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Roald Amundsen was a Norwegian explorer. He was born in 1872 and died in 1928. He was the first person to sail through the North-West Passage and in 1911 beat Scott to be the first person to reach the south pole.
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Rob Roy (real name Robert MacGregor) was a Scottish freebooter. He was born in 1671 and died in 1734. He helped the poor at the expense of the rich and played a lone role in the Jacobite uprising of 1715.
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Robert A Cooper was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of South Carolina from 1919 until 1922.
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Robert Sengstacke Abbott was an American newspaper publisher and social reformer. He was born in 1868 at St Simmons Island, Georgia and died in 1940. The son of former slaves, in 1905 he founded and until 1940 edited the 'Chicago Defender' newspaper, through which he campaigned against racial prejudice and the unjust treatment of 'Black' Americans.
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Robert Abel ('The Guvnor') was an English cricketer. He was born in 1857 at Rotherhithe and died in 1936. He played for Surrey, first playing for Surrey in 1881, and for England as an opening batsman until failing eyesight forced him to retire in 1903 (or possibly 1908). During his career he scored 70 separate centuries, scored 132 not-out in a test match at Sydney, and his highest score of 357 not-out for Surrey against Somerset in May 1899. In August 1899 he and his partner, Hayward, scored 448 against Yorkshire at The Oval and in each of the seasons between 1895 and 1902 he compiled over 2000 runs.
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Robert Adam was a Scottish architect and designer. He was born in 1728 and died in 1792. He was highly prolific and successful in both Scotland and England, he supervised the furnishing of his buildings down to the last detail, creating a distinctively elegant and highly influential style of interior decoration. In 1812 the architect Sir John Soane wrote: 'the light and elegant ornaments, the varied compartments in the ceilings of Mr Adam, imitated from Ancient Works in the Baths and Villas of the Romans, were soon applied in designs for chairs, tables, carpets, and in every other species of furniture.' Robert Adam gave work to a number of outstanding craftsmen, and Angelica Kauffmann and her husband Antonio Zucchi were among the artists who painted decorative panels for his interiors (examples by Zucchi are at 20 Portman Square, London, formerly the Courtauld Institute of Art). About 9,000 of Adam's drawings are in the Soane Museum in London.
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Robert Anderson was a Scottish biographical writer. He was born in 1750 and died in 1830. He furnished biographical and critical notices for A Complete Edition of the Poets of Great Britain published between 1792 and 1795, and was for a time editor of the Edinburgh Magazine.
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Robert Anderson was an American soldier. He was born in 1805 at Kentucky and died in 1871. He served in the Black Hawk War, the Florida War and the Mexican War. In November 1860 he took command of the troops and forts in Charleston Harbour, a month later withdrawing all his troops to Fort Sumter, which after a bombardment of thirty-six hours by Confederate forces he was compelled to evacuate in April 1861.
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Sir Robert Anderson was a British civil servant. He was born in 1841 at Dublin and died in 1918. Called to the Irish bar, he advised the Home Office on matters of political crime in Ireland and from 1888 until 1901 was head of the CID.
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Robert Armstrong was an American soldier. He was born in 1790 at Tennessee and died in 1854. He was a captain of artillery under Jackson at the Creek War of 1813 and 1814 and distinguished himself at the battle of New Orleans.
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Robert Arnaud was a French courtier. He was born in 1588 and died in 167. He was a son of Antoine Arnaud and a person of influence at the French court, but latterly retired to Port Royal, where he wrote a translation of Josephus and other works.
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Sir Robert Aytoun was a Scottish poet. He was born in 1570 at Fifeshire and died in 1638. After studying at St Andrews he lived for some time in France, whence, in 1603, he addressed a panegyric in Latin verse to King James on his accession to the crown of England. By the grateful monarch he was appointed one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber, and private secretary to the queen, receiving also the honour of knighthood. At a later period of his life he was secretary to Henrietta Maria, queen of Charles I. His poems are few in number, but are distinguished by elegance of diction. Several of his Latin poems are preserved in the work called Deliciae Poetarum Scotorum.
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Robert B Crosby was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Nebraska from 1953 until 1955.
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Robert B Meyner was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of New Jersey from 1954 until 1962.
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Robert B Smith was an American politician. He was a Democrat Populist governor of Montana from 1897 until 1901.
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Robert Stephenson Smith Baden-Powell was a British general and founder of the scouting movement. He was born in 1857 and died in 1941. He took part in the operations in Zululand in 1888 and in 1895 was sent on special service to Ashanti. In the expedition against King Prempeh, conducted by Sir Francis Scott, he was given command of the native levies, whom he turned into excellent soldiers. During 1896 to 1897 he was chief staff-officer in South Africa, and took part in the campaign against the Matabele. On the outbreak of the Boer War in 1899 he was given command of the small force in Mafeking, and held the position against assaults and a siege from October 1899 until relieved by Mahon and Plumer in May 1900. Promoted to Major-general he served on the staff, organised South Africa's constabulary and from 1900 to 1903 was inspector of the Transvaal police.
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Robert Baillie was a Scottish Presbyterian clergyman. He was born in 1599 at Glasgow and died in 1662. Though educated and ordained as an Episcopalian, he resisted the attempt of Archbishop Laud to introduce his Book of Common Prayer into Scotland, and joined the Presbyterian party. In 1638 he represented the presbytery of Irvine in the General Assembly at Glasgow, which dissolved Episcopacy in Scotland. In 1640 he was selected to go to London, with other commissioners, to prepare charges against Archbishop Laud for his innovations upon the Scottish Church. Of this, and almost all the other proceedings of his public life, he has left a minute account in his letters and journals, which form a most valuable collection for the history of his time. In 1642 he was appointed professor of divinity at Glasgow. He was a member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, and attended its sittings from 1643 until 1646. After the Restoration, though made principal of his college through court patronage, he did not hesitate to express his dissatisfaction with the re-introduction of Episcopacy.
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ROBERT BAILLIE
Robert Baillie of Jerviswood, in Lanarkshire was a Scottish patriot of the reign of Charles II. He brought himself into notice by opposing the tyrannical measures of Archbishop Sharpe against the Nonconformists, for which he was fined 6000 merks and imprisoned for four months. In 1683 he went to London in furtherance of a scheme of emigration to South Carolina taken up by a number of Scottish gentlemen, as being the only way of escaping the tyranny of the government. He became associated with Monmouth, Sydney, Russell, and the rest of that party, and was charged with complicity in the Rye-house plot. After a long imprisonment, during which vain attempts were made to obtain evidence against him, he was brought before the Court of Justiciary on the 23rd of December 1684, was found guilty, and condemned to be executed that afternoon.
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Robert Bakewell was an English agriculturist. He was born in 1725 at Leicestershire and died in 1795. He is celebrated for his improvements in the breeding of sheep, cattle, and horses. He commenced experiments in breeding sheep about 1755, upon his father's farm at Dishley, and for fifty years devoted himself to the acquisition and diffusion of information upon the subject. He was the originator of the new Leicestershire breed of sheep, which have since been so well known, and also of a breed of cattle that had great repute in their day. Various improvements in farm management were also introduced by him.
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Sir Robert Stawell Ball was an Irish astronomer. He was born in 1840 at Dublin 1840. He was educated at Chester and Trinity College, Dublin. In 1865 he was appointed Lord Rosse's astronomer at Parsonstown, and since then held various official posts, including those of Andrews professor of astronomy in the University of Dublin and was appointed astronomer-royal for Ireland in 1874. He was Lowndean professor of astronomy and geometry in the University of Cambridge and director of the observatory in 1892. He became FRS in 1873, and was knighted in 1886. Besides many memoirs and articles, he published The
Story of the Heavens, Starland, In Starry Realms, Time and Tide, The Story of the Sun, Great Astronomers, The Earth's Beginning, Popular Guide to the Heavens etc.
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Robert Michael Ballantyne was a Scottish writer of books for boys. He was born in 1825 at Edinburgh 1825 and died in 1894. He was a nephew of James Ballantyne, the printer of Sir Walter Scott's works. He was for some years in North America in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, and his experiences here supplied him with materials for some of his earlier books, especially Hudson's Bay, or Life in the Wilds of North America, published in 1848; The Young Fur Traders; and Ungava, a Tale of Eskimo Land. For many years he continued to produce popular and instructive boys' books, dealing with scenes and subjects of the most varied kind; and he also published a volume entitled Personal Reminiscences of Book-Making in 1893.
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Robert Barclay was the celebrated apologist of the Quakers. He was born in 1648 at Gordonstown, Moray and died in 1690. Educated at Paris, where he became a Roman Catholic, he was recalled home by his father, he followed the example of the latter and became a Quaker. His first treatise in support of his adopted principles, published at Aberdeen in the year 1670, under the title of Truth Cleared of Calumnies, together with his subsequent writings, did much to rectify public sentiment in regard to the Quakers. His chief work, in Latin, An Apology for the True Christian Divinity, as the same is Preached and held forth by the People called, in scorn, Quakers, was soon reprinted at Amsterdam, and quickly translated into German, Dutch, French, and Spanish, and, by the author himself, into English. His fame was now widely diffused; and, in his travels with William Penn and George Fox through England, Holland, and Germany, to spread the opinions of the Quakers, he was received everywhere with the highest respect. The last of his productions, On the Possibility and Necessity of an Inward and Immediate Revelation, was not published in England until 1686; from which time Barclay lived quietly with his family. He was a friend of and had influence with James II.
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Robert Barclay was an English banker. He was born in 1843 and died in 1913. He was responsible for the merger of twenty banks in 1896 forming the 'Barclay and Company Limited' bank which in 1917 changed its name to 'Barclay's Bank Limited'.
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Robert Bell was an Irish journalist and miscellaneous writer. He was born in 1800 at Cork 1800 and died in 1867. He settled in London in 1828, edited the Atlas for several years, and afterwards the Monthly Chronicle, Mirror, and Home News. He compiled several volumes of Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia; but he is best known by his annotated edition of the British Poets, the first volume of which appeared in 1854, and which was carried through twenty-nine volumes. He also wrote several plays and novels.
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Robert Beverly was an American historian. He was born in 1675 at Virginia and died in 1716.
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Robert Blair was a Scottish poet. He was born in 1699 and died in 1746. He wrote 'The Grave'. He was ordained in 1731 minister of Athelstaneford, where he spent the remainder of his life. His poem The Grave was first printed in 1743, and is now esteemed as one of the standard classics of English poetical literature.
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Robert Blake was a celebrated British admiral. He was born in 1599 at Bridgewater and died in 1657 at the entrance to Plymouth Sound. On finishing his education at Oxford he lived for some time in a private manner on the fortune left him by his father. He was elected member of parliament for Bridgewater in 1640, and after the dissolution of the parliament later he lost his seat and pursued a military career. In 1649 he was sent to command the fleet with Colonels Deane and Popham. He attempted to block up Prince Rupert in Kinsale, but the prince, contriving to get his fleet out, escaped to Lisbon, where Robert Blake followed him. Being refused permission to attack him in the Tagus by the King of Portugal, he took several rich prizes from the Portuguese, and followed Rupert to Malaga, where, without asking permission of Spain, he attacked him and nearly destroyed the whole of his fleet.
His greatest achievements were, however, in the Dutch War which broke out in 1652. On the 19th of May he was attacked in the Downs by Van Tromp with a fleet of forty-five sail, the force of Robert Blake amounting only to twenty-three, but Van Tromp was obliged to retreat.
On May the 29th he was again attacked by Van Tromp, whose fleet was now increased to eighty sail. Robert Blake had a very inferior force, and after every possible exertion was obliged to retreat into the Thames. In the following February he put to sea with sixty sail, and soon after met the Dutch admiral, who had seventy sail and 300 merchantmen under convoy. During three days a running fight up the Channel was maintained with obstinate valour on both sides, the result of which was the loss of eleven men-of-war and thirty merchant ships by the Dutch, while that of the English was only one man-of-war. In this action Blake was severely wounded.
On June the 3rd he again engaged Van Tromp and forced the Dutch to retire with considerable loss into their own harbours. In November 1654 he was sent with a strong fleet to enforce a due respect to the British flag in the Mediterranean. He sailed first to Algiers, which submitted, and then demolished the castles of Goletta and Porto Ferine, at Tunis, because the dey refused to deliver up the British captives. A squadron of his ships also blocked up Cadiz, and intercepted a Spanish Plate fleet.
In April, 1657, he sailed with twenty-four ships to Santa Cruz, in Teneriffe; and notwithstanding the strength of the place, burned the ships of another Spanish Plate fleet which had taken shelter there, and by a fortunate change of wind came out without loss. He died before landing on English soil, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, whence his body was removed at the Restoration and buried in St Margaret's Churchyard.
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Robert Bloomfield was an English poet. He was born in 1766 at Suffolk and died in 1823. In 1781 he was sent to learn the trade of a shoemaker with his brother in London. In the country, where he resided for a short time in 1786, he first conceived the idea of his poem the Farmer's Boy, which was written under the most unfavourable circumstances in a London garret. It was published in 1800, and had a great popularity. He subsequently published Rural Tales, Wild Flowers, The Banks of the Wye, May Day with the Nurses, etc. Several efforts were made to place him in comfortable circumstances, but he became hypochondriacal, and died in poverty.
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Robert Bowie was an American politician. He was a Democratic-Republican governor of Maryland from 1811 until 1812.
