Scarlatti Inheritance (1971), The Osterman Weekend (1972; film, 1983), The Matarese Circle (1979), and The Bourne Identity (1980; film, 1988, 2002). Though critics often found his plots unlikely and his prose uninspired, his fast-paced combination of international espionage, conspiracy, and mayhem proved enormously popular
Robert M La Follette: born June 14, 1855, Primrose, Wis., U.S. died June 18, 1925, Washington, D.C. U.S. politician. He served as a county district attorney in Wisconsin (1880-84) and in the U.S. House of Representatives (1885-91). Advocating progressive reforms, he was elected governor of Wisconsin (1901-06). In the U.S. Senate (1906-24), he sponsored bills to restrict the power of the railroad companies. He founded La Follette's Weekly (1909) to broaden his reform movement, and he led Republican opposition to the policies of Pres. William H. Taft. He opposed U.S. entrance into World War I and policies of Pres. Woodrow Wilson that favoured big business. After the war he worked vigorously to expose corruption in government, including in the Teapot Dome scandal. As the presidential candidate of the Progressive Party in the 1924 election, he won five million votes, one-sixth of the total national vote. He died the next year; his son Robert (1895-1953) held his Senate seat from 1925 until 1947, when he was defeated by Joseph McCarthy
Robert M MacIver: born April 17, 1882, Stornoway, Outer Hebrides, Scot. died June 15, 1970, New York, N.Y., U.S. Scottish-born U.S. sociologist and political scientist. He taught at the University of Aberdeen and later at Canadian and U.S. universities, principally Columbia (1915-26). He believed in the compatibility of individualism and social organization and saw societies as evolving from highly communal states to states in which individual functions and group affiliations were extremely specialized. His works included The Modern State (1926), Leviathan and the People (1939), and The Web of Government (1947)
Robert M Solow: born Aug. 23, 1924, Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S. U.S. economist. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and began teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1949. Solow developed a mathematical model that could show the relative contributions of various factors to sustained national economic growth. He demonstrated that, contrary to traditional economic thinking, the rate of technological progress is more important to growth than capital accumulation or increases in labour. From the 1960s on, his studies were influential in persuading governments to invest in technological research and development. In 1987 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences
Robert Mallet: born June 3, 1810, Dublin, Ire. died Nov. 5, 1881, London, Eng. Irish civil engineer and scientific investigator. He studied at Trinity College and in 1831 took charge of his father's Victoria foundry, which he expanded into the dominant foundry in Ireland. His commissions included the construction of railroad terminals, the Nore viaduct, the Fastnet Rock lighthouse, and several swivel bridges over the Shannon. His major innovation in bridge technology was buckled-plate flooring. He built an early form of seismograph and advanced the technique of making large castings of iron, such as heavy cannon
Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe: born Dec. 5, 1924, Graaff-Reinet, Cape Colony died Feb. 27, 1978, Kimberley, S.Af. South African black nationalist leader. Sobukwe insisted that South Africa be returned to its indigenous inhabitants ("Africa for the Africans"). Charging the African National Congress with being contaminated by non-African influences, he founded the Pan-Africanist Congress in 1959 and became a leader in the Pan-African movement. Arrested in 1960, he spent the rest of his life in prison or under house arrest
Robert Mapplethorpe: {i} (1946-1989) contemporary American photographer known for his work with flowers and human nudes
Robert Mapplethorpe: born Nov. 4, 1946, New York, N.Y., U.S. died March 9, 1989, Boston, Mass. U.S. photographer. He attended the Pratt Institute (1963-70). By the mid 1970s he was pursuing what were to remain his favourite subjects throughout his career: still lifes, flowers, portraits of friends and celebrities, and homoerotic explorations of the male body. His compositions were generally stark, with his combination of cold studio light and precise focus creating dramatic tonal contrasts. His muscular male models were generally framed against plain backdrops, sometimes engaged in sexual activity or posed with sadomasochistic props such as leather and chains. His clear, unflinching style challenged viewers to confront this imagery. Moreover, the combination of his choice of subject matter with the photographs' formal beauty and grounding in art-historical traditions created what many saw as a tension between pornography and art. A posthumous retrospective exhibition of his work in 1990, funded partly by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), stirred a debate about government subsidies of "obscene" art and provoked Congress to enact restrictions on future NEA grants
Robert Marion La Follette: born June 14, 1855, Primrose, Wis., U.S. died June 18, 1925, Washington, D.C. U.S. politician. He served as a county district attorney in Wisconsin (1880-84) and in the U.S. House of Representatives (1885-91). Advocating progressive reforms, he was elected governor of Wisconsin (1901-06). In the U.S. Senate (1906-24), he sponsored bills to restrict the power of the railroad companies. He founded La Follette's Weekly (1909) to broaden his reform movement, and he led Republican opposition to the policies of Pres. William H. Taft. He opposed U.S. entrance into World War I and policies of Pres. Woodrow Wilson that favoured big business. After the war he worked vigorously to expose corruption in government, including in the Teapot Dome scandal. As the presidential candidate of the Progressive Party in the 1924 election, he won five million votes, one-sixth of the total national vote. He died the next year; his son Robert (1895-1953) held his Senate seat from 1925 until 1947, when he was defeated by Joseph McCarthy
