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Davidson, Bruce (American photographer)
American photographer and filmmaker whose emotionally charged images frequently convey the loneliness and isolation of the subjects portrayed....
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Davidson College (college, Davidson, North Carolina, United States)
private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Davidson, North Carolina, U.S. It is a liberal arts college with bachelor’s degree programs in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences and is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Junior-year students can study at the University of Tours in Tours, France, or th...
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Davidson, Donald (American philosopher)
American philosopher known for his strikingly original and unusually systematic treatments of traditional problems in a number of fields....
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Davidson, Donald (American author)
American poet, essayist, and teacher who warned against technology and idealized the agrarian, pre-Civil War American South....
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Davidson, Donald Grady (American author)
American poet, essayist, and teacher who warned against technology and idealized the agrarian, pre-Civil War American South....
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Davidson, John (British economist)
...their opposition to employee demands, and employers were also able to withstand the loss of income for a longer period than could the employees. This idea was developed to a considerable extent by John Davidson, who proposed in The Bargain Theory of Wages (1898) that the determination of wages is an extremely complicated process involving numerous influences that interact to establish......
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Davidson, John (Scottish poet)
Scottish poet and playwright whose best work shows him a master of the narrative lyrical ballad....
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Davidson, Mount (mountain, California, United States)
The most prominent of San Francisco’s hills are Twin Peaks, Mount Davidson, and Mount Sutro, all of which exceed 900 feet (270 metres) in elevation. The best known are Nob Hill, where the wealthy “nobs” (nabobs) built extravagant mansions in the 1870s, and Telegraph Hill, which once looked down on the Barbary Coast, a neighbourhood formerly alive with gaudy wickedness. As a re...
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Davidson, Nicolas (British author)
British novelist and detective-story writer (b. March 3, 1927, London, Eng.—d. July 20, 2003, Grandfontaine, France), penned 36 works of fiction and several of nonfiction. While living in Amsterdam, he developed his first and best-known protagonist, Piet Van der Valk, a Dutch policeman. A dozen books later, after Freeling had moved to France, he killed off Van der Valk and created the Frenc...
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Davidson, Norman Ralph (American biochemist)
American biochemist (b. April 5, 1916, Chicago, Ill.—d. Feb. 14, 2002, Pasadena, Calif.), conducted groundbreaking research in molecular biology that contributed to a fuller understanding of the genetic blueprint of human life. After studying at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, Davidson earned (1941) a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Chicago. From 1946 to 1986 he was ...
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Davidson of Lambeth, Randall Thomas Davidson, Baron (archbishop of Canterbury)
Anglican archbishop of Canterbury who was prominent as a speaker in parliamentary debates on moral and national questions during his 25-year tenure....
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Davidson, Randall Thomas (archbishop of Canterbury)
Anglican archbishop of Canterbury who was prominent as a speaker in parliamentary debates on moral and national questions during his 25-year tenure....
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Davidson, Randall Thomas Davidson, Baron (archbishop of Canterbury)
Anglican archbishop of Canterbury who was prominent as a speaker in parliamentary debates on moral and national questions during his 25-year tenure....
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Davidson, Robyn (Australian author)
...too were interesting for the light they shed upon the writers as well as being fine examples of the essay form. Travel writing continued to be published; one of the most interesting examples was Robyn Davidson’s Tracks (1982), an account of her trek across Australia with her camels. It is a shaped narrative, tracing her increasing awareness of the meaning and experience of the des...
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Davidson, Thomas (Scottish paleontologist)
Scottish naturalist and paleontologist who became known as an authority on lamp shells, a phylum of bottom-dwelling marine invertebrates (Brachiopoda) whose fossils are among the oldest found....
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Davie, Donald Alfred (British author)
British poet, literary critic, and teacher who was a major conservative influence on British poetry in the 1950s....
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Davies, Arthur B. (American painter)
American painter, printmaker, and tapestry designer known for his idylls of classical fantasy painted in a Romantic style but best remembered for his leadership in introducing modern European painting styles into early 20th-century America....
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Davies, Arthur Bowen (American painter)
American painter, printmaker, and tapestry designer known for his idylls of classical fantasy painted in a Romantic style but best remembered for his leadership in introducing modern European painting styles into early 20th-century America....