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Robert Boyke was an Irish natural philosopher. He was born in 1626 at Lismore, Ireland and died in 1691. He was the seventh son of Richard the first earl of Cork. After finishing his studies at Eton he travelled for some years on the Continent until, in 1644, he settled in the manor of Stalbridge, Dorsetshire, which his father had left him. Here he devoted himself to scientific studies, to chemistry and natural philosophy in particular. He was one of the first members of the society founded in 1645, afterwards known as the Royal Society. At Oxford, to which he had gone in 1652, he occupied himself in making improvements on the air-pump, by means of which he demonstrated the elasticity of air. Although his scientific work shows an accurate, minute, and methodical intellect, in religious matters he was subject to melancholy and fanciful terrors. With the view of settling his faith he began the study of those oriental languages which contain the origins of Christianity, and formed connections with such eminent scholars as Pococke, Clarke, Barlow, etc. He also instituted public lectures, known as the Boyle Lectures, 'for proving the Christian religion against Atheists, Deists, Pagans, Jews, and Mohammedans, not descending to any controversies amongst Christians themselves.' The first series was delivered by Richard Bentley. Samuel Clarke, Whiston, and F. D. Maurice have been amongst succeeding Boyle lecturers.
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Robert Brooke was an American politician. He was a Democratic-Republican governor of Virginia from 1794 until 1796.
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Robert Brown (Robert Browne) was the founder of an English religious sect first called Brownists, and afterwards Independents. He was born about 1540 and died in 1633. Educated at Cambridge, where, in 1580, he began openly to attack the government and liturgy of the Church of England as anti-Christian. After attacking the Established Church for years he was excommunicated, but was reinstated, and held a church living for over forty years. The sect of Brownists, far from expiring with their founder, soon spread, and a bill was brought into parliament which inflicted on them very severe pains and penalties. In process of time, however, the name of Brownists was merged in that of the Congregationalists or Independents.
Robert Brown was a Scottish botanist. He was born in 1773 at Montrose and died in 1858. The son of a Scotch Episcopalian clergyman, he received his education at Marischal College, Aberdeen, and afterwards studied medicine at Edinburgh. In 1800 he was appointed naturalist to Flinders' surveying expedition to Australia. He returned with nearly 4000 species of plants, and was shortly after appointed librarian to the Linnsean Society. In 1810 he published the first volume of his great work Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen. No second volume of it ever appeared.
He was the first English writer on botany who adopted the natural system of classification, which has since entirely superseded that of Linnaeus. In 1814 he published a botanical appendix to Flinders' account of his voyage, and in 1828 A Brief Account of Microscopical Observations on the Particles contained in the Pollen of Plants, and on the General Existence of Active Molecules in Organic and Inorganic Bodies. He also wrote botanical appendixes for the voyages of Ross and Parry, the African exploration of Denham and Clapperton and others, and described, with Dr. Bennet, the plants collected by Dr. Horsfield in Java. In 1810 he received the charge of the collections and . library of Sir Joseph Banks. He transferred them in 1827 to the British Museum, and was appointed keeper of botany in that institution.
He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1811, DCL Oxford in 1832, a foreign associate of the French Academy of Sciences in 1833. He had the Copley medal in 1839, and was appointed president of the Linnaean Society in 1849. As a naturalist Robert Brown occupied the very highest rank among men of science. A collection of his miscellaneous writings was published by the Ray Society in 1866 and 1867.
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Robert Browning was an English poet. He was born in 1812 at Camberwell and died in 1889. After completing his education at University College, London, he went to Italy, where he made diligent study of its mediaeval history and the life of the people. In 1846 he married Elizabeth Barrett, and thereafter resided chiefly in Italy, making occasional visits to England. His first poem, Pauline, was published in 1833; followed by Paracelsus in 1835; Stratford, a Tragedy (1837), produced at Covent Garden, Macready and Helen Faucit playing the chief parts. Sordello appeared in 1840, followed by the series called Bells and Pomegranates, including the three plays Pippa Passes, King Victor and King Charles, and Colombo's Birthday; four tragedies: The Return of the Druses, A Blot on the Scutcheon, Luria, and A Soul's Tragedy; and a number of Dramatic Lyrics, among them the well-known Pied Piper of Hamelin, and How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix (1841-46).
Between 1846 and 1868 appeared Men and Women; Christmas Eve and Easter Day; Dramatis Personse, and some shorter poems. The Ring and the Book (1869), his longest poem, was followed by Balaustion's Adventure; and Prince Hohenstiel - Schwangau (1871); Fifine at the Fair (1872); Red Cotton Nightcap Country (1873); Aristophanes' Apology; Inn Album (1875); Pacchiarotto (1876); La Saisiaz (1878); Dramatic Idylls (1879-80); Jocoseria (1883); Ferishtah's Fancies (1884); Parleyings with certain People of Importance in their Day (1887); Asolando (1889). He received the degree of DCL from Oxford in 1882. A Browning Society for the study of his works was formed in 1881, under whose auspices several of his dramas were performed. His poems are often difficult to understand from the quick transitions of thought, and they are not infrequently rugged and harsh in expression, yet they are among the chief poetic utterances of the 19th century.
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Robert Bruce was the greatest of the Scottish Kings. He was born in 1274 and died in 1329. He was King of Scotland from 1306 to 1329. The son of Robert Bruce (Earl of Carrick) in 1296, as Earl of Carrick, he swore fealty to Edward I, and in 1297 fought on the English side against Wallace. He then joined the Scottish army, but in the same year returned to his allegiance to Edward until 1298, when he again joined the national party, and became in 1299 one of the four regents of the kingdom. In the three final campaigns, however, he resumed fidelity to Edward, and resided for some time at his court; but, learning that the king meditated putting him to death on information given by the traitor Comyn, he fled in February 1306, to Scotland, stabbed Comyn in a quarrel at Dumfries, assembled his vassals at Lochmaben Castle, and claimed the crown, which he received at Scone, on March the 27th.
Being twice defeated, he dismissed his troops, retired to Rathlin Island, and was supposed to be dead, when, in the spring of 1307, he landed on the Carrick coast, defeated the Earl of Pembroke at Loudon Hill, and in two years had wrested nearly the whole country from the English. He then in successive years advanced into England, laying waste the country; and on June the 24th, 1314, defeated at Bannockburn the English forces advancing under Edward II to the relief of the garrison at Stirling.
In 1316 he went to Ireland to the aid of his brother Edward, and on his return in 1318, in retaliation for inroads made during his absence, he took Berwick and harried Northumberland and Yorkshire. Hostilities continued until the defeat of Edward near Byland Abbey in 1323, and though in that year a truce was concluded for thirteen years, it was speedily broken. Not until March the 4th 1328, was the treaty concluded by which the independence of Scotland was fully recognized. Robert Bruce did not long survive the completion of his work, dying at Cardross Castle on June the 7th, 1329. He was twice married; first to a daughter of the Earl of Mar, Isabella, by whom he had a daughter, Marjory, mother of Robert II; and then to a daughter of Aymer de Burgh, Earl of Ulster, Elizabeth, by whom he had a son, David, who succeeded him.
Ronert Bruce (Robert De Brus) was the fifth lord of Annandale. He was born in 1210 and died in 1295. He was possessed of extensive estates in Cumberland, of which he was made sheriff in 1255. He was one of the fifteen regents of Scotland during the minority of Alexander III and was one of the competitors for the Scottish crown on the death of Margaret, the Maiden of Norway, in 1290; Bruce being the grandson of David, earl of Huntingdon, by his second daughter Isobel, while Baliol claimed as the great-grandson by the eldest daughter Margaret. On the decision of Edward being given in 1292 in favour of Baliol, Robert Bruce resigned the estate of Annandale to his eldest son to avoid doing homage to his rival.
Robert Bruce (Earl of Carrick), was the eldest son of Robert Bruce and father of Robert Bruce, the later king of Scotland. He accompanied Edward I to Palestine in 1269; married, in 1271, Martha Margaret, countess of Carrick. Like his father he resigned the lordship of Annandale to his eldest son to avoid acknowledging the supremacy of Baliol. On the revolt of the latter Robert Bruce fought on the English side, and after the battle of Dunbar made an unsuccessful application to Edward for the crown. He died in 1304.
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Robert Buchanan was an English poet. He was born in 1841 and died in 1901. His earliest volumes of verse, Undertones published in 1863, Idylls and Legends of Inverburn published in 1865 and London Poems published in 1866 gained for him a reputation for truth, simplicity, humour and pathos.
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Robert Bunsen was a German chemist. He was born in 1811 at Gottingen and died in 1899. He studied at Gottingen University, and at Paris, Berlin, and Vienna; and was appointed professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Gassel in 1836; at the University of Marburg in 1838, at Breslau in 1851, and finally professor of Experimental Chemistry at Heidelberg in 1852. Among his many discoveries and inventions are the production of magnesium in quantities, magnesium light, spectrum analysis, the Bunsen burner, etc.
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Robert O'Hara Burke was an Australian explorer. He was born in 1820 in Ireland, and died in 1861 in Australia. After serving in the Austrian army he went to Australia, and after seven years service as inspector of police was appointed commander of an expedition to cross the continent of Australia from south to north. He and his associate Wills reached the tidal waters of the Flinders River, but both starved to death on the return journey.
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Robert Burns was a Scottish poet. He was born in 1759 at Alloway and died in 1796. His father was a poor gardener and Robert Burns and his brothers had to work non-stop around the house and the market garden his father kept. He was instructed in the ordinary branches of an English education by a teacher engaged by his father and a few neighbours; to these he afterwards added French and a little mathematics. But most of his education was got from the general reading of books, to which he gave himself with passion. In this manner he learned what the best English poets might teach him, and cultivated the instincts for poetry which had been implanted in his nature. At an early age he had to assist in the labours of the farm, and when only fifteen years old he had almost to do the work of a man.
In 1781 he went to learn the business of flax-dresser at Irvine. but the premises were destroyed by fire, and he was thus led to give up the scheme. His father dying in 1784, he took a small farm (Mossgiel) in conjunction with his younger brother Gilbert. He now began to produce poetical pieces which attracted the notice of his neighbours and gained him considerable reputation. His first lines had been written sometime previously, having been inspired by love, a passion to which he was peculiarly susceptible. While at Mossgiel he formed a connection with Jean Armour, a Mauchline girl, which resulted in her becoming pregnant. Robert Burns was willing to marry her, but her father, a respectable master mason, would not permit it, deeming Robert Burns, on account of his poor circumstances, and perhaps for other reasons, no suitable match. This affair rendered the poet's position so uncomfortable, and so wounded his pride, that he determined to emigrate to Jamaica, and engaged himself as assistant over-Beer on a plantation there.
To obtain the funds necessary for the voyage he was induced to publish, by subscription, a volume of his poetical effusions. It was printed at Kilmarnock in 1786, and Robert Burns, having thus obtained the assistance he expected, was about to set sail from his native land, when he was drawn to Edinburgh by a letter from Dr. Blacklock to an Ayrshire friend of his and the poet, recommending that he should take advantage of the general admiration his poems had excited, and publish a new edition of them.
This advice was eagerly adopted, and the result exceeded his most sanguine expectations. After remaining more than a year in the Scottish metropolis, admired, flattered, and caressed by persons of eminence for their rank, fortune, or talents, he retired to the country with the sum of some 500 pounds, which he had realized by the second publication of his poems. A part of this sum he advanced to his brother, and with the remainder took a considerable farm (Ellisland) near Dumfries, to which he subsequently added the office of exciseman.
He now married, his lover Jean Armour. But the farming at Ellisland was not a success, and in about three years Robert Burns removed to Dumfries and relied on his employment as an exciseman alone. He continued to exercise his pen, particularly in the composition of a number of beautiful songs adapted to old Scottish tunes. But his residence in Dumfries, and the society of the idle and the dissipated who gathered round him there, attracted by the brilliant wit that gave its charm to their convivialities, had an evil effect on Robert Burns, whom disappointment and misfortunes were now making somewhat reckless.
In the winter of 1795 his constitution, broken by cares, irregularities, and passions, fell into premature decline; and in July, 1796, a rheumatic fever terminated his life and sufferings at the early age of thirty-seven. He left a wife and four children, for whose support his friends and admirers raised a subscription, and with the same object an edition of his works, in four volumes was published in 1800 by Dr. Currie of Liverpool. His character, though marred by imprudence, was never contaminated by duplicity or meanness. He was an honest, proud, warm-hearted man, combining sound understanding with high passions and a vigorous and excursive imagination. He was alive to every species of emotion; and he is one of the few poets who have at once excelled in humour, in tenderness, and in sublimity.
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Robert Burns Lindsay was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Alabama from 1870 until 1872.
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Robert Burton was a British prose writer. He was born in 1577 at Lindley, Leicestershire and died in 1640. Educated at Christ Church, Oxford. He wrote 'The Anatomy of Melancholy'.
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Robert Byron was an English writer. He was born in 1905 at Wiltshire and died in 1941. After attending Merton College, Oxford he collected Victoriana before travelling and writing about Byzantine architecture and travelogues, his 1937 'The Road To Oxianta' winning the Sunday Times Literary award. He died when a ship he was travelling on was torpedoed during the Second World War.
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Robert C Wickliffe was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Louisiana from 1856 until 1860.
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Robert Cadell was a Scottish publisher. He was born in 1788 at Cockenzie and died in 1849. In 1811 he became a partner in the house of Constable and Company, Edinburgh. After the firm went bankrupt in 1825, he was chosen by Scott as the sole publisher of his subsequent novels and in 1827 he began to issue the successful 'Author's Edition' of the Waverley Novels.
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Sir Robert Calder was an English admiral. He was born in 1745 and died in 1818. He took part in the Battle of Cape St Vincent in 1797 as first captain to Sir John Jervis. Previous to the Battle of Trafalgar, when in command off Ferroll, he engaged a very superior force of French and Spanish ships, part of the fleet which had been chased by Nelson from the West Indies back to Europe, and captured two ships of the line. Public opinion, however, was not satisfied that he had done his utmost. Calder was consequently tried, convicted of an error of judgement, and severely reprimanded. He became a full admiral in 1810.
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Robert Smith Candlish was a Scottish divine. He was born in 1807 at Edinburgh and died in 1873. Educated at Glasgow University, in 1828 he was licensed, and in 1834 transferred from Bonhill to St George's, Edinburgh. In 1839 he threw himself into the conflict with the civil courts in the matter of congregational right of election and independent church jurisdiction in matters spiritual, and soon became, next to Chalmers, the most prominent leader of the 'non-intrusion' party and disruptionists of 1843. From the death of Chalmers until his own death in 1873 Robert Candlish was the ruling spirit in the Free Church. In 1862 he was made principal of the New College, Edinburgh. He was the author of several popular books on religious subjects.