Robert Maxwell: orig. Jan Ludvik Hoch born June 10, 1923, Slatina-Selo, Czech. died Nov. 5, 1991, at sea off the Canary Islands Czech-British publisher. Of Jewish origin, he lost many family members in the Holocaust but managed to reach Britain and become an army officer. After the war he founded Pergamon Press, which became a major publisher of trade journals and scientific books. In the 1980s he revived the British Printing Corp. and purchased the Mirror Group Newspapers, though his financial practices were officially questioned. Among the U.S. acquisitions of Maxwell Communications were the New York Daily News (1991) and the publishing house Macmillan. The revelation of fraudulent financial dealings aimed at bolstering his collapsing empire was followed by his death by drowning from his yacht in the Atlantic. It was assumed to have been a suicide
Robert Maynard Hutchins: born Jan. 17, 1899, Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S. died May 17, 1977, Santa Barbara, Calif. U.S. educator and foundation president. He attended Oberlin College and graduated from Yale University (A.B., 1921) and Yale Law School (LL.B., 1925), becoming dean of Yale Law School in 1927. At the University of Chicago as president (1929-45) and chancellor (1945-51), he encouraged liberal education based on the study of the great books of the Western tradition, deplored any tendency toward vocationalism, and dismantled the intercollegiate athletic program. Hutchins later headed various foundations, including the Ford Foundation. He served as chairman of the board of editors of Encyclopædia Britannica (1943-74) and edited the 54-volume Great Books of the Western World (1952). He expounded his views on education in Higher Learning in America (1936)
Robert McNamara: {i} (born 1916) veteran of World War II, U.S. Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War (1961-1968), president of the World Bank (1968-1981)
Robert Merton Solow: born Aug. 23, 1924, Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S. U.S. economist. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and began teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1949. Solow developed a mathematical model that could show the relative contributions of various factors to sustained national economic growth. He demonstrated that, contrary to traditional economic thinking, the rate of technological progress is more important to growth than capital accumulation or increases in labour. From the 1960s on, his studies were influential in persuading governments to invest in technological research and development. In 1987 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences
Robert Millikan: born March 22, 1868, Morrison, Ill., U.S. died Dec. 19, 1953, San Marino, Calif. U.S. physicist. He received his doctorate from Columbia University and taught physics at the University of Chicago (1896-1921) and the California Institute of Technology (from 1921). To measure electric charge, he devised the Millikan oil-drop experiment. He verified Albert Einstein's photoelectric equation and obtained a precise value for the Planck constant. He was awarded a 1923 Nobel Prize
Robert Mitchum: born Aug. 6, 1917, Bridgeport, Conn., U.S. died July 1, 1997, Santa Barbara county, Calif. U.S. film actor. Expelled from high school in New York City, he spent his teenage years wandering the country and working odd jobs. After joining an acting company in California, he made his screen debut in 1943, acting in several Hopalong Cassidy westerns. He won praise for his role in The Story of G.I. Joe (1945). With his trademark sleepy-eyed, tough-guy appearance, he usually played loners and villains, in movies (many of them B movies that have grown in critical esteem over time) such as Out of the Past (1947), The Lusty Men (1952), The Night of the Hunter (1955), Thunder Road (1958), Cape Fear (1962), The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973), and Farewell, My Lovely (1975). In his later years, he starred in the television miniseries Winds of War (1983) and War and Remembrance (1988-89)
Robert Morley: {i} (1908-1992) English thespian
Robert Morris: born Jan. 31, 1734, Liverpool, Merseyside, Eng. died May 8, 1806, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S. British-born American financier and politician. He immigrated to join his father in Maryland in 1747 and entered a Philadelphia mercantile firm the following year. As a member of the Continental Congress in the American Revolution, he practically controlled the financial operations of the war from 1776 to 1778, borrowing money from the French, requisitioning from the states, and even advancing money from his own pocket. He established the Bank of North America (1781) and served as U.S. superintendent of finance (1781-84) under the Articles of Confederation. He was a delegate to the Annapolis Convention and the Constitutional Convention and served in the U.S. Senate (1789-95). After investing heavily in land speculation, he went bankrupt and spent more than three years in a debtors' prison before his release in 1801. born Feb. 9, 1931, Kansas City, Mo., U.S. U.S. artist. His first one-man exhibition of paintings was held in San Francisco in 1957. In 1960, while living in New York City, he began producing large, monochromatic geometric sculptures, groups of which he exhibited in specific spatial relationships. His work of this period greatly affected the Minimalist movement, which sought to reduce art to its essence by eliminating personal expression and historical allusion. From the late 1960s, however, Morris moved toward a more spontaneous, if anonymous, expressiveness. He experimented in a wide variety of forms, including the "happening"; "dispersal pieces," in which materials were strewn in apparent randomness on the gallery floor; and environmental projects. His work of the 1970s showed a preoccupation with paradoxes of mental and physical imprisonment