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Davies, Cyril (British musician)
...France—d. Jan. 1, 1984London, Eng.) and the harmonica player Cyril Davies (b. 1932Denham, Buckinghamshire, Eng.—d. Jan. 7,......
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Davies, David Ivor (British composer and playwright)
Welsh actor-manager, composer, and playwright, best known for his lush, sentimental, romantic musicals....
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Davies, Derek Gwyn (British journalist)
British journalist (b. March 9, 1931, London, Eng.—d. Sept. 15, 2002, Antibes, France), revitalized the Far Eastern Economic Review, turning it from a single-sheet paper with a tiny readership into a prestigious magazine with a weekly circulation of 75,000. He joined the Review as a freelance journalist after moving to Hong Kong in 1962 and became its editor two years later. A...
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Davies, Donald Watts (British computer scientist)
British computer scientist (b. June 7, 1924, Treorchy, Wales—d. May 28, 2000, Esher, Eng.), helped lay the groundwork for the Internet in the 1960s when he devised a more efficient method of computer communications known as packet switching, a technique in which each data stream is broken into discrete, easily conveyed blocks, or packets, of data that can be electronically transmitted betwe...
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Davies, Emily (British educator)
English pioneer in the movement to secure university education for women and chief founder of Girton College, Cambridge. She was responsible for University College, London, admitting women to classes in 1870 for the first time....
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Davies, John (English poet and writing master)
English poet and writing master whose chief work was Microcosmos (1603), a didactic religious treatise....
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Davies, John (Welsh grammarian)
Welsh physician and grammarian whose grammar, Cambrobrytannicae Cymraecaeve linguae institutiones et rudimenta (1592), was the first to expound the Welsh language through the international medium of Latin....
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Davies, John Paton, Jr. (American diplomat)
American diplomat who suffered an undeserved dismissal from the foreign service in 1954 following accusations by Sen. Joseph McCarthy that Davies had “lost China” to the communists in 1949. Davies, a decorated World War II hero, was one of several “China hands” targeted during McCarthy’s communist witch-hunts (b. April 6, 1908, Kiating, Sichuan province, China...
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Davies, Marion (American actress)
American actor, renowned more for her 34-year relationship with publishing giant William Randolph Hearst than for her performance career....
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Davies of Hereford, John (English poet and writing master)
English poet and writing master whose chief work was Microcosmos (1603), a didactic religious treatise....
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Davies of Llandinam, David Davies, 1st Baron (British political scientist)
British promoter of the League of Nations, advocate of an international policing force to prevent war....
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Davies, Paul Charles William (Australian physicist)
On May 3 the mathematical physicist Paul Davies was awarded the 1995 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. Professor of natural philosophy at the University of Adelaide, Australia, Davies received the honour, which carried a monetary award of $1 million, for his efforts to resolve the dichotomy between science and religion. With his acceptance he became one of an elite group of people, which ...
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Davies, Ray (British musician)
...mid-1960s American garage punk, and early 1970s heavy metal. Moreover, the Kinks exaggerated the androgynous image cultivated by the Rolling Stones with foppish clothes, extremely long hair, and Ray Davies’s often camp demeanour. After two more international hits, “All Day and All of the Night” and “Tired of Waiting for You,” the Kinks quickly diversified thei...
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Davies, Richard (Welsh bishop)
...Testament of 1567. Despite some eccentricities, it was a fine piece of translation. In the same year was published the Welsh Prayer Book, also translated mainly by Salesbury in collaboration with Richard Davies, bishop of St. David’s. The Welsh Bible translated by William Morgan, bishop of St. Asaph, aided by Edmwnd Prys, was published in 1588. The revised version, published in 1620, is ...
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Davies, Robertson (Canadian author)
novelist and playwright whose works offer penetrating observations on Canadian provincialism and prudery....
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Davies, Samuel (American minister)
Presbyterian preacher in colonial British America who defended religious dissent and helped lead the Southern phase of the religious revival known as the Great Awakening....