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Robert Carr (Robert Ker) was Earl of Somerset and a Scottish courtier. Belonging to the family of Ker of Ferniehurst, he came to England in the retinue of James I in 1603, and became one of the king's most favoured minions. He was knighted in 1607 and made Viscount Rochester in 1611. he became the king's private secretary in 1612. His influence brought about the arrest of Sir Thomas Overbury in 1613. Having been made earl of Somerset and lord treasurer of Scotland he married the countess of Essex. Made Lord Chamberlain in 1614, in 1615 he quarrelled with the king and was accused of poisoning Sir Thomas Overbury, resulting in his imprisonment in the Tower of London from 1616 until 1622. He died in 1645.
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Robert Carter was an American editor and author. He was born in 1819 and died in 1879. He was one of the founders of the Free-Soil and Republican parties, to whose success he largely contributed by his brilliant writings in the periodicals of his time.
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Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, was an English statesman. He was born about 1563 and died in 1612. He was the son of William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, and of a weak constitution, on which account he was educated at home until his removal to the University of Cambridge. Having received the honour of knighthood he went to France as assistant to the English ambassador. On the death of Sir Francis Walsingham he succeeded him as principal secretary, and continued to be a confidential minister of Queen Elizabeth I to the end of her reign. Having secretly supported the interests of James I previous to his accession to the crown he was continued in office under the new sovereign and raised to the peerage. In 1603 he was created a baron, in 1604 Viscount Cranbourn, and in 1605 Earl of Salisbury. In 1608 Lord Salisbury was made lord high-treasurer, an office which he held until his death in 1612.
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Robert Chambers was an English historical and miscellaneous writer. He was born in 1802 at Peebles and died in 1871. The younger of two brothers originally composing the publishing firm of W & R Chambers his father was a muslin weaver. Along with his brother William who was his senior by two years, he received his education at the Peebles parish school and in the High School of Edinburgh. His family experiencing a reverse of fortune, he got together all the books belonging to his mother and himself, their value being about 2 pounds, and at the age of sixteen commenced business as a bookseller in Edinburgh.
His elder brother William established himself in the neighbourhood as a printer, and they united in projecting and issuing a short-lived periodical called the Kaleidoscope, Robert Chambers being editor and chief contributor, and William Chambers printer. Robert's illustrations of the Author of Waverley and his Traditions of Edinburgh (1823) won a ready popularity, and various other works followed in quick succession from this period until 1832: Popular Rhymes of Scotland (1826); Picture of Scotland (1827); Histories of the Scottish Rebellions; and a Life of James I.
He next edited Scottish Ballads and Songs; a Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen; and on the 4th of February, 1832, the brothers commenced Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, which achieved an immense success. Erom this time W & R Chambers united in the publishing business, and issued a series of works for the entertainment and instruction of the people. Robert Chambers contributed numerous essays to the Journal, besides editing or compiling many instructive works of a high class, including the Cyclopaedia of English Literature; the Domestic Annals of Scotland; Ancient Sea-Margins; and the Book of Days. He also edited a valuable edition of Burns.
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Sir Robert Christison was a Scottish physician. He was born in 1797 at Edinburgh and died in 1882. A specialist in toxicology, he was appointed to the chair of medical jurisprudence in Edinburgh in 1822, and in 1832 he was promoted to that of materia medica. He was twice president of the Royal College of Physicians, president of the Royal Society of Scotland, and ordinary physician to the Queen in Scotland. He was D.C.L. of Oxford and LL.D. of Edinburgh, and was elected rector of the latter university in 1880.
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Robert Clive, Lord Clive and Baron of Plassey, was the principal founder of the British Empire in India. He is also known as Clive of India. He was born in 1725 at Market Drayton and died in 1774. As a child he formed a protection racket and demanded money from the local shop keepers.
When he was nineteen years old he entered the East India Company's service at Madras as a writer, but in 1747 quit the civil for the military service. It was a perilous time for British interests in India. The French under Dupleix had gained important privileges and large grants of territory, and in alliance with Chunda Sahib, nabob of Arcot,were threatening the very existence of the British establishments.
In 1751 Robert Clive, who had already a reputation for skill and courage, marched on the large city of Arcot with 200 British troops and 300 Sepoys, and took it, although strongly garrisoned, without a blow, withstood a siege by Ghunda Sahib for nearly two months, and at last routed the enemy, took possession of important posts, and returned to Madras completely victorious.
In 1753 he sailed to England to recover his health, and was received with much honour. Two years later he was back in India, in his governorship of St David's, from which he was soon summoned to command the expedition sent to Bengal, where the nabob Suraj-ud-Dowlah had attacked the British, destroyed their factories, taken Calcutta, and suffocated over 120 of his prisoners in the Black Hole. Robert Clive soon took possession of Calcutta and brought Suraj-ud-Dowlah to terms, but having no trust in the loyal intentions of the nabob he resolved to dethrone him. With the help of Meer Jaffier, one of the nabob's officers, he effected his purpose, and in the Battle of Plassey completely overthrew Suraj-ud-Dowlah's forces. Meer Jaffier now became the new nabob, and Robert Clive was made governor of Calcutta. Here he was equally successful against the encroachments of the Dutch, defeating their forces both by sea and land.
Robert Clive now visited England again, where his success was highly applauded without much inquiry as to the means; and in 1761 he was raised to the Irish peerage with the title of Lord Clive, Baron of Plassey. In 1764 fresh troubles in India brought him back, but now as president of Bengal, with command of the troops there. Before his arrival, however, Major Adams had already defeated the Nabob of Oude, and Robert Clive had only the arranging of the treaty by which the Company obtained the disposal of all the revenues of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa.
In 1767 he finally returned to England. In 1773 a motion supported by the minister was made in the House of Commons, that 'Lord Clive had abused the powers with which he was intrusted;' but it was rejected for a resolution that 'Lord Clive had rendered great and meritorious services to his country.' His health was by this time broken, and in one of his habitual fits of melancholy he committed suicide on November the 22nd, 1774.
Robert Clive was of a reserved temper, although among his intimate friends he could be lively and pleasant. He was always self-directed and secret in his decisions, but inspired those under his command with the utmost confidence, owing to his bravery and presence of mind. In private life he was kind and exceedingly liberal. He married the sister of the astronomer - royal Dr. Maskelyne.
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Sir Robert Bruce Cotton was an English antiquary and collector of literary relics. He was born in 1570 and died in 1631. He assisted Camden in his labours on the Britannia; and was made a baronet in 1611. He wrote numerous antiquarian pamphlets, but he is chiefly remembered for the magnificent library of ancient charters, records, and other manuscripts which he collected, which passed to his heir, and was acquired by the nation in 1706. After being partially destroyed by fire in 1731, it was placed in the British Museum in 1757.
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Robert W Crockett was an Australian cricket umpire. He was born in 1863 and died in 1935. He officiated at 33 Test matches between 1901 and 1925.
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Robert Crompton was an English Association Football player. He was born in 1879. He was captain of Blackburn Rovers and of England from 1902 to 1914, making 41 appearances for England.
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Robert Cushman was an English priest. He was born in 1580 and died in 1625. He was active in preparing for the departure of the Pilgrims and acted as their English agent until 1621, when he went to America and preached the first sermon in America which was ever published.
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Robert D Blue was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Iowa from 1945 until 1949.
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Robert D Carey was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Wyoming from 1919 until 1923.
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Robert D Fulton was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Iowa during 1969.
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Robert D Holmes was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Oregon from 1957 until 1959.
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Robert D Orr was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Indiana from 1981 until 1989.
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Robert D Ray was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Iowa from 1969 until 1983.
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Robert Dale Owen was an American politician. He was born in 1800 at Scotland and died in 1877. He went to the United States from Scotland in 1824 with the communist colony established at New Harmony, Indiana by his father, Robert Owen. He was a member of the Indiana Legislature from 1835 to 1838 and represented Indiana in the US Congress as a Democrat from 1843 to 1847. He was charge d'affaires at Naples from 1853 to 1855 and Minister from 1855 to 1858, and was of some note as a writer.
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Robert Francois Damiens was a French soldier. He was born in 1715 at the village of Tieulloy and died in 1757. His sombre and obstinate disposition early obtained him the name of Robert-le-Diable. After enlisting as a soldier he became a house-servant in various establishments in Paris, and, having robbed one of his masters, he had to save himself by flight. After spending some months in different cities, in 1756 he returned to Paris with a mind which seems to have become disordered. On January the 5th,1757, as Louis XV was getting into hia carriage to return from Versailles to Trianon, he was stabbed by Robert Damiens in the right side. The wound was of a trifling nature, and Robert Damiens, who made no attempt to escape, declared he never intended to kill the king. Damiens was condemned to death, and executed by being torn in quarters by horses on March the 28th, 1757, on the Place de Greve at Paris.
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Robert Devereux was the Second Earl Of Essex. He was born in 1566 at Herefordshire and died in 1601. Having appeared at court, he soon became a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I, by whom he was kept in attendance against his will during the danger of the Spanish Armada. He served with more or less distinction in expeditions to Portugal and France, the latter on behalf of Henry of Navarre. In 1596 he was commander of the troops in an expedition against Spain, and distinguished himself by the capture of Cadiz.
In an expedition next year he was less fortunate, and the queen, with whom he was always quarrelling, received him coldly. Presuming on the favour of Elizabeth I he behaved with rudeness to her at a privy-council and received a box on the ear, and was told to 'go and be hanged.' After some months a reconciliation took place, and he was appointed Lord-lieutenant of Ireland in 1599, which was then in a state of rebellion.
He returned to England in September, having been entirely unsuccessful in his government. He was made a prisoner in his own house, and foolishly tried to excite an insurrection in London. After a skirmish with a party of soldiers he was compelled to surrender, and sent to the Tower. He was tried for treason on the 19th of February, and executed on the 26th of February, 1601.
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Robert Dinwiddie was a Scottish Governor of Virginia from 1752 to 1758. He was born in 1690 and died in 1770. His chief merit was his perception of the military abilities of George Washington, whom he sent upon the mission to the French commander on the Ohio, and then upon the military expedition which opened the French and Indian War. In the conduct of the war, he quarrelled with the Virginian Assembly, and suggested taxation of the colonies.
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Robert Docking was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Kansas from 1967 until 1975.
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Robert Dodsley was an English author and publisher. he was born in 1703 near Mansfield in Nottinghamshire and died in 1764. In 1735 he set up a publishing firm in Pall Mall, London with the help of a loan of money from his friends, including Alexander Pope, and went on to publish most of Dr Johnson's works as well as collections of old plays and poems. Among other things he wrote a tragedy, entitled Cleone, which had some success on the stage. A selection of Fables in prose, with an Essay on Fables prefixed, was one of his latest productions. He planned the Annual Register (commenced in 1758).
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Robert Dunlap was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Maine from 1834 until 1838.
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Robert Edward Lee was an American general. He was born in 1807 at Stratford, Virginia and died in 1870). The great general of the American Confederacy, he was the son of Henry Lee. He was graduated with high standing at West Point in 1829. In the Mexican War he served as chief engineer on the staff of General Wool, and was distinguished in the advance on the capital, especially at Chapultepec.
From 1852 to 1855 he was commandant at West Point. In 1859 he was sent against John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, and he had reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel by 1861. When his State seceded, Robert Lee resigned, on April the 20th, from the US army, accepted the command of the State forces, and in May was appointed a general in the Confederate army. For a year he was inconspicuously employed in Virginia and South Carolina.
The wounding of General J E Johnston at Fair Oaks, on May the31st, 1862, called Robert Lee to supreme command. Henceforth his history is that of the Army of Northern Virginia. He commanded in the Seven Days' battles, beat Pope at the second Battle of Bull Run, and immediately began his first invasion of the North. Chance revealed his plans to McClellan. His prestige was not impaired by the drawn battle of Antietam, and the army and its general gained new honours by the victories of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. His second invasion of the North resulted disastrously at the Battle of Gettysburg.
In the next year, 1864, he was pitted against Grant, whom he opposed stubbornly at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor. The long siege of Petersburg and Richmond followed. Robert Lee's efforts to ward off the break-up of the Confederacy were unavailing. Compelled to evacuate Richmond on April the2nd, 1865, he sought to effect a junction with Johnston, but was hemmed in by Grant's army and forced to surrender at Appomattox on April the 9th. Soon afterward he became president of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia (now Washington and Lee University), and remained there until his death.
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Robert E McNair was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of South Carolina from 1965 until 1971.
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Robert E Pattison was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Pennsylvania from 1883 until 1887.
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Robert E Quinn was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Rhode Island from 1937 until 1939.
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Robert E Smylie was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Idaho from 1955 until 1967.
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Sir Robert Eden was a British colonial governor. He died in 1786. he was made Governor of Maryland in 1768 and was well liked by the colonists for his moderation. When the American War of Independence broke out the Maryland colonists hoped for reconcilliation with Great Britain, but this was not to be and Sir Robert Eden was obliged to leave the colony in 1776.
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Robert Emmet was an Irish rebel. He was born in 1778 at Cork and died in 1803. He was expelled from Trinity College, Dublin, in 1798, on the ground of exciting disaffection and rebellion, and having become an object of suspicion to the government, left Ireland. He returned there on the repeal of the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and joined the United Irishmen for the establishment of the independence of Ireland, with his brother Thomas Emmet, and in 1802 visited Paris to interview Napoleon then planning an invasion of England. Returning to Dublin, Robert Emmet plotted for an armed rising against the British administration. His colleagues failed to cooperate, and after the murder of Lord Kilwarden by his followers, Robert Emmet was tried for high treason and hanged.
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Robert F Bennett was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Kansas from 1975 until 1979.