Robert Morrison MacIver: born April 17, 1882, Stornoway, Outer Hebrides, Scot. died June 15, 1970, New York, N.Y., U.S. Scottish-born U.S. sociologist and political scientist. He taught at the University of Aberdeen and later at Canadian and U.S. universities, principally Columbia (1915-26). He believed in the compatibility of individualism and social organization and saw societies as evolving from highly communal states to states in which individual functions and group affiliations were extremely specialized. His works included The Modern State (1926), Leviathan and the People (1939), and The Web of Government (1947)
Robert Moses: born Dec. 18, 1888, New Haven, Conn., U.S. died July 29, 1981, West Islip, N.Y. U.S. public official. He began his long career in public service in New York City's bureau of municipal research. In 1919 Gov. Alfred E. Smith appointed him chief of staff of the New York state reconstruction commission and, in 1924, head of both the New York and Long Island state park commissions. For 40 years in these and related positions, Moses supervised the vast expansion of the park system and the construction of numerous roads, bridges, tunnels, and housing projects in and around the city, reshaping it on a grand scale in often controversial ways
Robert Motherwell: born Jan. 24, 1915, Aberdeen, Wash., U.S. died July 16, 1991, Provincetown, Mass. U.S. painter, writer, and teacher. He received an art scholarship at 11, but he earned degrees from Stanford and Harvard before deciding to become a serious painter. He espoused Abstract Expressionism from the beginning of his career, and his erudite writings were largely responsible for the intellectual tone of the movement. In his Elegy to the Spanish Republic painting series, begun in 1949 and continued over three decades, he developed a limited repertory of simple, serene black forms that were applied to the picture plane in a way that created a sense of slow, solemn movement. Though he worked in various styles, his reputation rests on his pioneering work as a founder and principal exponent of Abstract Expressionism
Robert Mugabe: born Feb. 21, 1924, Kutama, Southern Rhodesia First prime minister (1980-87) and executive president (from 1987) of Zimbabwe. With Joshua Nkomo, Mugabe led a Marxist-inspired guerrilla war that forced the white-dominated government of Ian Smith to accept universal elections, which Mugabe's party, Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), easily won. He formed a coalition government with Nkomo's Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), but he removed Nkomo in 1982. In 1984 the two parties were merged as ZANU-Patriotic Front, as Mugabe moved to convert Zimbabwe from a parliamentary democracy into a one-party socialist state. His rule was marked by violence and intimidation and by a decreasing tolerance of political opposition
Robert Muldoon: {i} Robert David Muldoon, Sir Robert Muldoon, Sir Robert David ("Rob") Muldoon (1921-1992), former prime minister of New Zealand (from 1975 to 1984)
Robert Norton Noyce: born Dec. 12, 1927, Burlington, Iowa, U.S. died June 3, 1990, Austin, Texas U.S. engineer. He received a Ph.D. from MIT. In 1957 he launched Fairchild Semiconductor, one of the first electronics firms in what came to be called Silicon Valley. Simultaneously but independently, he and Jack Kilby invented the integrated circuit computer chip in 1959. With his colleague Gordon Moore, he founded Intel Corporation. in 1968. In 1988 Noyce became president of Sematech, Inc., a research consortium formed and financed jointly by industry and the U.S. government to keep the U.S. semiconductor industry at the forefront of semiconductor manufacturing technology
Robert Noyce: born Dec. 12, 1927, Burlington, Iowa, U.S. died June 3, 1990, Austin, Texas U.S. engineer. He received a Ph.D. from MIT. In 1957 he launched Fairchild Semiconductor, one of the first electronics firms in what came to be called Silicon Valley. Simultaneously but independently, he and Jack Kilby invented the integrated circuit computer chip in 1959. With his colleague Gordon Moore, he founded Intel Corporation. in 1968. In 1988 Noyce became president of Sematech, Inc., a research consortium formed and financed jointly by industry and the U.S. government to keep the U.S. semiconductor industry at the forefront of semiconductor manufacturing technology
Robert Owen: born May 14, 1771, Newtown, Montgomeryshire, Wales died Nov. 17, 1858, Newtown Welsh manufacturer and philanthropist. At his New Lanark cotton mills (Lanarkshire, Scot.), in partnership with Jeremy Bentham, he set up innovative social and industrial welfare programs, including improved housing and schools for young children. In A New View of Society (1813) he contended that character is wholly formed by one's environment. By 1817 his work had evolved into ideas presaging socialism and the cooperative movement, ideas he would spend much of his life preaching. He sponsored several experimental utopian communities of "Owenites" in Britain and the U.S., including one at New Harmony, Ind. (1825-28) where Owen lost some 80% of his fortune all of which proved short-lived. He strongly supported early labour unions, but opposition and repression swiftly dissolved them, and it was two generations before socialism again influenced unionism. He was the father of Robert Dale Owen
Robert Peary: a US navy officer and explorer who is believed to be the first person to reach the North Pole, in 1909 (1856-1920)
Robert Peel: a British Conservative politician who established the first official British police force and introduced freedoms for Roman Catholics. He was prime minister from 1834 to 1835 and 1841 to 1846 (1788-1850)
Robert Penn Warren: born April 24, 1905, Guthrie, Ky., U.S. died Sept. 15, 1989, Stratton, Vt. U.S. novelist, poet, and critic. Warren attended Vanderbilt University, where he joined the Fugitives, a group of poets who advocated the agrarian way of life in the South. Later he taught at several colleges and universities and helped found and edit The Southern Review (1935-42), possibly the most influential American literary magazine of the time. His writings often treat moral dilemmas in a South beset by the erosion of its traditional rural values. His best-known novel is All the King's Men (1946, Pulitzer Prize; film, 1949). The short-story volume The Circus in the Attic (1948) contains the notable "Blackberry Winter." He won Pulitzer prizes for poetry in 1958 and 1979 and became the first U.S. poet laureate in 1986