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Davies, Sarah Emily (British educator)
English pioneer in the movement to secure university education for women and chief founder of Girton College, Cambridge. She was responsible for University College, London, admitting women to classes in 1870 for the first time....
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Davies, Sir John (British poet)
English poet and lawyer whose Orchestra, or a Poem of Dancing reveals a typically Elizabethan pleasure in the contemplation of the correspondence between the natural order and human activity....
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Davies, Sir Peter Maxwell (British musician)
English composer, conductor, and teacher whose powerfully innovative music made him one of the most influential British composers of the 20th century....
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Davies, Valentine (American writer, producer, and director)
Screenplay: George Seaton for Miracle on 34th StreetOriginal Story: Valentine Davies for Miracle on 34th StreetOriginal Screenplay: Sidney Sheldon for The Bachelor and the BobbysoxerCinematography, Black-and-White: Guy Green for Great ExpectationsCinematography, Color: Jack Cardiff for Black......
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Davies, William Henry (British poet)
English poet whose lyrics have a force and simplicity uncharacteristic of the poetry of most of his Georgian contemporaries....
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Davies, William Robertson (Canadian author)
novelist and playwright whose works offer penetrating observations on Canadian provincialism and prudery....
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Davila, Arrigo Caterino (Italian historian)
Italian historian who was the author of a widely read history of the Wars of Religion in France....
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Dávila, Gil González (Spanish conquistador)
Pedrarias sent a kinsman, Gil González Dávila, to explore northward, and he found civilization on the shores of Lake Nicaragua. The jealous Pedrarias forced him to flee to Santo Domingo before a Spanish colony could be planted, however, and instead sent Francisco Hernández de Córdoba in 1524, who established Granada on Lake Nicaragua and León not far from Lake......
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Dávila, Miguel (president of Honduras)
In the first decade of the 20th century, Nicaraguan strongman José Santos Zelaya put Miguel Dávila into the Honduran presidency. This led in 1911 and 1912 to something more serious than periodic revolutions. The U.S. president, William Howard Taft, sent marines to protect American banana investments, which by this time had grown considerably, with three companies exploiting this......
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Daviot, Gordon (Scottish author)
Scottish playwright and author of popular detective novels praised for their warm and readable style....
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Davis (California, United States)
city, Yolo county, central California, U.S. It lies in the Sacramento River valley, 11 miles (18 km) west of Sacramento. The city, founded in 1868, was named Davisville for Jerome C. Davis, who owned a stock farm on the site. (The city’s name was shortened in 1907 by the post office and became the official name in 1917.) Originally an...
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Davis, Alexander Jackson (American architect)
American architect, designer, draftsman, and illustrator who was best known for his innovative, picturesque country houses. He helped establish the familiar type of American rural house in the “carpenter Gothic” style of the mid-19th century....
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Davis, Angela (American activist)
militant American black activist who gained an international reputation during her imprisonment and trial on conspiracy charges in 1970–72....
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Davis, Angela Yvonne (American activist)
militant American black activist who gained an international reputation during her imprisonment and trial on conspiracy charges in 1970–72....
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Davis, Arthur Hoey (Australian writer)
novelist, playwright, and short-story writer whose comic characters are a well-known part of Australia’s literary heritage....
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Davis, B. Lynch (Argentine author)
Argentine writer and editor, known both for his own work and for his collaborations with Jorge Luis Borges. His elegantly constructed works are oriented toward metaphysical possibilities and employ the fantastic to achieve their meanings....
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Davis, B. Lynch (Argentine author)
Argentine poet, essayist, and short-story writer whose works have become classics of 20th-century world literature....
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Davis, Benjamin O., Jr. (United States general)
pilot, officer, and administrator who became the first African American general in the U.S. Air Force. His father, Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., was the first African American to become a general in any branch of the U.S. military....
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Davis, Benjamin O., Sr. (United States general)
soldier who became the first black general in the U.S. Army....
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Davis, Benjamin Oliver, Jr. (United States general)
pilot, officer, and administrator who became the first African American general in the U.S. Air Force. His father, Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., was the first African American to become a general in any branch of the U.S. military....
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Davis, Benjamin Oliver, Sr. (United States general)
soldier who became the first black general in the U.S. Army....