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Robert F Bradford was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Massachusetts from 1947 until 1949.
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Robert F Kennon was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Louisiana from 1952 until 1956.
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Robert F W Allston was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of South Carolina from 1856 until 1858.
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Robert Fabyan was an English historian and sheriff of London from 1493. In 1498 he defended Newgate against the Cornish rebels. He died in 1513.
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Robert Fergusson was a Scottish poet. He was born in 1750 at Edinburgh and died in 1774. He was educated at St Andrews University, and became clerk to a writer of the signet in Edinburgh. He wrote poems, of which those in the Scottish dialect have genuine poetic excellence. After his death he was buried in the Canongate Churchyard, Edinburgh, where Burns erected a monument to the memory of this kindred genius, to whom he owed suggestions for several of his own poems.
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Robert Fitzroy was a British sailor, hydrographer and meteorologist. He was born in 1805 and in 1865 by suicide. He entered the navy in 1819 and as commander of the Beagle he surveyed the coasts of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego between 1828 and 1830. On his return he published Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle. On a second voyage he was accompanied by Charles Darwin between 1831 and 1836. In 1854 he became superintendent of the meteorological department of the Board of Trade. In 1857 he was promoted to the rank of rear-admiral, and in 1863 to that of vice-admiral. He acquired great popularity with the public for the system of storm-warnings which he established.
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Robert Fitzsimmons was an English boxer. He was born in 1862 and died in 1918. He was World Heavyweight Champion in 1897 which he won from J. J. Corbett. He lost the title in 1899 to Jim Jeffries.
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Robert Fitzwalter was the leader of the barons against King John of England. He was exiled for his rebellion in 1212 but returned to head the movement which resulted in the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215. He later supported Prince Louis of France in his invasion of England during 1216 and 1217.
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Robert Fortune was a Scottish botanist and traveller. He was born in 1813 and died in 1880. After an apprenticeship as a gardener, he entered the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens, and was subsequently employed by the Royal Horticultural Society as superintendent of their indoor-plant department at Chiswick. He visited China between 1843 and 1846 on the Society's behalf, and in 1848 for the East India Company. On the former occasion he sent home the double yellow rose, the Japanese anemone, and the fan-palm, which bears his name (Chamoerops Fortune!), and in 1851 he was successful in introducing nearly 20,000 seeds and plants of tea into the North-west Provinces of India. An account of a subsequent journey to China and Japan to collect tea-shrubs and other plants for the United States Government is given in his Yeddo and Peking published in 1863. His other publications include: Three Years' Wanderings in the Northern Provinces of China published in 1847; Two Visits to the Tea Countries of China and the British Plantations in the Himalayas published in 1853; and A Residence among the Chinese published in 1857.
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Robert Foulis was a Scottish printer. He was born in 1707 at Glasgow and died in 1771. Educated at Glasgow University, in 1739 he commenced business as a bookseller, and having obtained the appointment of printer to the university began to issue editions of the ancient classics, which became famous for their accuracy and beauty. After some years his younger brother Andrew Foulis entered into partnership with his brother, but outside speculations involved the firm in embarrassments.
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Robert Franz was a German song-composer. He was born in 1815 at Halle and died in 1892. In 1841 he was appointed city organist in Halle and in 1859 master of music to the university and director of the symphony concerts. He wrote around 250 songs and also edited some of the work of Bach and George Frideric Handel before deafness compelled his retirement in 1868.
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Robert Frost was an American poet. He was born in 1875 at San Francisco and died in 1963.
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Robert Fulton was an American inventor and a pioneer of the steamboat.. He was born in 1765 at Little Britain and died in 1815. At first a portrait-painter, he went to England in 1786. After a few years he began to occupy himself with engineering and inventions. The subject of steam navigation already interested him. From 1797 to 1804 he resided in France, where, inventing the torpedo, he attempted to induce Napoleon to adopt it, but in vain. In England from 1804 to 1806 he had similar want of success with the British Ministry, and in 1806 returned to America. At New York, in 1807, he successfully realized his project of a vessel propelled by steam power, his steamboat, the Clermont, successfully steaming from New York to Albany. His invention was of the first importance in developing the interior parts of the United States.
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Robert Gilfillan was a Scottish poet. He was born in 1798 at Dunfermline and died in 1850. He learned to be a cooper, and after trying one or two other trades he was latterly collector of police rates in Leith. He has some reputation as a song-writer, his subjects being chiefly of a domestic cast. In 1831 he published a small volume entitled Original Songs. Enlarged editions appeared in 1835 and 1839.
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Robert Goodloe Harper was an American politician. He was born in 1765 at Virginia and died in 1825. He was admitted to the bar in 1786. He represented South Carolina in the US Congress from 1795 to 1801, was promoted major-general for services in the War of 1812, and was elected a US Senator from Maryland in 1816. He published various pamphlets upon diplomatic subjects of the day which won great popularity.
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Robert Ranke Graves was an English poet and novelist. He was born in 1895.
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Robert Gray was an American navigator. He was born in 1755 at Rhode Island and died in 1806. He traded with the Indians on the north-west coast of America, and returned in 1790 via China, being the first person to carry the American flag around the world. He sailed into the Columbia River in 1792, from which arose the American claim to Oregon.
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Robert Greene was an English dramatist and poet. He was born in 1558 and died in 1592. Educated at Cambridge, he took his degree of BA in 1578, after which he travelled on the Continent. He graduated MA in 1583, lived a wild and profligate life, and died in poverty in 1592. His works consist of plays, poems, tales, and tracts, His chief romances are Pandosto (1588), The History of Arbasto (1617), A Pair of Turtle Doves (1606), Menaphon (1587). His plays include The Honourable Historie of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1594), Orlando Furioso (1594), Alphonsus, king of Arragon (1597), and James IV (1598). Amongst his miscellaneous works are The Myrrour of Modestie (1584), Morando (1584), Euphues, his censure to Philautus (1587), Perimedes
(1588), Alcida (1588), Spanish Masquerade (1589), and various pamphlets and autobiographical works, such as his Never-too-late (1590), Greene's Vision (1592), The Repentance of Robert Greene (1592), and Farewell to Folly (1591). His Groat's worth of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance (1592), is remarkable for the allusion to Shakspere, 'an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers'. His Pandosto furnished the basis for William Shakspeare's Winter's Tale.
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Robert C Grier was an American jurist. He was born in 1794 and died in 1870. He was admitted to the bar in 1817, was District Judge of Alleghany from 1838 until 1846, when he became a Justice of the US Supreme Court and served until 1870.
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Robert Grosseteste was an English scholar and prelate. He was born about 1175 and died in 1253. He studied first at Oxford, and then went to Paris, where he mastered the Hebrew and Greek languages. On his return to England he became lecturer in the Franciscan school at Oxford, and acquired a great reputation for his linguistic abilities, his skill in logic, etc. In 1235 he was appointed Bishop of Lincoln, but soon came into collision with Pope Innocent IV on the question of the induction of foreigners into English benefices. He refused to institute the pope's nephew, Frederick di Lavagna, to a canonry at Lincoln, and disregarded the papal fulminations which he thus incurred. His writings, few of which have been published, are very voluminous.
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Robert Guiscard (Robert the Cunning) was Duke of Apulia and Calabria. A son of Tancred de Hauteville he was born in 1015 and died in 1085. His brothers, having acquired large possessions in Italy, Robert followed them about 1053, and in the same year captured Pope Leo IX at Civitella. On the death of his brother Humphrey he was proclaimed count of Apulia in 1057. He then conquered Calabria, and Pope Nicholas II made him gonfalonier of the Church. Having become a tributary of the holy see, and suppressed the privileges of the Apulian nobility, he sent his youngest brother, Roger, to seize Sicily.
Robert himself arrived in Sicily in 1061, and, in conjunction with his brother, defeated the Saracens at Enna. Returning to Italy, Robert conquered the towns still remaining in the hands of the Saracens, being detained from 1068 to 1071 at the siege of Bari. In 1074 he was excommunicated by Gregory VII for refusing to become his vassal, but the ban was removed in 1080. As his daughter Helen was betrothed to the son of the Byzantine emperor, Michael VII, Robert Guiscard, on the latter's deposition, took up arms in his favour, and defeated Alexis Comnenus at Durazzo in 1082. As Gregory VII. had been meanwhile imprisoned by the invading forces of Henry IV of Germany, Robert Guiscard delivered the pontiff in 1084. He then went again to Epirus, where he repeatedly defeated the Greeks, and, by means of his fleet, made himself master of many of the islands of the Archipelago. He was upon the point of advancing against Constantinople (Istanbul), when he died in the island of Cephalonia in 1085.
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Robert Hall was a celebrated divine among the Dissenters in England. He was was born in 1764 at Arnsby, Leicestershire and died in 1831. He was the son of a Baptist minister. He studied at the Baptist College at Bristol, and afterwards at Aberdeen. In 1783 he became assistant pastor of Broadmead Church in Bristol, suffered for a time from mental alienation, recovered and became pastor of the Baptist Church at Cambridge, where he soon acquired a great reputation by his preaching and his writings, such as Apology for the Freedom of the Press (1793); Modern Infidelity (1800); Reflections on War (1802). He again became certified as insane and resigned his charge, but recovering married and settled at Leicester in 1808, until in 1826 he was again called to Bristol. Nearly all his life he suffered so intensely from calculus in the kidney that for twenty years he was never able to pass an entire night in bed, and could obtain rest only by a ruinous use of laudanum.
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Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, was an English minister. He was born in 1661 and died in 1724. The son of Sir Edward Harley, after the accession of Anne he and his colleague St John, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke, became leaders of the Tories. Harley was chosen speaker of the House of Commons in 1702 under Rochester, and in 1704 was appointed chief secretary of state, but resigned in 1708. After the fall of Marlborough Robert Harley became chancellor of the exchequer in 1710, and next year was created Earl of Oxford. He and Bolingbroke secured the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, but afterwards quarrelled.
Early in the reign of George I he was impeached of high treason on the ground of his alleged Jacobite intrigues. He was kept in the Tower of London for two years, but, owing to the inability of the Peers and the Commons to agree about the mode of procedure, he was acquitted. His patronage was extended to Swift, Pope, and other literary men, and he made a valuable collection of books and manuscripts, which are preserved in the British Museum, where they form the Bibliotheca Harleiana. Those which have been printed constitute the Harleian Miscellany.
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Robert Haskell was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Maine during 1959.
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The Reverend Robert Stephen Hawker was an English poet and divine. He was born in 1805 and died in 1875. He was educated at Oxford and became vicar of Morwenstow, Cornwall. His works comprise Ecclesia, Cornish Ballads; Echoes from Old Cornwall; The Quest of the Sangreal; Footprints of Former Men in Cornwall, etc.
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Robert Henryson was a Scottish poet. He was born about 1425 and died about 1506. He spent most of his life at Dunfermline, where he was schoolmaster. The Testament of Oresseid, his most important work, is a continuation of Chaucer's Troilus and Creseide, though with individual merit;
and he was probably the author of the early Scottish pastoral, Kobin and Makyne. Amongst his other works were a Tale of Orpheus, The Moral fables of AEsop in Scottish metre, and an allegorical ballad, The Bludy Serk.
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Robert Herrick was an English poet. He was born in 1591 at London and died in 1674. He was vicar of Dean Prior in Devon for about 20 years; suffered deprivation under the government of Oliver Cromwell; but recovered his benefice after the restoration of Charles II, in 1660. His compositions were published in 1648, under the title of Hesperides, or the Works, both Humane and Divine, of Robert Herrick. It is a delightful collection of love lyrics, epigrams, sketches of rural scenery, etc. Notwithstanding his frequent coarseness he has been pronounced a writer of delightful Anacreontic spirit, and one of the best of English lyric poets.
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Robert Hooke was an English mathematician and natural philosopher. He was born in 1635 and died 1703. In 1658-1659 he invented the balance spring of watches, an honour otherwise ascribed to Huyghens; in 1664 he became Cutlerian professor of mechanics to the Royal Society, and in 1664 professor of geometry at Gresham College. He partially anticipated the Newtonian theory of gravitation and the undulatory theory of light, and invented or materially improved many scientific and mechanical instruments.
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Robert Howe was an American politician. He was born in 1732 and died in 1785. He was a member of the North Carolina Assembly from 1772 to 1773. He was a delegate to the Colonial Congress in 1774. He was appointed colonel, and aided in expelling Governor Dunmore from Virginia. He was excepted in Sir William Howe's proclamation of royal clemency. He commanded the North Carolina troops in the defence of Charleston, and fought at Savannah. He commanded at West Point in 1780.
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Robert M T Hunter was an American politician. He was born in 1809 and died in 1887. He served in the Virginia Legislature in 1833. He represented Virginia in the Congress of the United States as a Whig from 1837 to 1843 and from 1845 to 1847, and was Speaker from 1839 to 1841. He was a US Senator from 1847 to 1861, and ardently advocated all pro-slavery legislation. He was a member of the provisional Congress at Richmond in 1861. From 1861 to 1862 he was Secretary of State in the Confederate Government. From 1862 to 1865 he served in the Confederate Senate in opposition to the administration of Mr. Davis. He was one of the peace commissioners to confer with President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. He was treasurer of Virginia from 1877 to 1880.
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Robert I, Duke of Normandy was the father of William The Conqueror and aide to Edward The Confessor. He died in 1035 while returning from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
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Robert II was a King of Scotland. He was born in 1316 and died in 1390. A grandson of Robert the Bruce, his mother being the king's daughter, his father was Walter the Steward of Scotland. Robert II was the first of the Steward (later transformed to Stuart) kings of Scotland and England, reigning from 1371 to 1390. Although declared successor to the throne when he was two years old, the birth of a son to the king replaced Robert II, and Robert II succeeded to the throne upon the death of David II in 1371,
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Robert III (real name John) was a King of Scotland. He was born in 1340 and died in 1406. The eldest son of Robert II and his mistress Elizabeth Mure, Robert was declared legitimate and made earl of Carrick. He reigned from 1390 to 1406, taking the name Robert upon his succession to the throne.