Robert Pinsky: born Oct. 20, 1940, Long Branch, N.J., U.S. American poet and critic. Pinsky was poetry editor of The New Republic from 1979 to 1986. His own poems, many of which are to be found in The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems (1996), often explore the meaning of ordinary acts. He also did a notable verse translation of Dante's Inferno (1994). Pinsky was poet laureate consultant from 1997 to 2000
Robert R McCormick: known as Colonel McCormick born July 30, 1880, Chicago, Ill., U.S. died April 1, 1955, Wheaton, Ill. U.S. newspaper editor and publisher. He was a grandnephew of Cyrus H. McCormick and grandson of Joseph Medill, editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune. He was president of the Chicago Tribune Co. from 1911 and sole editor and publisher of the Tribune from 1925. Under his direction the paper achieved the largest circulation among U.S. standard-sized newspapers and led the world in newspaper advertising revenue. His idiosyncratic editorials made him the personification of reactionary journalism in the U.S
Robert R. Livingston: born Nov. 27, 1746, New York, N.Y. died Feb. 26, 1813, Clermont, N.Y. U.S. lawyer and diplomat. He served in the Continental Congress and helped draft the Declaration of Independence. As New York state's first chancellor (1777-1801), he administered the oath of office to Pres. George Washington (1789). From 1781 to 1783 he was U.S. secretary of foreign affairs. As minister to France from 1801 to 1804, he helped effect the Louisiana Purchase. In partnership with Robert Fulton, he later received a steamboat monopoly for New York waters; the first vessel to operate on the Hudson River (1807) was named the Clermont, after his ancestral home
Robert Rauschenberg: {i} (born 1925) American pop artist who worked in several different media (including painting, sculpture, collage, and printmaking)
Robert Rauschenberg: a US painter who is one of the most famous painters in pop art (1925-). orig. Milton Rauschenberg born Oct. 22, 1925, Port Arthur, Texas, U.S. U.S. painter and graphic artist. He studied under Josef Albers. His "combine" paintings of the 1950s, incorporating objects such as soda bottles, traffic barricades, and stuffed birds, anticipated the Pop art movement. In later work, he used silkscreen and other techniques to transfer images from commercial print media and his own photographs to canvas, reinforcing the images and unifying them compositionally with bold strokes of paint. His work has roots in Dada and the ready-mades of Marcel Duchamp
Robert Redford: born Aug. 18, 1937, Santa Monica, Calif., U.S. U.S. film actor and director. He made his Broadway debut in 1959 and won acclaim in Barefoot in the Park (1963; film, 1967). The blond, appealing Redford began acting in films in the mid-1960s. He appeared with Paul Newman in the hits Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973) and also starred in The Candidate (1972), Jeremiah Johnson (1972), All the President's Men (1976), The Natural (1984), Out of Africa (1985), and Indecent Proposal (1993). His directorial debut, Ordinary People (1980, Academy Award), was followed by The Milagro Beanfield War (1988), A River Runs Through It (1992), Quiz Show (1994), The Horse Whisperer (1998), and The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000). He received an honorary Academy Award in 2001. In 1980 he founded the Sundance Institute to sponsor young filmmakers' works, and by the 1990s its film festival was the major showcase for U.S. independent films
Robert Redford: {i} (born in 1937) American movie actor and director (starred in "The Sting", "The Great Gatsby", "Out of Africa")
Robert Remak: born July 26, 1815, Posen, Prussia died Aug. 29, 1865, Kissingen, Bavaria German embryologist and neurologist. He discovered and named the three germ layers of cells that develop in the early embryo: the ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm. He also discovered Remak fibres (nerve fibres with no myelin sheath) and Remak ganglia (neurons in the heart) and was a pioneer in electrotherapy for nervous diseases. He achieved enough eminence to obtain a lectureship at the University of Berlin despite Prussian laws barring Jews from teaching
Robert Rogers: born Nov. 7, 1731, Methuen, Mass. died May 18, 1795, London, Eng. American frontier soldier. He raised and commanded a militia called Rogers's Rangers, which earned fame in the French and Indian War and in Pontiac's War. He led the first English exploration of the upper Mississippi River and Great Lakes region (1766) but failed to reach the Pacific Ocean, his intended goal. In the American Revolution he was regarded as a loyalist spy; imprisoned by George Washington, he escaped to organize the Queen's Rangers, which he led in operations around New York. Defeated in 1780, he fled to England
Robert Rutherford McCormick: known as Colonel McCormick born July 30, 1880, Chicago, Ill., U.S. died April 1, 1955, Wheaton, Ill. U.S. newspaper editor and publisher. He was a grandnephew of Cyrus H. McCormick and grandson of Joseph Medill, editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune. He was president of the Chicago Tribune Co. from 1911 and sole editor and publisher of the Tribune from 1925. Under his direction the paper achieved the largest circulation among U.S. standard-sized newspapers and led the world in newspaper advertising revenue. His idiosyncratic editorials made him the personification of reactionary journalism in the U.S