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Davis, Bette (American actress)
versatile, volatile American actress, whose raw, unbridled intensity kept her at the top of her profession for 50 years....
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Davis, Billy (American music producer)
American songwriter and advertising executive (b. July 11, 1932, Detroit, Mich.—d. Sept. 2, 2004, New Rochelle, N.Y.), collaborated with Gwen Gordy and her brother Berry Gordy, Jr., in the 1950s on Jackie Wilson’s hits “Reet Petite” and “Lonely Teardrops.” In 1958 he cofounded Anna Records, which later evolved into Motown Records. In 1961 Davis moved to Ch...
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Davis, Carl (American music producer)
...Gordy, Jr., and his Motown Records, based in Detroit, Michigan, overshadowed the Windy City during the 1960s. But several black music producers—including Roquel (“Billy”) Davis and Carl Davis (who were not related), Johnny Pate (who also was an arranger), and Curtis Mayfield—developed a recognizable Chicago sound that flourished from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s. ...
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Davis, Charles Harold (American painter)
American painter, whose romantic interpretations of the landscape excelled in their cloud effects....
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Davis, Charles Henry (American naval officer and scientist)
U.S. naval officer and scientist....
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Davis, Cleland (American officer and inventor)
...were long attracted by the prospect of abolishing recoil, since achieving this meant doing away with the gun’s heavy recoil system and lightening the carriage. The first to succeed was Commander Cleland Davis of the U.S. Navy, who in 1912 developed a gun with a single chamber and two opposite barrels. One barrel carried the projectile, the other an equal weight of grease and lead shot. T...
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Davis, Clive (American record company executive)
...of Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man.” The song launched the West Coast’s version of folk rock, which culminated in the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, where Columbia’s new managing director, Clive Davis, proved willing to pay more than anyone else for new performers. By no means did all his signings recoup their advances, but the success of Albert Grossman’s ...
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Davis Cup (sports trophy)
trophy awarded to the winner of an annual international lawn-tennis tournament originally for amateur men’s teams. The official name is the International Lawn Tennis Challenge Trophy. The trophy was donated in 1900 by American Dwight F. Davis for a competition between teams from the United States and Great Britain. Davis himself played on winning U.S. teams in the first t...
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Davis, David (United States jurist and politician)
American politician, a close associate of Abraham Lincoln. He was a Supreme Court justice and senator during the antebellum, American Civil War, and postwar eras....
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Davis, David Brion (American historian)
...rights and remedies. Parallels have frequently been drawn between the legal status of animals and that of human slaves. “The truly striking fact about slavery,” the American historian David Brion Davis has written, is theantiquity and almost universal acceptance of the concept of the slave as a human being who is legally owned, used, sold, or otherwise disposed of as.....
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Davis, Donald (Canadian actor)
Canadian actor who was adept in both classical and modern roles and was admired as one of the most outstanding interpreters of Samuel Beckett’s works; his signature role was the title character in Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, for which he won an Obie award in 1960 (b. 1928?, Toronto, Ont.--d. Jan. 23, 1998, Toronto)....
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Davis, Dwight F. (American politician and athlete)
tennis player best known as the donor of the Davis Cup (properly the International Lawn Tennis Challenge Trophy) for competition among teams representing various nations. He later became a United States cabinet member....
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Davis, Dwight Filley (American politician and athlete)
tennis player best known as the donor of the Davis Cup (properly the International Lawn Tennis Challenge Trophy) for competition among teams representing various nations. He later became a United States cabinet member....
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Davis, Egerton Yorrick (Canadian physician)
Canadian physician and professor of medicine who practiced and taught in Canada, the United States, and Great Britain and whose book The Principles and Practice of Medicine (1892) was a leading textbook. Osler played a key role in transforming the organization and curriculum of medical education, emphasizing the importance of clinical experience. He was created a baronet ...
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Davis, Elmer (American journalist)
news broadcaster and writer, director of the U.S. Office of War Information during World War II....
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Davis, Elmer Holmes (American journalist)
news broadcaster and writer, director of the U.S. Office of War Information during World War II....
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Davis, Ernie (American football player)
American collegiate gridiron football player who was the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy....