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Robert Green Ingersoll was an American lawyer and orator. He was born in 1833 at Dresden, New York and died in 1899. He commanded the Illinois volunteer cavalry regiment during the American Civil War; and was attorney general of Illinois from 1867 to 1869. He became a noted agnostic lecturer, attacking popular Christian beliefs and was the author of 'The Gods, and Other Lectures' published in 1876, 'Some Mistakes of Moses' published in 1879, 'Why I Am an Agnostic' published in 1896, and 'Superstition' published in 1898.
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Robert J Reynolds was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Delaware from 1891 until 1895.
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Robert K Scott was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of South Carolina from 1868 until 1872.
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Robert Kerrey was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Nebraska from 1983 until 1987.
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Robert Koch was a German scientist. He was born in 1843 and died in 1910. He won the Nobel prize for medicine for discovering the bacteria which cause TB, cholera and anthrax.
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Robert Leroy Cochran was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Nebraska from 1935 until 1941.
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Robert List was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Nevada from 1979 until 1983.
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Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish author. He was born at Edinburgh in 1850 and died in 1894. He wrote treasure island, kidnapped, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and the Master of Ballantrae. He was known to the Samoans as Tusitala.
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Robert Love Taylor was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Tennessee from 1887 until 1891.
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Robert Lowry was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Mississippi from 1882 until 1890.
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Robert Lucas was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Ohio from 1832 until 1836.
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Robert M La Follette Sr was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Wisconsin from 1901 until 1906.
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Robert M McLane was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Maryland from 1884 until 1885.
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Robert M Stewart was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Missouri from 1857 until 1861.
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Robert McClelland was an American politician. He was born in 1807 and died in 1880. He represented Michigan in the US Congress as a Democrat from 1843 to 1849. He was Governor of Michigan from 1852 to 1853. He was Secretary of the Interior in Pierce's Cabinet from 1853 to 1857.
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Robert Miller Patton was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Alabama from 1865 until 1867.
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Robert Andrews Millikan was an American scientist. He was born in 1868 at Morrison and died in 1954. He won the Nobel prize for physics in 1923.
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Robert Mills was an American architect. He was born in 1781 at South Carolina and died in 1855. He was architect of the General Post-Office, Treasury and Patent-Office buildings at Washington, USA. He made the original design of the Washington Monument.
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Robert Moffat was a Scottish missionary. He was born in 1795 at Ormiston and died in 1883. He set sail for South Africa in 1816 as a missionary under the London Missionary Society. In 1818 he left Namaqualand and journeyed into the interior where he founded the station of Kuruman, in Bechuanaland. Here he translated the bible into the native tongue. From 1839 to 1843 he was in England where he published his writings on South Africa. Returning to Kuruman in 1843 he was assisted by David Livingstone, who married one of his daughters. He returned to England in 1870.
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Robert Montgomery was an English poet and preacher. He was born in 1807 at Bath and died in 1855.
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Robert Morison was a Scottish botanist and physician. He was born in 1620 at Aberdeen and died in 1683. His active royalism forced him to flee to France, where he became physician to Gaston, Duc d' Orleans. After the restoration, Charles II made him royal physician, and he was elected professor of botany at Oxford in 1669. He was killed in a coaching accident at Charing Cross, London.
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Robert Morris was an American financer. He was born in 1734 at Liverpool, England and died in 1806. Known as the financier of the American Revolution, having settled in Philadelphia he built up a flourishing business there. He opposed the Stamp Act, and signed the American Declaration of Independence. In Congress he gave valuable services to the Committee of Ways and Means, and in February, 1781, he was elected Superintendent of Finance. Among his acts was the organization of the Bank of North America at the end of 1781. In 1784 he retired, but served in the Pennsylvania Legislature, as delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and US Senator from 1789 until 1795. He had previously declined the office of Secretary of the Treasury. In his later years he was unsuccessful in business, and was at one time imprisoned for debt.
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Robert Muldoon was a New Zealand statesman and Prime Minister. He was born in 1921 at Auckland and died in 1992. He was Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1975 to 1984.
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Robert O Blood was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of New Hampshire from 1941 until 1945.
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Robert of Gloucester was an English monk of the abbey of Gloucester who lived in the latter half of the 13th century. He wrote a chronicle of England extending from the siege of Troy to the year 1270. It is largely based on Geoffrey of Monmouth, with a few original notices. He is also said to have written metrical Lives of the Saints.
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J. Robert Oppenheimer was an American physicist and director of the Los Alamos research project which made the first atomic bomb. He was born in 1904 and died in 1967.
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Robert Owen was an English socialist reformer. He was born in 1771 and died in 1858. He wrote 'A New View Of Society' published in 1813. In 1824 he went to the United States from Scotland and founded an unsuccessful communist society at New Harmony, Indiana.
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Robert P Bass was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of New Hampshire from 1911 until 1913.
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Robert P Casey was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Pennsylvania from 1987 until 1995.
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Robert P Letcher was an American politician. He was a Whig governor of Kentucky from 1840 until 1844.
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Robert P Robinson was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Delaware from 1925 until 1929.
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Robert P Parrott was an American inventor. He was born in 1804 and died in 1877. He invented the Parrott system of rifled cannon and projectiles. The Parrott guns exhibited great endurance, one at Charleston having been fired 4606 times before bursting, and were of great service in the American Civil War.
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Robert Patterson was an American soldier. He was born in 1743 and died in 1834. He went to Pennsylvania from Ireland in 1768. He served in the Colonial army, was appointed Director of the Mint by President Jefferson in 1805 and served until 1824.
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Robert Edwin Peary was an American explorer. He was born in 1856 at Cresson, and died in 1920. He was educated at Bowdoin College. In 1881 he became a civil engineer in the American Navy and in this capacity he participated in the Nicaragua Canal Survey of 1884 to 1885 and made an exploration into Greenland in 1886. He led further expeditions to Greenland from 1891 to 1892 and from 1893 to 1895. He proved Greenland was an island rather than a continent and that the Greenland ice cap extended no farther north than latitude 82 degrees North; he also contributed to scientific knowledge of Inuit ethnology and of glacial formation. Between 1898 and 1902 Peary engaged in surveys in Greenland. In 1902 and from 1905 to 1906 he made unsuccessful attempts to reach the North Pole, coming within 280 km of his goal on the latter trip. On July the 17th 1908, Peary led another expedition to the Pole, and on April the 7th, 1909, he and a small party consisting of his assistant Matthew Henson and four Inuit reached their target. On
September the 6th, 1909, the day he announced his achievement, Peary learned that the discovery of the Pole had been claimed five days previously by the American explorer and surgeon Frederick Cook, however examination by experts established that the doctor's claim was false and Peary's records were accepted as genuine. In 1911, the year Peary retired, Congress recognised his discovery as unimpeachable, and he was given the rank of rear admiral before his retirement.
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Sir Robert Peel was an English statesman. He was born in 1788 at Bury and died in 1850. He entered the House of Commons in 1809, and in 1811, he became a cabinet member as undersecretary for war and for the colonies. From 1812 to 1818, as chief secretary for Ireland, he suppressed Irish agitation for increased freedom for Roman Catholics. In 1822 he re-entered the cabinet as home secretary. He distinguished himself in this post through a series of penal reforms and, in 1829, by reorganising the London metropolitan police force, thereafter called 'Peelers' and 'bobbies', after him. Although he had successfully opposed a Roman Catholic emancipation bill in 1817, Peel later recognised the explosiveness of the Irish situation. He introduced and carried through the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, granting Roman Catholics political equality. He was twice Prime Minister, in 1834 and from 1841 until 1846.
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Robert E Pine was an English artist. He was born in 1730 and died in 1788. He went to Philadelphia from England in 1783. He was prominent as an artist and painted portraits of many of the characters of the American Revolution, including George Washington and Robert Morris.
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Robert Pruyn was an American statesman. He was born in 1815 and died in 1882. He served in the New York Assembly from 1848 to 1850 and in 1854. He was Minister to Japan from 1861 to 1865, and greatly increased American power in the East.
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Robert R Livingston was an American jurist. He was born in 1746 and died in 1813. Educated at King's College (now Columbia College) he became a lawyer, a member of the New York Assembly, and delegate to the Continental Congress. He served on the committee of five which drafted the American Declaration of Independence. He was Secretary for Foreign Affairs in 1781 to 1783, and was a prominent Federalist in the ratifying convention at Poughkeepsie in 1788. Meanwhile from 1777 to 1801 he was Chancellor of the State of New York, and in this position he administered the oath of office to George Washington in 1789. While US Minister to France in 1801 to 1805 he helped to negotiate the Louisiana Purchase. He is remembered also for his connection with many societies in New York City, and his association with Fulton in the beginnings of steamboat navigation.
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Robert Raikes was an English philanthropist. He was born in 1735 at Gloucester and died in 1811. He was proprietor of the Gloucester Journal, and originated the system of Sunday-schools by gathering together a number of street children for secular and religious training.
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Robert Rantoul was an American jurist and politician. He was born in 1805 and died in 1852. He was a member of the Massachusetts Legislature from 1833 to 1837. He made a powerful and famous appeal for the abolition of capital punishment in America. He was counsel for Thomas Sims in his celebrated fugitive slave case. He was US District Attorney for Massachusetts from 1845 to 1849, and served in the US Senate as a Democrat from 1851 to 1852. He was known as an eloquent speaker on moral, political and educational reforms.
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Robert Remak was a German physician. He was born in 1815 at Posen and died in 1865. He conducted microscopical research into embryology and pathology and made discoveries in the use of electricity in medicine.
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Robert Rogers was an American soldier. He was born in 1727 and died in 1800. He commanded Rogers' Rangers during the French War. In 1759 he destroyed the Indian village at St Francis. In 1765 he was appointed Governor of Mackinaw, Michigan by the crown. He was paroled by the American Congress at the outbreak of the American War of Independence. He raised The Queen's Rangers, a corps which was distinguished during the war. In 1777 he went to England, and in 1778 was banished from America.
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Robert S Garnett was an American politician. He was born in 1819 at Virginia and died in 1861. He was a Democratic Representative from Virginia from 1817 until 1827. He voted alone against tlie recognition of the South American Republics. Commanding Confederate forces in West Virginia, he was defeated and killed at Carrick's Ford in 1861.
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Robert S Granger was an American general. He was born in 1816 and died in 1894. He was promoted captain in the Mexican War, had commands in the American Civil War at Lebanon, Lawrenceburg, in Nashville and Middle Tennessee in 1863, and Alabama in 1864.
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Robert S Green was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of New Jersey from 1887 until 1890.
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Robert S Kerr was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Oklahoma from 1943 until 1947.
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Robert S Vessey was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of South Dakota from 1909 until 1913.
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Robert C Sands was an American journalist and writer. He was born in 1799 at New York and died in 1833. He was assistant editor of the New York Review from 1825 to 1827, and of the Commercial Advertiser from 1827 to 1832. He wrote with Bryant and Verplanck The Talisman.
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Robert C Schenk was an American politician and soldier. He was born in 1809 and died in 1890. He represented Ohio in the US Congress as a Whig from 1843 to 1851. He was Minister to Brazil from 1851 to 1853 negotiating important commercial treaties. He commanded a brigade at Bull Run, and served under General Rosecrans in the Shenandoah Valley. He led a division at Cross Keys and was engaged in the second Battle of Bull Run. He again served in the US Congress as a Republican from 1863 to 1871. He served on the Joint High Commission which negotiated the Treaty of Washington, and was Minister to England from 1871 to 1876.
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Robert Schumann was a German composer. He was born in 1810 at Zwickau and died in 1856.
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Captain Robert Falcon Scott was an English explorer. He was born in 1868 near Devonport, Devon and died in 1912. He commanded the National Antarctic Expedition of 1901 to 1904 which explored the Ross Sea and discovered King Edward VII land. Later he was beaten to the South Pole by Roald Amundsen and died on the return journey as a result of poor weather and disease.
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Robert Sedgwick was an Enflish colonist. He was born in 1590 and died in 1656. He went to Massachusetts from England around 1635. In 1652 he became commander of the Massachusetts militia. He engaged in the expedition against Penobscot in 1654 and against the Spanish West Indies in 1655.
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Robert Smillie was a Scottish labour leader. He was born in 1857 at Lanarkshire and died in 1940. His early years were spent working as a coal miner in the Lanarkshire collieries. He showed strong personality and good organising abilities while in the trade union movement, and became president of the Scottish Miners' Federation in 1894. Robert Smillie was prominent in the mining industry disputes which led to the Coal Mines Regulation Act of 1908 and the Coal Mines Act of 1911, and from 1912 he was annually elected president of the Miner's Federation of Great Britain, who made him their permanent president in 1919. In 1919 Robert Smillie attracted wide attention as the chief representative of the Federation on the Sankey Coal Industry Commission at the House of Lords and as the leader of the miners at the strike of 1920. In 1921 ill health forced him to resign from the post of president, and he became president of the Lanarkshire Miners' Union. He served as a Labour member of Parliament from 1923 to 1929.
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Sir Robert Smirke was an English architect. He was born in 1781 at London and died in 1867. He studied at the Royal Academy schools and was articled to Sir John Soane. After travelling in Italy and Greece, he was appointed architect to the board of trade. He was elected ARA in 1808 and to the Royal Academy in 1811 and was treasurer of the Academy from 1820 until 1850. In 1859 he moved from London to Cheltenham where he ended his days. Of the buildings he designed, the best known is the British Museum completed in 1847.
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Robert Smith was an American politician. He was born in 1757 at Maryland and died in 1842. He served as a volunteer at the Battle of Brandywine. He was one of the Presidential electors in 1789, and was the last surviving member. He served in the Maryland Senate in 1793, and was a member of the House of Delegates from 1796 to 1800. He was Secretary of the Navy in Jefferson's Cabinet from 1802 to 1805, and though appointed Attorney-General in 1805, really served as Secretary of the Navy from 1805 to 1809. He was Secretary of State in Madison's Cabinet from 1809 to 1811, when he was succeeded by Monroe.