Robert Ryan: born Nov. 11, 1909, Chicago, Ill., U.S. died July 11, 1973, New York, N.Y. U.S. film actor. He trained for the stage at Max Reinhardt's workshop in Hollywood, and after World War II he became a successful character actor. Often playing tough guys and bullies, he earned acclaim for his roles in The Woman on the Beach (1947), Crossfire (1947), The Set-Up (1949), and Act of Violence (1949). His later films include Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), Men in War (1957), Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), Billy Budd (1962), and The Wild Bunch (1969)
Robert S McNamara: born June 9, 1916, San Francisco, Calif., U.S. U.S. secretary of defense (1961-68). He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley (1937), earned a graduate degree at the Harvard Business School (1939), and later joined the Harvard faculty. He developed logistical and statistical systems for the military during World War II. After the war, he was one of the "Whiz Kids" hired to revitalize the Ford Motor Company, and in 1960 he became the first president of the company who was not a member of the Ford family. In 1961 he was appointed secretary of defense by John F. Kennedy. Though initially a supporter of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, by 1967 he advocated peace negotiations; his opposition to the bombing of North Vietnam caused him to lose influence with Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson. He resigned in 1968 to become president of the World Bank (1968-81)
Robert Schuman: born June 29, 1886, Luxembourg died Sept. 4, 1963, Metz, France French statesman. He was a member of the French National Assembly from 1919. After working in the French Resistance in World War II, he helped found the Popular Republican Movement. He served as finance minister (1946), premier (1947-48), foreign minister (1948-52), and minister of justice (1955-56). In 1950 he proposed the Schuman Plan to promote European economic and military unity, which led to the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community (EEC). He served as president of the EEC's consultative assembly (1958-60)
Robert Schumann: a German composer who wrote symphonies and many songs, but is best known for the music he wrote for the piano. He was married to Clara Schumann (1819-96), who was also a pianist and composer (1810-56). born June 8, 1810, Zwickau, Saxony died July 29, 1856, Endenich, near Bonn, Prussia German composer. Son of a bookseller, he considered becoming a novelist. Under family pressure he reluctantly entered law school, but he devoted his time to song composition and piano lessons. An injury to one of his fingers put an end to his hopes of a career as a virtuoso and confined him to composition. He embarked upon a prolific period, writing piano pieces and founding, in 1834, the New Journal for Music. His works from this fertile period include Papillons, Carnaval (both 1833-35), and Davidsbündlertänze (1837). He married the pianist Clara Wieck in 1840. That year he returned to the field of the solo song; in the span of 11 months he composed nearly all the songs on which much of his reputation rests, such as the song cycles Dichterliebe and Frauenliebe und Leben. The next year he widened his scope to orchestral music, producing Symphony No. 1, Symphony No. 4, and his piano concerto; in 1842 he concentrated on chamber music. In his last productive years, he turned to dramatic or semidramatic works. His mental deterioration (probably associated with both syphilis and a family history of mental illness) accelerated; in 1854 he was placed in a sanatorium, where he died two years later
Robert Schumann: {i} (1810-1856) German composer
Robert Scott: {i} (1868-1912) English explorer who reached the South Pole a month after Roald Amundsen
Robert Service: born Jan. 16, 1874, Preston, Lancashire, Eng. died Sept. 11, 1958, Lancieux, France English-born Canadian popular verse writer. He immigrated to Canada in 1894 and lived eight years in the Yukon. His Songs of a Sourdough (1907) and Ballads of a Cheechako (1909), about life in the "frozen North," were enormously popular. He became known as "the Canadian Kipling" with such rollicking ballads as "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee". His other works include the novel The Trail of '98 (1910) and Rhymes of a Red Cross Man (1916)
Robert Seymour Bridges: born Oct. 23, 1844, Walmer, Kent, Eng. died April 21, 1930, Boar's Hill, Oxford English poet. He published several long poems and poetic dramas, but his reputation rests on the lyrics collected in Shorter Poems (1890, 1894), which reveal his mastery of prosody. His 1916 edition of the poetry of his friend Gerard Manley Hopkins rescued it from obscurity. He was poet laureate of England from 1913 until his death
Robert Smalls: born April 5, 1839, Beaufort, S.C., U.S. died Feb. 22, 1915, Beaufort U.S. naval hero. Born to plantation slaves, he was taken to Charleston, S.C., where he worked as a hotel waiter. In the American Civil War he was impressed into the Confederate navy to serve on the armed frigate Planter. In 1862 he and 12 other slaves seized control of the ship in Charleston harbour and turned it over to the Union navy. He served as the ship's pilot and became its captain in 1863. After the war he served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1875-79, 1881-87)
Robert Smith Surtees: born May 17, 1803, The Riding, Northumberland, Eng. died March 16, 1864, Brighton, Sussex English novelist. Passionately addicted to riding to hounds from his youth, Surtees devoted nearly all his writings to horses and riding. In 1831 he launched New Sporting Magazine. His famous comic character Mr. Jorrocks, a blunt Cockney grocer entirely given over to fox hunting, appeared in Jorrocks's Jaunts and Jollities (1838), Handley Cross (1843), and Hillingdon Hall (1845). Among his other novels, which also portray the boredom, ill manners, discomfort, and coarse food of English provincial life, are Hawbuck Grange (1847) and Mr. Facey Romford's Hounds (1865)
Robert Sobukwe: born Dec. 5, 1924, Graaff-Reinet, Cape Colony died Feb. 27, 1978, Kimberley, S.Af. South African black nationalist leader. Sobukwe insisted that South Africa be returned to its indigenous inhabitants ("Africa for the Africans"). Charging the African National Congress with being contaminated by non-African influences, he founded the Pan-Africanist Congress in 1959 and became a leader in the Pan-African movement. Arrested in 1960, he spent the rest of his life in prison or under house arrest