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Robert Smith Surtees was an English writer. He was born in 1803 at Durham and died in 1864. Educated at Durham grammar school he began in practise as a solicitor in London, before turning to journalism writing for the 'Sporting Magazine'. In 1831 together with Rudolph Ackermann he founded 'The New Sporting Magazine' and started writing fiction.
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Robert Southey was an English poet and writer. He was born in 1774 at Bristol and died in 1843. The son of a linen draper, he was educated at Westminster and Balliol College, Oxford, by the help of relatives. Influenced by the French Revolution, he developed and advanced ideas in politics and religion, and with Samuel Coleridge, whom he met at Oxford in 1794, cherished vain dreams of establishing what they described as a Pantisocracy or communal republic in the New World. Robert Southey's advanced ideas were reflected in his early literature which included the drama 'Wat Tyler' and 'Joan of Arc', an historical epic. A trip to Spain and Portugal from 1795 until 1796 gave him a lasting interest in those countries. By 1803 Robert Southey was earnestly involved in writing and moved to Keswick in the Lake District where he became friends with William Wordsworth. In 1813 he was appointed poet laureate.
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Robert Southwell was an English Jesuit priest and poet. He was born in 1561 at Horsham St Faith, Norwich and died in 1595. Educated at Dousai and Paris, in 1577 he was received into the Society of Jesus at Rome where he became prefect of the English college. He was ordained as a priest in 1584, and returned to England in 1587 to minister his col-religionists in defiance of the Act excluding English-born Roman Catholic priests from the kingdom. He became chaplain to the countess of Arundel, but in 1592 was betrayed and was imprisoned in the Tower of London where he was tortured, including suffering thirteen separate sessions on the rack, before being hanged at Tyburn on February the 21st 1595.
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Robert Spencer (second earl of Sunderland) was an English statesman and courtier. He was born in 1640 at Paris and died in 1702. He was educated abroad and at Oxford before holding several diplomatic appointments and being appointed secretary of state in 1679. In 1697 he became lord chamberlain, resigning shortly afterwards.
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Robert Stephenson was a British engineer. He was born in 1803 at Willington Quay, Newcastle and died in 1859. The son of George Stephenson, he shared his named with his grandfather and helped his father to survey the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1821 before entering Edinburgh University. Poor health compelled him to go abroad and in 1824 he accepted an offer to superintend gold and silver mines in Colombia. Returning to Britain in 1827 he helped his father with the building of the Rocket locomotive to which construction Robert Stephenson suggested a number of improvements. Robert Stephenson constructed the first railway into London, the Birmingham-London line constructed between 1833 and 1838. He was also involved in the construction of bridges, including the Menai bridge and the Victoria bridge over the St Lawrence river in Montreal. In 1847 he was elected member of parliament for Whitby and represented the town until his death. Robert Stephenson was president of the Institution of Civil Engineers from 1856 until 1857.
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Robert Stevenson was a Scottish engineer. He was born in 1772 and died in 1850. Educated at the Andersonian Institute, Glasgow and at Edinburgh University, he learned lighthouse engineering from his stepfather, Thomas Smith and constructed some twenty lighthouses, including the Bell Rock lighthouse and made improvements in the lighting systems. He invented the flashing light for use in lighthouses.
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Robert Field Stockton was an American sailor. He was born in 1795 and died in 1866. The grandson of Richard Stockton, he was in the navy in the War of 1812, and was distinguished in the ensuing Algerine War. He was engaged in the establishment of Liberia and in the capture of slavers and pirates. He was the chief promoter of the Delaware and Raritan Canal. As a captain he commanded a squadron on the California coast in the Mexican War, and co-operated with Fremont in the conquest of that province. He captured Los Angeles, and organized a government. Commodore Robert Stockton left the navy in 1850 and was US Senator from New Jersey from 1851 to 1853. He was a delegate to the Peace Congress of 1861.
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Sir Robert Strange was a Scottish engraver. He was born in 1721 at Kirkwall, Orkney and died in 1792. Trained as a lawyer at Edinburgh, he afterwards studied engraving at London. He was involved in the Jacobite uprising of 1745, afterwards fleeing to Rouen where he studied before going to Paris and returning to Britain in 1750, where he was knighted in 1787.
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Robert Surcouf was a French privateer. He was born in 1773 at St Malo and died in 1827. His principal exploits were in the Indian Ocean. In 1785 he captured the Triton and in 1800 the Kent, causing a major sensation.
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Robert Surtees was an English antiquary. He was born in 1779 at Durham and died in 1834. Educated at Christ Church, Oxford in 1802 he settled on his paternal estate at Mainsforth and devoted himself to the collection of local material regarding the history and antiquities of Durham, which he documented in several volumes.
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Robert T Jones was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Arizona from 1939 until 1941.
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Robert T Stafford was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Vermont from 1959 until 1961.
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Robert Tannahill was a Scottish poet and weaver. He was born in 1774 at Paisley and died in 1810. He was a sad man, and ultimately drowned himself.
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Robert Toombs was an American jurist and politician. He was born in 1810 and died in 1885. He was one of the most influential Secessionists. Educated at Union College he rose to distinction as a lawyer in Georgia. He served in the Creek War, in the legislature, and as a State-Rights Whig in Congress from 1845 to 1853. While in Congress he favoured and took part in the compromise measures of 1850. He was US Senator from Georgia 1853 to 1861. Senator Toombs was one of the most active champions of the slave power, and when the crisis occurred in 1860 he was second to none in energy as a disunionist He aided powerfully in forcing his State to secede. During the American Civil War he was at different times Congressman, Secretary of State, and a brigadier-general. Afterward he practised law, and refused persistently to take the oath of allegiance to the Government. In his last years he devoted himself to a contest with the railway power.
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Sir Robert Richard Torrens was an Irish colonial premier and agrarian reformer. He was born in 1814 at Cork and died in 1884. He went to Australia in 1840 and became a collector of customs and colonial treasurer in 1852. He became premier in 1857 and introduced the Torrens Act, a measure of land reform.
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Robert Treat was an English colonist. He was born in 1622 and died in 1701. He went to Connecticut from England early in the seventeenth century. He was a deputy from 1653 to 1659, and an assistant from 1659 to 1664. He opposed the union of New Haven and Connecticut. He commanded the Connecticut forces in King Philip's War. He was Deputy-Governor of Connecticut from 1676 to 1683, and Governor from 1683 to 1698, except two years under Sir Edmund Andros from 1687 to 1689. He was again Deputy-Governor from 1698 to 1708.
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Robert Treat Paine was an American jurist and politician. He was born in 1731 and died in 1814. He was a member of the Massachusetts Assembly from 1773 to 1774, and of the Provincial Congress from 1774 to 1775. He was a delegate from Massachusetts to the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1778 and signed the American Declaration of Independence. He was Attorney-General of Massachusetts from 1780 to 1790, and a Judge of the Massachusetts Supreme Court from 1790 to 1804, when he resigned. He was renowned as an able lawyer and an impartial judge.
Robert Treat Paine was an American poet. He was born in 1773 and died in 1811).
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Robert Trimble was an American jurist. He was born in 1777 and died in 1828. He was appointed Chief Justice of Kentucky in 1810. He became US District Attorney in 1813, and was District Judge of Kentucky from 1816 to 1836. He was a Justice of the US Supreme Court from 1826 to 1828.
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Robert W Furnas was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Nebraska from 1873 until 1875.
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Robert W Scott was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of North Carolina from 1969 until 1973.
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Robert W Straub was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Oregon from 1975 until 1979.
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Robert W Waterman was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of California from 1887 until 1891.
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Robert Wace was an Anglo-Normal historical poet of the 12th century. He wrote an account of the Norman Dukes.
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Robert James Walker was an American Cabinet officer. He was born in 1801 and died in 1869. Educated in the University of Pennsylvania, he studied law, and removed to Mississippi. He was Democratic US Senator from that State from 1836 to 1845. He favoured the annexation of Texas, and the same year refused the nomination for Vice-President. In 1845 President Polk called him to the Treasury Department which he conducted until 1849. He is identified with the 'Walker revenue tariff' of 1846. He favoured the warehouse system and the creation of the Interior Department. He was Governor of Kansas from 1857 until 1858, and during the American Civil War was US financial agent in Europe.
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Robert Walpole, Earl of Orford was a Brit, statesman. he was born in 1676 at Houghton, Norfolk and died in 1745. The son of a Whig country gentleman of Houghton, Norfolk he became member of Parliament for Castle Rising in 1701 and sat for King's Lynn from 1702 until 1742. In 1712 the Tories seized a pretext for imprisoning him. In 1713 Townsend married his sister Dorothy and Walpole became first lord of the Treasury and chancellor of Exchequer in 1715 and in 1720 following the South Sea Bubble crisis he became prime minister.
One of the greatest British, statesmen Robert Walpole sought to bring the court and the House of Commons into a working alliance to unite the nation under the new dynasty by keeping as free as possible from foreign alliances, and to make the nation prosperous, and he may be said to have succeeded in these aims. At the same time he was described as a crass and unrefined man and allegations of corruption for his own political benefit were made against him.
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Robert Winthrop was an American politician. He was born in 1809 and died in 1894. A descendant of Governor John Winthrop, he was eduated at Harvard, graduating in 1828. He was a Whig in politics, and was Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. From 1841 to 1850 he represented his State in the lower House of Congress, where he acquired a reputation as a debater and orator. He was Speaker of the House in 1847-1849, and was defeated in 1849 for re-election to the chair. In 1850-1851 he was US Senator, but a coalition of Democrats and Free-Soilers defeated him. The same year he failed as the Whig candidate for Governor. Robert Winthrop received a plurality of votes, but as the law then required a majority the choice went to the legislature, where he was beaten. Robert Winthrop was noted as a classic orator, particularly on historical themes. His addresses on anniversary occasions, as at the Yorktown Centennial in 1881, were greatly admired.
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Robert Wright was an American politician. He was a Democratic-Republican governor of Maryland from 1806 until 1809.
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Robert Young Hayne was an American politician. He was born in 1791 and died in 1839. He served during the War of 1812, and was a member of the South Carolina Legislature from 1814 to 1818, in which year he was Speaker. From 1818 to 1832 he was Attorney-General of the State, and in 1823 was sent to the US Senate, where he strenuously opposed the protective system, denying its constitutionality. He asserted that under the Constitution a State had the right to arrest the operation of such Federal enactments as she considered unconstitutional. This led to the famous debate between Webster and Hayne in 1830, respecting State rights and nullification. He was chairman of the State Convention in 1832, which reported the celebrated ordinance of nullification, and was Governor of South Carolina from 1832 to 1834, when that State prepared to enforce the nullification ordinance and make armed resistance against the Federal authority; but the tariff bill of Henry Clay compromised the difficulties.
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Robert Yates was an American juirst. He was born in 1738 at New York and died in 1801. He was the author of numerous essays signed 'The Rough Hewer', which advocated the insurgent cause. He was a member of the New York Provincial Congress from 1775 to 1778. He became one of the Committee of Safety in 1776. He became a Judge of the New York Supreme Court in 1776, and was Chief Justice from 1790 to 1798. He was a member of the convention that framed the Federal Constitution, but left the convention and opposed the ratification of the Constitution.
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Roberto Bellarmino was an Italian cardinal and celebrated controversialist of the Roman Church. He was born in 1542 at Monte Pulciano and died at Rome in 1621. He was ordained a priest in 1569 by Jansenius, bishop of Ghent, and placed in the theological chair of the University of Louvain. He was made a cardinal on account of his learning, by Clement VIII, and in 1602 created Archbishop of Capua. Paul V recalled him to Rome, on which he resigned his archbishopric without retaining any pension on it as he might have done. Roberto Bellarmino, whose life was a model of Christian asceticism, is one of the greatest theologians, particularly in polemics, that the Church of Rome has ever produced. He had the double merit with the court of Rome of supporting her temporal power and spiritual supremacy to the utmost, and of strenuously opposing the reformers. The talent he displayed in the latter controversy called forth all the similar ability on the Protestant side; and for a number of years no eminent divine among the reformers failed to make his arguments a particular subject of refutation. His principal work was Disputationes de Controversiis Fidei ad versus hujus Temporis Haereticos.
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Roberto A Giraldo is an AIDS researcher. He is a specialist in Internal medicine at the University of Antioquia, Colombia. He graduated with distinction from the University of London after obtaining an MSc in Clinical Tropical Medicine. For 30 years he has been dedicated to clinical, academic and research activities in infectious diseases in Colombia, USA and Europe. He currently works in the Clinical Immunology section of the Department of Microbiology, University Hospital, New York City, and has been an independent researcher into AIDS since 1983. He came to prominence in the 1990s for his research which claims 'HIV is neither necessary nor sufficient to cause AIDS, and antibody positivity does not always precede the development of the syndrome'. He claims that AIDS is neither an infectious disease nor is it sexually transmitted. Rather, he believes AIDS to be cause by the worldwide use of immunological stressor agents - a view supported by many other independent researchers.
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Maximillien Marie Isidore Robespierre was a French revolutionary and politician of the French revolution. He was born in 1758 at Arras and died in 1794. he became an attorney at Arras and was one of the representatives of the Third Estate, when the States-General was assembled in France in 1789. He joined and led the extremists of the Jacobin Club and in 1793 he was elected Committee of Public Safety from which position he was primarily responsible or the Reign of Terror and after the execution of Desmoulins and Danton, in 1794 he became Dictator of France, only to be overthrown in a popular reaction to the killings and was himself executed.
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Robin Hood was a legendary English folk hero who led a band of outlaws in Sherwood forest and opposed the tyranny and excessive taxes of King John.
Robin Hood is first mentioned by the Scottish historian Fordun, who died in 1386. According to Stow, he was an outlaw in the reign of Richard I (twelfth century). He entertained one hundred tall men, all good archers, with the spoil he took, but 'he suffered no woman to be oppressed, violated, or otherwise molested; poore men's goods he spared, abundantly relieving them with that which by theft he got from abbeys and houses of rich carles'. He was an immense favourite with the common people, who have dubbed him an earl. Stukeley says he was Robert Fitzooth, Earl of Huntingdon.
According to one tradition, Robin Hood and Little John were two heroes defeated with Simon de Montfort at the Battle of Evesham, in 1265. Fuller, in his Worthies, considers him an historical character, but Thierry says he simply represents a class - that is the remnant of the old Saxon race, which lived in perpetual defiance of the Norman oppressors from the time of Hereward.
Other examples of similar combinations are the Cumberland bandits, headed by Adam Bell, Olym of the Clough, and William of Cloudesley.
An old sporting magazine of December, 1808, says the true name of Robin Hood was Fitzooth, and Fitz being omitted leaves Ooth, and converting th into d it became 'Ood'. He was grandson of Ralph Fitzooth, Earl of Kyme, a Norman, who came to England in the reign of William Rufus. His maternal grandfather was Gilbert de Gaunt, Earl of Lincoln, and his grandmother was Lady Roisia de Bere, sister to the Earl of Oxford. His father was under the guardianship of Robert, Earl of Oxford, who, by the king's, order, gave him in marriage the third daughter of Lady Boisia.
The traditions about Fulk Fitz-Warine, great-grandson of Warine of Metz, so greatly resemble those connected with 'Robin Hood', that some suppose them to be both one. Fitz-Warine quarreled with John, and when John was king he banished Fulk, who became a bold forester.
The traditional bow and arrow of Robin Hood are religiously preserved at Kirklees Hall, Yorkshire, the seat of Sir George Armytage; and the site of his grave is pointed out in the park.
It is generally thought that Robin Hood died in 1325, which would bring him into the reign of Edward II, not Richard I, according to Sir Walter Scott.
In the accounts of King Edward II's household is an item which states that Robin Hood received his wages as king's valet, and a gratuity on leaving the service'. One of the ballads relates how Robin Hood took service under this king.
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Rod Stewart is an English singer and former professional football player. He was born in 1945 at Highgate, London.
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Rodman M Price was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of New Jersey from 1854 until 1857.
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Rodolphe Kreutzer was a French composer. He was born in 1766 and died in 1831. He composed 40 Etudes for violin.
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Rodolphus Agricola was a German scholar. He was born in 1442 at Groningen and died in 1485. After travelling in France and Italy he was appointed professor of philosophy at Heidelberg, and did good service in transplanting the revived classical learning into Germany.
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Roger Allin was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of New Dakota from 1895 until 1897.
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Roger Ascham was an English scholar and writer. He was born in 1515 in Yorkshire and died in 1568.
He was entered at Cambridge, 1530, and was chosen fellow in 1534 and tutor in 1537. He became Latin secretary to Edward VI and also to Mary. Was preceptor to Elizabeth during her girlhood and her secretary after she ascended the throne. He wrote Toxophilus, the Schole of Shootinge Conteyned in Two Bookes which he presented to the King, Henry VIII in 1544, and which is about archery. In 1563-68 he wrote his Schoolmaster, a treatise on the best method of teaching children Latin. Some of his writings, including many letters, were in Latin. He wrote the best English style of his time. His life was written by Dr Johnson to accompany an edition of his works published in 1769.
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Roger Bacon was the founder of English philosophy. He was born in 1220 near Ilchester, Somerset and died in 1294. He first entered the University of Oxford, and went afterwards to that of Paris, where he is said to have distinguished himself and received the degree of Doctor of Theology. About 1250 he returned to England, entered the order of Franciscans, and fixed his abode at Oxford, but having incurred the suspicion of his ecclesiastical superiors he was sent to Paris and kept in confinement for ten years, without writing materials, books, or instruments. The cause seems to have been simple enough. He had been a diligent student of the chemical, physical, and mathematical sciences, and had made discoveries, and deduced results, which appeared so extraordinary to the ignorant that they were believed to be works of magic. This opinion was countenanced by the jealousy and hatred of the monks of his fraternity. In subsequent times he was popularly classed among those who had been in league with Satan. Having been set at liberty he enjoyed a brief space of quiet while Clement IV was pope; but in 1278 he was again thrown into prison, where he remained for at least ten years. Of the close of his life little is known. His most important work is his Opus Majus, where he discusses the relation of philosophy to religion, and then treats of language, metaphysics, optics, and experimental science. He was undoubtedly the earliest philosophical experimentalist in Britain; he made signal advances in optics; was an excellent chemist; and in all probability discovered gunpowder. He was intimately acquainted with geography and astronomy, as appears by his discovery of the errors of the calendar, and their causes, and by his proposals for correcting them, in which he approached very near to truth.
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Sir Roger Bannister is an English neurologist and amateur athlete. He was born in 1929 at Harrow, Middlesex. As a middle-distance runner he is famous for being the first person to run a distance of a mile in under four minutes, breaking the four-minute mile at an athletics meeting at Iffley Road, Oxford in 1954. Unhappy with his medical career he was appointed Master of Pembroke College, Oxford in 1985, a position he held until 1993. In 1994 he became chairman of the Medical Commission on Accident Prevention. He was knighted in 1975.
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Roger Joseph Boscovich was an Italian astronomer and geometrician. He was born in 1711 at Ragusa and died in 1787 in Milan. He was educated among the Jesuits, and entered into their order. He was employed by Pope Benedict XIV in various undertakings, and in 1750-1753 measured a degree of the meridian in the Ecclesiastical States. He afterwards became mathematical professor in the University of Pavia, whence, in 1770, he removed to Milan, and there erected the celebrated observatory at the College of Brera.
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Roger Corman is an American film producer and director. He was born in 1926.
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Roger Crab (The English Hermit) was an English eccentric, hermit and witch. He was born in 1621 at Buckinghamshire and died in 1680. He served in the Parliamentary army from 1642 to 1649 and received a head wound. Afterwards he sold his hatter's business at Chesham in 1651 and built himself a hermitage near Uxbridge. From 1641 he was a vegetarian. His theories frequently resulted in him being imprisoned but he gained a reputation as a prophet and a witch. He was reported to live on the sum of three farthings a week, eating bran, herbs, roots, dock-leaves, mallows and grass.
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Roger D Branigin was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Indiana from 1965 until 1969.
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Roger de Hoveden was an English historian. The exact dates of his birth and death are unknown, but he lived sometime in the reign of Henry II . He probably received his name from Hoveden or Howden, in Yorkshire, and entering the church, was for some time professor of theology at Oxford. After the death of Henry II he applied himself to compiling English Annals, commencing at 731, the period at which Bede finished, and bringing down affairs to 1201. A translation from the original Latin has been published in Bohn's Antiquarian Library.
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Roger Hollis was director of MI5, and alleged by Peter Wright (in his book 'Spy Catcher') to have been a Russian spy.
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Sir Roger John Brownlow Keyes was an English naval commander and politician. He was born in 1872 and died in 1945. After joining the navy in 1885 he served at Witu in 1890, in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 and from 1915 to 1916 during the Great War was Chief of Staff Eastern Mediterranean. In 1918 he commanded the Dover Patrol, and led the raids against the German U-boat vases at Zeebrugge and Ostend. After the Great War he was Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean from 1925 to 1929 and commander Portsmouth from 1929 to 1931. From 1934 to 1943 he was MP for Portsmouth, and was largely responsible for the fall of the Chamberlain administration, and in 1940 was appointed director of combined operations, a post he held until he was sacked from it in 1941, during which time he was responsible for the organisation of Britain's Commandos, but was frustrated by Whitehall bureaucracy at every attempt he made to arrange amphibious assaults against German positions in Europe.
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Roger Quilter was a British composer. He was born in 1877 at Brighton and died in 1953.
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Roger Sherman was an American politician. He was born in 1721 and died in 1793. A shoemaker by trade, he was later a surveyor, a lawyer and a Judge of the Superior Court of Connecticut. He was one of the committee of five who drafted the American Declaration of Independence, and was a signatory of the American Declaration of Independence and a delegate to the first and second Continental Congresses. He was a member of the House of Representatives from 1789 to 1791 and a US Senator from 1791 to 1793.
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Roger Brooke Taney was an American jurist and politician. He was born in 1777 and died in 1864. He was educated at Dickinson College, and went on to became a member of the Maryland Legislature, and settled in Baltimore. A lawyer and politician, at first Federalist and later Jacksonian Democrat, he was Attorney-General from 1831 until 1833, and was appointed by President Jackson as Secretary of the Treasury in 1833, to take the place of a less subservient official. Roger Taney was not confirmed by the Senate, but in his few months of service he ordered the removal of the Government deposits from the bank. The President nominated him as Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court in 1835, and he was confirmed in the following year. In his long service, until his death, various important questions were decided, chief of which in interest was the Dred Scott case in 1857.
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Roger van der Weyden was a Flemish painter. He was born in 1399 at Tournai and died in 1464.
He studied under his father, a sculptor and Robert Campin, and worked at Tournai and Brussels, visiting Italy and Germany. His painting is ascetic in character; one may cite his Deposition, in the Escurial, the Last Judgement at Beaune, and the Mater Dolorosa and Ecce Homo in the National Gallery, London.
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Roger Williams was the founder of the state of Rhode Island, U.S.A., and the apostle of civil and religious liberty in America. He was born in 1600 at Wales and died in 1683. He became a nonconformist minister, and sought an asylum in America, in 1631, and became an assistant minister at Salem, and later at Plymouth. In 1633 he became chief pastor at Salem, but was driven from his charge for his, 'new and dangerous opinions against the authority of magistrates.' He then founded the city of Providence, Rhode Island. Here he became a Baptist, and founded a church. In 1643 he sailed for England to procure a charter, and in 1661 again visited England to secure the confirmation of his charter, and then became intimate with Vane, Milton, and Cromwell. In 1654 he returned as president of the colony of Rhode Island, an office which he held until 1658. He wrote ' Key into the Language of the Indians of America' in 1643, 'The Hireling Ministry none of Christ's' in 1652, and 'Experiments of Spiritual Life and Health' in 1652. His Works were
published in six volumes in 1866-74.
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Roger Wolcott was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Massachusetts from 1896 until 1900.
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The Rogerenes were an American sect of Seventh-Day Baptists, followers of Jonathan Rogers, of New London, Connecticut. The sect originated about 1675. Beside keeping the Saturday as the holy day, they opposed the use of medicines and family prayers.
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The Roglai are a people of Vietnam.
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A rogue is an idle vagrant.
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The Rohillas were an Afghan tribe who made themselves masters of Rohikhand in the 18th century, but were subdued in 1774 by the Nawab of Oudh assisted by a British force.
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Roland H Hartley was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Washington from 1925 until 1933.
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Rolland H Spaulding was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of New Hampshire from 1915 until 1917.
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A Roman was an inhabitant of ancient Rome.
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Roman Malinovsky was an Okhrana penetration agent within the Bolshevik movement in Russia. He operated at least from 1913 under cover as a Bolshevik deputy, advising Lenin until his identity was revealed by captured Okhrana files and he was shot in the Kremlin in 1918.
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The Romanys (or Roma) are a nomadic Caucasoid people, also called Gypsy or Gypsies in English countries as they were once thought to originate from Egypt. They were called by the French Bohemiens, from the belief that they were Hussites driven from Bohemia; in Germany the general name was Zigeuner, which is not unlike the Italian Zingari. They are believed to have originated in north west India, and live throughout the world. The Romany language (spoken in different dialects in every country where Gypsies live) is a member of the Indo-European family.
Romanys are remarkable for the yellow brown, or rather olive colour, of their skin; the jet-black of their hair and eyes, the extreme whiteness of their teeth, and generally for the symmetry of their limbs. The typical Romanys rarely settle permanently anywhere, but lived in tents or caravans, traditionally wandering about working in wood and iron, making domestic utensils, telling fortunes, practising tricks, etc. Their talent for music is remarkable, and some of their melodies have become the much-valued property of other nations, or are incorporated in some of our favourite operas. They have no peculiar religion.
The Romanys first appeared in Germany and Italy about the beginning of the 15th century. At that time they wandered about in hordes with a commander at their head. In the Austrian States, where they were very numerous, Maria Theresa formed the plan of converting them into orderly citizens. But her ordinances that they should dwell in settled habitations, practise some trade, and send their children to school remained to a large extent ineffectual. In England the Romanys first appeared about the beginning of the 16th century, and notwithstanding severely repressive enactments on the part of the government continued to maintain themselves as tinkers, mat and basket-makers, etc. In Scotland they were more favourably received, and frequently intermarried with the natives. The town of Yetholm, in Roxburghshire, was once a sort of headquarters for the race, and almost exclusively inhabited by Romanys. Considerable numbers of the British Romanys emigrated to America, where they settled amongst the people and lost their distinctive characteristics.
Romanys have suffered widespread persecution throughout their history in almost every country they have visited. During the Second World War Romanies were also exterminated by the Nazi regime and in Switzerland, Romany babies were forcibly removed from the parents and adopted by non-Romany families until 1973, in an effort to prevent the spread of the Romany population. The Romany tradition has many taboos (for example, when bathing separate towels must be used for drying the upper and lower parts of the body) which, not being understood by non-Romanies lead almost all Romanies to consider non-Romanies as unclean and as such marriage between Romanys and non-Romanys has always been very strongly discouraged by Romanys.
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Romualdo Pacheco was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of California during 1875.
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Romulus was the founder of Rome.
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Romulus Augustulus was the last of the Western Roman Emperors. He reigned for one year from 475 until 476, when he was overthrown by Odoacer and banished.