Robert Southey: a British writer and poet who became poet laureate in 1813. His best-known works are his book Life of Nelson and short poems such as The Battle of Blenheim (1774-1843). born Aug. 12, 1774, Bristol, Gloucestershire, Eng. died March 21, 1843, Keswick, Cumberland English poet and prose writer. In youth Southey ardently embraced the ideals of the French Revolution, as did Samuel Taylor Coleridge, with whom he was associated from 1794. Like Coleridge, he gradually became more conservative. About 1799 he devoted himself to writing; later he was obliged to produce unremittingly to support both his and Coleridge's family. In 1813 he was appointed poet laureate. His poetry is now little read, but his prose style is masterly in its ease and clarity, as seen in such works as Life of Nelson (1813), Life of Wesley (1820), and The Doctor (1834-47), a fantastic, rambling miscellany
Robert Southey: {i} (1774-1843) English poet and historian, member of the Lake Poets
Robert Spencer 2nd earl of Sunderland: born Sept. 5, 1641, Paris, France died Sept. 28, 1702, Althorp, Northamptonshire, Eng. English statesman and chief adviser in the reigns of Charles II, James II, and William III. After a period in diplomatic service, he twice served as secretary of state (1679-81, 1683) and became the chief architect of Charles's pro-French foreign policy. He converted to Roman Catholicism to maintain his influence in James's reign. After William became king, Sunderland renounced his Catholicism and became the principal intermediary between the king and Parliament. He was appointed lord chamberlain in 1697, but Whig opposition soon forced him from office
Robert Staughton; and Lynd Helen Lynd: orig. Helen Merrell born Sept. 26, 1892, New Albany, Ind., U.S. died Nov. 1, 1970, Warren, Conn. born March 17, 1894, La Grange, Ill., U.S. died Jan. 30, 1982, Warren, Ohio U.S. sociologists. The Lynds taught for several decades at Columbia University and Sarah Lawrence College, respectively. In their collaboration on the studies Middletown (1929) and Middletown in Transition (1937), classics of sociological literature as well as popular successes, they became the first scholars to apply the methods of cultural anthropology to the study of a modern Western city (Muncie, Ind.)
Robert Stephenson: a British engineer, the son of George Stephenson. He continued his father's work on the development of the steam train, and also built bridges, including the railway bridge over the Menai Straits in North Wales (1803-59). born Oct. 16, 1803, Willington Quay, Northumberland, Eng. died Oct. 12, 1859, London British civil engineer and builder of long-span railroad bridges. The son of George Stephenson, he assisted his father in constructing the Rocket and several railways. Building a railway from Newcastle to Berwick, he spanned the River Tyne with a six-arch iron bridge. Called on to build a secure railroad bridge over the Menai Strait to the Welsh mainland, Stephenson conceived a unique tubular design, the success of which led to his building other tubular bridges in England and elsewhere
Robert Stephenson Smyth 1st Baron Baden-Powell: born Feb. 22, 1857, London, Eng. died Jan. 8, 1941, Nyeri, Kenya British army officer and founder of the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides (later Girl Scouts; see scouting). He was noted for his use of observation balloons in warfare in Africa (1884-85). In the South African War, he became a national hero in the Siege of Mafikeng. Having learned that his military textbook Aids to Scouting (1899) was being used to train boys in woodcraft, he wrote Scouting for Boys (1908) and that same year established the Boy Scout movement. In 1910, with his sister Agnes and his wife, Olave, he founded the Girl Guides
Robert Stephenson Smyth 1st Baron Baden-Powell of Gilwell: born Feb. 22, 1857, London, Eng. died Jan. 8, 1941, Nyeri, Kenya British army officer and founder of the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides (later Girl Scouts; see scouting). He was noted for his use of observation balloons in warfare in Africa (1884-85). In the South African War, he became a national hero in the Siege of Mafikeng. Having learned that his military textbook Aids to Scouting (1899) was being used to train boys in woodcraft, he wrote Scouting for Boys (1908) and that same year established the Boy Scout movement. In 1910, with his sister Agnes and his wife, Olave, he founded the Girl Guides
Robert Stewart Viscount Castlereagh: born June 18, 1769, Dublin, Ire. died Aug. 12, 1822, London, Eng. British politician. He was elected to the Irish Parliament in 1790 and later served in the British Parliament (1794-1805, 1806-22). As chief secretary for Ireland (1798-1801), Castlereagh singlehandedly forced the Act of Union through the Irish Parliament in 1800. He served as Britain's secretary for war (1805-06, 1807-09) and as secretary for foreign affairs and leader of the House of Commons (1812-22). Considered one of the most distinguished foreign secretaries in British history, he played a leading role in bringing together the Grand Alliance that overthrew Napoleon and in deciding the form of the peace settlements at the Congress of Vienna. Beset with paranoia and believing that he was being blackmailed, he eventually committed suicide
Robert Stone: born Aug. 21, 1937, New York, N.Y., U.S. U.S. novelist. He served in the U.S. Navy before attending New York and Stanford universities. Dog Soldiers (1974, National Book Award), his second novel, brought home the corruption of the Vietnam War. His later works include the novels A Flag for Sunrise (1981), Outerbridge Reach (1992), and Damascus Gate (1998) and the short-story collection Bear and His Daughter (1997)
Robert Strange McNamara: born June 9, 1916, San Francisco, Calif., U.S. U.S. secretary of defense (1961-68). He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley (1937), earned a graduate degree at the Harvard Business School (1939), and later joined the Harvard faculty. He developed logistical and statistical systems for the military during World War II. After the war, he was one of the "Whiz Kids" hired to revitalize the Ford Motor Company, and in 1960 he became the first president of the company who was not a member of the Ford family. In 1961 he was appointed secretary of defense by John F. Kennedy. Though initially a supporter of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, by 1967 he advocated peace negotiations; his opposition to the bombing of North Vietnam caused him to lose influence with Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson. He resigned in 1968 to become president of the World Bank (1968-81)
Robert Treat Paine: born March 11, 1731, Boston, Mass. died May 11, 1814, Boston, Mass., U.S. U.S. jurist. A lawyer in his native Boston from 1757, he gained recognition as a prosecuting attorney in the murder trial of the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre. He was a member of the Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He also served as Massachusetts' first attorney general (1777-90) and as a judge in the state supreme court (1790-1804)
Robert Venturi: v. born June 25, 1925, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S. U.S. architect. He studied at Princeton University and in Rome at the American Academy. After working with Eero Saarinen and Louis Kahn, he formed a partnership with his wife, Denise Scott Brown, and John Rauch. His philosophy, set forth in the influential books Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966) and Learning from Las Vegas (1972), called for openness to the multiple influences of historical tradition, ordinary commercial architecture, and Pop art. He had such a profound impact on younger architects who were beginning to find similar constraints and limitations in the Modernist architectural aesthetic, that he became the unofficial dean of the postmodern movement in architecture. His buildings often exhibit ironic humour. Important commissions include buildings for Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania, the Seattle Art Museum (1985-91), and the Sainsbury Wing of London's National Gallery (1986-91). He won the 1991 Pritzker Architecture Prize
Robert W Wilson: born Jan. 10, 1936, Houston, Texas, U.S. U.S. radio astronomer. He joined Bell Laboratories in 1963 and headed its Radio Physics Research Department (1976-94). With his colleague Arno Penzias, he detected the cosmic background radiation, a discovery for which the two men shared a 1978 Nobel Prize (with Pyotr Kapitsa [1894-1984], who was honoured for research unrelated to theirs)
Robert Wilhelm Bunsen: {i} Robert Bunsen (1811-1899), German chemist, inventor of the Bunsen burner
Robert Wilhelm Bunsen: born March 31, 1811, Göttingen, Westphalia died Aug. 16, 1899, Heidelberg, Baden German chemist. With Gustav Robert Kirchhoff, he observed ( 1859) that each element emits light of a characteristic wavelength, opening the field of spectrochemical analysis. They discovered several new elements (including helium, cesium, and rubidium) by spectroscopy. His only book discussed methods of measuring volumes of gases. He invented the carbon-zinc battery, grease-spot photometer (see photometry), filter pump, ice calorimeter, and vapour calorimeter. Though often credited with inventing the Bunsen burner, he seems to have made only a minor contribution to its development
Robert William Holley: born Jan. 28, 1922, Urbana, Ill., U.S. died Feb. 11, 1993, Los Gatos, Calif. U.S. biochemist. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University. Holley and others showed that transfer RNA was involved in the assembly of amino acids into proteins. He was the first to determine the sequence of nucleotides in a nucleic acid, a process that required digesting the molecule with enzymes, identifying the pieces, and then figuring out how they fit together. It has since been shown that all transfer RNA has a similar structure. He shared a 1968 Nobel Prize with Marshall Warren Nirenberg and Har Gobind Khorana
Robert William Service: born Jan. 16, 1874, Preston, Lancashire, Eng. died Sept. 11, 1958, Lancieux, France English-born Canadian popular verse writer. He immigrated to Canada in 1894 and lived eight years in the Yukon. His Songs of a Sourdough (1907) and Ballads of a Cheechako (1909), about life in the "frozen North," were enormously popular. He became known as "the Canadian Kipling" with such rollicking ballads as "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee". His other works include the novel The Trail of '98 (1910) and Rhymes of a Red Cross Man (1916)
Robert Wood Johnson: born , Feb. 15, 1845, Carbondale, Pa., U.S. died Feb. 7, 1910, New Brunswick, N.J. U.S. manufacturer. He began his career as a pharmacist and drug broker. In 1885 he founded medical supply company Johnson & Johnson with his brothers, and he served as its president until his death. An early proponent of the teachings of Joseph Lister, Johnson worked to make his products as germ-free as possible, and the firm's high-quality and inexpensive medical supplies, including antiseptic bandages and dressings, proved of great value to surgery. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is a major philanthropic institution
Robert Woodrow Wilson: born Jan. 10, 1936, Houston, Texas, U.S. U.S. radio astronomer. He joined Bell Laboratories in 1963 and headed its Radio Physics Research Department (1976-94). With his colleague Arno Penzias, he detected the cosmic background radiation, a discovery for which the two men shared a 1978 Nobel Prize (with Pyotr Kapitsa [1894-1984], who was honoured for research unrelated to theirs)