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Romulus M Saunders was an American politician. He was born in 1791 and died in 1867. He represented North Carolina in the US Congress as a Democrat from 1821 to 1827 and from 1841 to 1845. He was Minister to Spain from 1846 to 1849.
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Ronnie Scott was an English jazz musician. He was born in 1927 and died in 1996. He started a club in London, called Ronnie Scott's which promotes English jazz.
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Rosa Bonheur (Rosalie Bonheur) was a French artist and painter of animals. She was born in 1822 at Bordeaux and died in 1899. When only eighteen years old she exhibited two pictures, Goats and Sheep, and Two Rabbits, which gave clear indications of talent. Since that time a long list of pictures, Tillage in Nivernais (1849), the Horse Fair (1853), Haymaking (1865), etc, have made her name famous.
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Rose Mofford was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Arizona from 1988 until 1991.
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Ross R Barnett was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Mississippi from 1960 until 1964.
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Ross Sterling was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Texas from 1931 until 1933.
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Roswell Farnham was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Vermont from 1880 until 1882.
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Roswell Dwight Hitchcock was an American theologian. He was born in 1817 and died in 1887. He entered Andover Theological Seminary in 1838, and was successively professor of natural and revealed religion in Bowdoin, of church history at New York, president of the American Palestine exploration society, and president of Union Theological Seminary. He visited Italy, Greece, Egypt, and Palestine (1866-1869), was the author of a Life of Edward Robinson, numerous theological works, hymns, etc.
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Roswell K Colcord was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Nevada from 1891 until 1895.
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Roswell Pettibone Flower was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of New York from 1892 until 1894.
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The Rothschild family was founded by the German Mayer Amschel Rothschild, the son of a Jewish merchant. Opening a money exchange business in his native town of Frankfurt, he gained the confidence of the landgrave (later elector) of Hesse-Kassel. In 1803 he lent a large sum of money to the Danish government, thereby starting the business of international financier. When the elector fled in 1806, after the Battle of Jena, he left his fortune in
Rothschild's care, and the latter returned the whole fortune, with interest to the elector in 1815. Mayer Amschel Rothschild had five sons, whose influence quickly became recognised throughout the chancelleries of Europe, and few international loans were negotiated without their help. The first Baron
Rothschild, Nathan Mayer Rothschild, was given the title in 1885.
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Roualeyn George Gordon Cumining (known as the 'Lion-hunter') was a Scottish hunter and writer. He was born in 1820 and died in 1866. He entered the army, served some years in India, joined the Cape Rifles, and from 1843 until 1849 made five hunting expeditions into various parts of Africa. On his return to England he exhibited his collection of trophies in London and elsewhere, finally establishing it at Fort Augustus. Records of his adventures are to be found in his Five Years of a Hunter's Life published in 1850, and the Lion-hunter of South Africa publsihed in 1856.
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Sir Rowland Hill was an English school teacher and inventor. He was born in 1795 at Kidderminster and died in 1879. He was engaged as a schoolmaster until 1833, shortly after which he was appointed secretary to the commissioners for the colonization of South Australia. In 1837 he published a pamphlet recommending the adoption of a low and uniform rate of postage throughout the United Kingdom. He also invented the rotary press for printing newspapers and the adhesive stamp and in 1840, following attachment to the Treasury put his system of the penny post into place, although the idea seems to have originated with James Chalmers. In 1846 he received a public testimonial of the value of upwards of 13,000 pounds. In 1846, he was made secretary to the postmaster-general, and in 1854 chief secretary to the Post Office. In 1860 he became KCB. He retired from the Post Office four years later with a pension of 2000 pounds, besides a grant of 20,000 pounds voted by parliament.
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Rowland Williams was a Welsh Anglican divine. He was born in 1817 at Flintshire and died in 1870. Whilst vice- principal and professor of Hebrew at St. David's, Lampeter from 1850 to 62 he organized many reforms. He was the author of the standard work 'Christianity and Hinduism'. His ' Rational Godliness after the Mind of Christ' published in 1855, a 'Review of Bunscn's Biblical Researches' in Essays and Reviews published in 1860, and ' Broad Chalke Sermon Essays' published in 1867, all set forth the liberality of his doctrinal views, which brought against him accusations of heresy.
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Roy E Ayers was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Montana from 1937 until 1941.
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Roy Harris was an American composer. He was born in 1898 and died in 1979. He composed Symphonies.
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Roy J Turner was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Oklahoma from 1947 until 1951.
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Royal C Taft was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Rhode Island from 1888 until 1889.
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Ruby Laffoon was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Kentucky from 1931 until 1935.
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Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel was a German inventor. He was born in 1858 and died in 1913. In 1892 he invented an internal-combustion engine and in 1896 the refined diesel engine which bears his name.
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Rudolf Christoph Eucken was a German philosopher. He was born in 1846 and died in 1926. He studied at Gottingen under Lotze, and later at Berlin. Eucken taught philosophy at Basle, and held the chair at Jena. In 1908 he was awarded a Nobel Prize. He dealt mainly with ethical and religious problems, maintaining that man is the meeting ground of matter and spirit, and that it is his duty to subdue the former by conscious application of the latter.
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Rudolf Harbig was a German middle-distance runner. He was born in 1913 and died in 1944. He set the world record for 800 meters in 1939 at 1 minute 46. 6 seconds, reducing the previous record by 1.8 seconds.
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Rudolf Steiner was leader of the German Theosophical Society from its inception until he developed his system of 'Anthroposophy' when he was excluded. He was born in 1861 and died in 1925.
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Rudolf Virchow was a German pathologist and politician. He was born in 1821 and died in 1902. He was professor of pathological anatomy at Berlin in 1856 and proved the cellular theory applicable in pathology as well as in physiology.
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Rudolf Wagner was a German physiologist. He was born in 1805 and died in 1864. He was professor of zoology at Erlanger in 1832 and Gottingen in 1840. He made important researches and observations in anatomy and physiology, particularly in embryology, discovering the germinal vesicle of the human ovum.
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Walter Richard Rudolph Hess was a German Nazi politician. He was born in 1894 at Alexandria, Egypt and died in 1987. In 1920 he joined the Nazi party and became Party leader. In 1941 he flew alone to Scotland to negotiate an Anglo-German peace, was imprisoned in the Tower of London and then moved to a secure psychiatric unit at Aldershot before being tried at the Nuremberg War Crimes trials and sentenced to life imprisonment, serving his sentence at Spandau jail in Berlin, from 1966 being the only inmate of the prison.
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Rudolf Hametovich Nureyev was a Russian dancer and choreographer. He was born in 1938 and died in 1993. A soloist with the Kirov Ballet, he defected to the West during a visit to Paris in 1961. Mainly associated with the Royal Ballet (London) and as Margot Fonteyn's principal partner, he was one of the most brilliant dancers of the 1960s and 1970s. Nureyev danced in such roles as Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake and Armand in Marguerite and Armand, which was created especially for Fonteyn and Nureyev. He also danced and acted in films and on television and choreographed several ballets. It was due to his enormous impact on the ballet world that the male dancer's role was elevated to the equivalent of the ballerina's. Nureyev was a Tatar. He was born near Lake Baikal, on a train journey, and grew up in Ufa in extreme poverty. A love of folk dancing and the sight of professional dancers at the town's small opera house led to lessons with Anna Udeltsova, who had been a member of the Diaghilev Ballet. At the age of 17 he entered the famous
Vaganova Institute (also known as the Kirov Ballet School) in St Petersburg in the class of Aleksandr Pushkin, a brilliant teacher. Just three years later he joined the Kirov Ballet as a soloist, dancing with Natalya Dudinskaya, its top prima ballerina, for his first engagement. In 1961 the Kirov Ballet was in Paris on its first important tour of the West. Nureyev was highly praised but his socializing with French friends incurred the displeasure of the Soviet officials, who told him he had to return. Sensing that he would never again be allowed to leave the Soviet Union, he slipped his escort at Le Bourget Airport and sought political asylum - and a new career. In Nov 1961 he made his London debut at a gala in aid of the Royal Academy of Dancing with Poeme Tragique, a short solo composed for him by Frederick Ashton, the director of the Royal Ballet, and this led to an invitation to partner Margot Fonteyn, the academy's president, in Giselle at Covent Garden. Thus began the legendary partnership and a new lease of
artistic life for Fonteyn, who was 19 years his senior. As well as dancing in the classics of the 19th century, he created many roles in modern works, most notably with Fonteyn in Ashton's Marguerite and Armand, first performed at Covent Garden 1963. He choreographed and staged ballets for nearly all the major companies, reviving works from the Russian repertoire like The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, and Raymonda. In 1983 he was appointed director of the Ballet at the Opera in Paris, revitalized it, and gave much encouragement to young dancers. He appeared many times on television and in films, including the feature I Am a Dancer, shown first in 1972.
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Rudy Perpich was an American politician. He was a Democratic-Farmer-Labor governor of Minnesota from 1976 until 1979.
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Rudyard Kipling was an Indian writer. He was born in 1865 at Bombay of British parents. He died in 1936. He wrote The Jungle Book.
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Ruffin G Pleasant was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Louisiana from 1916 until 1920.
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Rufus B Bullock was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Georgia from 1868 until 1871.
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Rufus Choate was an American lawyer and statesman. He was born in 1799 at Massachusetts and died in 1859. He graduated as valedictorian, at Dartmouth, in 1819, when he was already remarkable for scholarship. In 1821 he studied law with William Wirt in Baltimore, and was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1823, at which he soon took the foremost place as an advocate. He was a member of Congress from 1831 until 1835, and of the US Senate from 1841 until 1845, in which he made many brilliant speeches, notably one against the annexation of Texas.
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Rufus Wilmot Griswold was an American writer. He was born in 1815 at Vermont and died in 1857. After having travelled extensively both in his own country and in Europe, he became successively a printer, a Baptist preacher, and a journalist. He was the author of The Poets and Poetry of America, etc. He was one of the editors of Edgar Alan Poe's works.
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Rufus King was an American politician. He was born in 1755 at Maine and died in 1827. Educated at Harvard, he came prominently forward as a member of the Massachusetts Legislature and a delegate to the Continental Congress. In the latter body he moved in 1785 the provision against slavery in the Northwest Territory, afterward adopted in 1787. He was a leading member of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and went home to work zealously for the ratification of the Constitution by Massachusetts. Having removed to New York he was a Federalist US Senator from that State in 1789 to 1796, and wrote some of the Camillus papers. He was Minister to London, from 1796 until 1803, and again in the Senate from 1813 until 1825. In 1816 he was an unsuccessful candidate for Governor, and the same year received thirty-four electoral votes for President, having been the Federalist candidate for Vice-President in 1804 and 1808. His last service was again at the Court of London in 1825-1826.
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Rufus Putnam was an American soldier. He was born in 1738 at Massachusetts and died in 1824. He was appointed lieutenant-colonel in 1775. He superintended the construction of defences about New York and at West Point. He fought at Stillwater and served under General Wayne. Afterward he was prominent in the settlement of Ohio.
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Rufus W Cobb was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Alabama from 1878 until 1882.
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Ruggiero Leoncavallo was an Italian composer. He was born in 1858 at Naples and died in 1919. He composed the opera pagliacci.
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Runagate was an old term for a deserter, a fugitive and also a vagabond and a wanderer.
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A running footman was formerly a servant whose duty was to run before and alongside the master's carriage and advise the inn keeper of the coming guests. The running footmen carried a pole to help free the carriage from muddy potholes which were common in the roads of the 18th century. At the start of the 18th century large houses would employ perhaps six running footmen.
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Rupert Brooke was a British poet. He was born in 1888 at Rugby and died in 1915 of blood-poisoning. His first poems appeared in 1911. He saw active service as a sub-lieutenant with the Royal Naval Division in the Great War. His best known poem is 'The Soldier' which contains the oft quoted lines; ' Some corner of a foreign field, that is forever England.
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Russell A Alger was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Michigan from 1885 until 1886.
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Russell W Peterson was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Delaware from 1969 until 1973.
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A Russian is an inhabitant of Russia.
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Sir Rutherford Alcock was an English diplomat. He was born in 1809 at London and died in 1897. After studying medicine at King's College he served as a medic in Spain during the Carlist War of 1833 to 1836. In 1844 he went to China as British consul, serving at Amoy and Shanghai where he was the pioneer of the model settlement of Shanghai. In 1859 he became minister plenipotentiary in Japan and from 1865 until his retirement in 1871 was minister plenipotentiary at Peking. In 1862 he was knighted.
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Rutherford Birchard Hayes was the nineteenth president of the USA. He was born in 1822 at Delaware, Ohio and died in 1893. Educated at Kenyon College and Harvard, where he studied law, he was called to the bar in 1845 and practised at Fremont and Cincinnati before joining the Union army as a volunteer during the American Civil War and rose from major of Ohio infantry to brigadier-general and brevet major-general. He was wounded at the Battle of South Mountain, and distinguished himself in the Shenandoah campaign of 1864 at Winchester, Fisher's Hill and Cedar Creek.
He entered Congress in 1865, and, having been elected Governor of his State, he occupied that position from 1868 to 1872. He was defeated for Congressman in 1872, but elected Governor in 1875 on the 'honest money' issue, after a campaign which attracted national attention. It was this success which caused Governor Haves' name to be presented to the Republican National Convention of 1876. The two leading candidates, Blaine and Bristow, were set aside, and Hayes was nominated on the seventh ballot. Mr. Hayes was declared elected on March the 2nd, 1877, and inaugurated on March the 5th. He selected Evarts for the State Department, Sherman for the Treasury, McCrary for War, R W Thompson for the Navy, Schurz for the Interior, Deveus Attorney-General and D M Key Postmaster-General. During his administration occurred the great railway strikes of 1877, and the resumption of Specie payments in 1879. President Hayes favoured civil service reform, a conciliatory policy in the South, vetoed the Bland bill and vetoed a Chinese restriction bill. After the close of his term, in 1881, he lived in retirement in Ohio.
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Ryland Fletcher was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Vermont from 1856 until 1858.
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