Robert Young Hayne: born Nov. 10, 1791, Colleton District, S.C., U.S. died Sept. 24, 1839, Asheville, N.C. U.S. politician. In 1823 he entered the U.S. Senate, where he became a spokesman for the South and the doctrine of states' rights. In his famous 1830 debate with Daniel Webster on the Constitution, he argued that the federal Constitution was a compact among the states and that any state might nullify a federal law that it considered in violation of the constitutional compact (see nullification). At the South Carolina nullification convention in 1832, he developed an ordinance that declared federal tariff laws null and void in the state. Resigning from the Senate in 1832, he served as governor of South Carolina (1832-34) and as mayor of Charleston (1834-37)
Robert Zimmerman: {i} birth name of Bob Dylan (born 1941), American songwriter and folk singer
Robert and William Chambers: born July 10, 1802, Peebles, Tweeddale, Scot. died March 17, 1871, St. Andrews, Fifeshire born 1800, Peebles died 1883 Scottish publishers. Robert, who began business as a bookstall keeper in Edinburgh, wrote historical, literary, and geological works. In 1832 the brothers started Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, which led to the establishment of the publishing firm W. & R. Chambers, Ltd. Their Chambers's Encyclopaedia (1859-68) was based on a translation of the German Konversations-Lexikon. Considered scholarly and reliable on historical subjects, the encyclopaedia has gone through several editions, but the lack of a continuous revision system has led to the dating of much of its material
Robert of Molesme: {i} Saint Robert (c.1027-1111) Christian saint and abbot and one of the founders of the Cistercian Order in France
Robert the Bruce: Bruce, Robert
Robert von Ranke Graves: born July 24/26, 1895, London, Eng. died Dec. 7, 1985, Deyá, Majorca, Spain British man of letters. He served as an officer at the Western Front during World War I and his first three volumes of poetry were published during that time; they include some of the finest English love poems of the century. In 1926 he began a 13-year relationship with the American poet Laura Riding (1901-91), with whom he founded a press, briefly published a journal, and collaborated as a writer. After 1929 he lived principally in Majorca, Spain. The most famous of his more than 120 books are Good-bye to All That (1929), a grim memoir of the war; the historical novel I, Claudius (1934; televised in 1976); and erudite, controversial studies in mythology, notably The White Goddess (1948)
Robert; and Hoe Richard Hoe: born Oct. 29, 1784, Hoes, Leicestershire, Eng. died Jan. 4, 1833, New York, N.Y., U.S. born Sept. 12, 1812, New York, N.Y., U.S. died June 7, 1886, Florence, Italy Father and son, inventors. Robert immigrated to the U.S. in 1803. In New York City he cofounded a printing-equipment company and in 1827 introduced the cast-iron frame, which soon replaced the standard wooden frames used for printing presses. His improved version of the Napier cylinder printing press supplanted all English-made presses in the U.S. Richard joined the company in 1827 and became its head when his father died. He replaced the flatbed press with the first successful rotary press (patented 1847). He followed this innovation with the web press (1865) and the web perfecting press (1871), revolutionary improvements that made the large-circulation daily newspaper possible
Robert; and Hoe Richard March Hoe: born Oct. 29, 1784, Hoes, Leicestershire, Eng. died Jan. 4, 1833, New York, N.Y., U.S. born Sept. 12, 1812, New York, N.Y., U.S. died June 7, 1886, Florence, Italy Father and son, inventors. Robert immigrated to the U.S. in 1803. In New York City he cofounded a printing-equipment company and in 1827 introduced the cast-iron frame, which soon replaced the standard wooden frames used for printing presses. His improved version of the Napier cylinder printing press supplanted all English-made presses in the U.S. Richard joined the company in 1827 and became its head when his father died. He replaced the flatbed press with the first successful rotary press (patented 1847). He followed this innovation with the web press (1865) and the web perfecting press (1871), revolutionary improvements that made the large-circulation daily newspaper possible
robert e lee's birthday: celebrated in southern United States
robert's rules of order: a book of rules for presiding over a meeting; written by Henry M
robert's rules of order: Martin in 1876 and subsequently updated through many editions
Anne-Robert-Jacques baron de l'Aulne Turgot: born , May 10, 1727, Paris, France died March 18, 1781, Paris French administrator and economist. He entered the royal administrative branch of the magistracy in 1753, then became intendant (governor) of Limoges (1761-74), where he instituted economic and administrative reforms. A physiocrat, in 1766 he wrote his best-known work, Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth. In 1774 he was appointed comptroller general by Louis XVI and introduced his Six Edicts to expand economic reforms. His effort to abolish the corvée (unpaid forced labour by peasants) was opposed by the privileged classes, and he was dismissed in 1776
Arthur Robert Jr. Ashe: born July 10, 1943, Richmond, Va., U.S. died Feb. 6, 1993, New York, N.Y. U.S. tennis player. He won his first grand-slam singles title (the 1968 U.S. Open) as an amateur. The first African American member of the U.S. Davis Cup team, he helped win five championships (1963, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1978). In 1975 he won the Wimbledon singles title and received World Championship Tennis top ranking. He retired in 1980 and became captain of the U.S. Davis Cup team (to 1985). Off the court he was a critic of racial injustice, including South Africa's apartheid policy. In 1992 he revealed that he had been infected with HIV by a transfusion following surgery, and he thereafter devoted time to increasing public awareness of AIDS. The U.S. Open is now played at Arthur Ashe Stadium, which opened at the National Tennis Center in Flushing, N.Y., in 1997

robert

Hyphenation

Rob·ert

Turkish pronunciation

räbırt

Pronunciation

/ˈräbərt/ /ˈrɑːbɜrt/

Etymology

[ '(h)&rb-'rä-b&rt ] (noun.) 13th century. Germanic hrōd (“fame”) + Germanic berht (“bright, famous”)“Robrecht” in: J. van der Schaar, “Woordenboek van voornamen”, 8. druk, Utrecht 1994, Prisma Woordenboeken, Uitgeverij Het Spectrum, ISBN 90-274-3469-7.