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Davis, Fred (British snooker and billiards player)
British snooker and billiards player who was world professional snooker champion eight times (1948-49, 1951-56) and world billiards champion twice (1980-81); Davis carried on the tradition of his renowned older brother, Joe, who held the snooker title for 20 years (1927-46), and remained a formidable player well into his 60s, reaching the snooker semifinals as late as 1978; he did not retire until...
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Davis, Gary (American musician)
...the American Civil Rights Movement, “We Shall Overcome”; the Reverend C.L. Franklin of Detroit, who issued more than 70 albums of his sermons and choir after World War II; blind Reverend Gary Davis (1896–1972), a wandering preacher and guitar soloist; Sister Rosetta Tharpe, whose guitar and vocal performances took gospel into nightclubs and concert theatres in the 1930s;......
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Davis, Geena (American actress)
Other Nominees...
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Davis, George E. (British chemist)
A landmark in the development of chemical engineering was the publication in 1901 of the first textbook on the subject, by George E. Davis, a British chemical consultant. This concentrated on the design of plant items for specific operations. The notion of a processing plant encompassing a number of operations, such as mixing, evaporation, and filtration, and of these operations being......
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Davis, George W. (American art director)
...for From Here to EternityCinematography, Color: Loyal Griggs for ShaneArt Direction, Black-and-White: Edward Carfagno and Cedric Gibbons for Julius CaesarArt Direction, Color: George W. Davis and Lyle Wheeler for The RobeMusic Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture: Bronislau Kaper for LiliScoring of......
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Davis, Glenn (American track and field athlete)
American world-record holder in the 400-metre hurdles (1956–62) who was the first man to win the Olympic gold medal twice in that event....
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Davis, Glenn Ashby (American track and field athlete)
American world-record holder in the 400-metre hurdles (1956–62) who was the first man to win the Olympic gold medal twice in that event....
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Davis, Glenn Woodward (American football player)
American football player (b. Dec. 26, 1924, Claremont, Calif.—d. March 9, 2005, La Quinta, Calif.), teamed with Doc Blanchard to form arguably the greatest rushing tandem in the history of American collegiate football. The speedy and elusive Davis was “Mr. Outside” to Blanchard’s “Mr. Inside” on the great Army teams of the mid-1940s. Led by their impressiv...
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Davis, H. L. (American author)
American novelist and poet who wrote realistically about the West, rejecting the stereotype of the cowboy as hero....
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Davis, Harold Lenoir (American author)
American novelist and poet who wrote realistically about the West, rejecting the stereotype of the cowboy as hero....
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Davis, Henry Winter (American politician)
Maryland unionist during the secession crisis, harsh critic of Abraham Lincoln, and coauthor of the congressional plan for Reconstruction during the American Civil War....
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Davis Islands (islands, Tampa, Florida, United States)
...Petersburg, was inaugurated in 1914, and the Gandy Bridge between the two cities opened 10 years later. In 1928 Tampa was connected by road to Miami via the Tamiami Trail. In the 1920s the man-made Davis Islands were created offshore in Hillsborough Bay (Tampa Bay’s eastern arm) for real estate development. The origin of the city’s name is uncertain; it may be derived from a Creek...
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Davis, James Bodie (American singer)
American gospel singer who was a founding member (as an 11-year-old boy) of the Dixie Hummingbirds (briefly known as the Sterling High School Quartet), an a cappella group that pioneered a style called “trickeration,” in which one vocalist would pick up a note where another left off. The group also performed as the Swanee Quintet and the Jericho Boys. Attired in white tails and tuxed...
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Davis, Jefferson (president of Confederate States of America)
president of the Confederate States of America throughout its existence during the American Civil War (1861–65). After the war, he was imprisoned for two years and indicted for treason but never tried....
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Davis, Joe (British athlete)
English billiards and snooker player who was the world snooker champion from 1927 until his retirement in 1946....
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Davis, John (English navigator)
English navigator who attempted to find the Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic to the Pacific....
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Davis, John W. (American politician)
conservative Democratic politician who was his party’s unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of the United States in 1924....
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Davis, John William (American politician)
conservative Democratic politician who was his party’s unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of the United States in 1924....
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Davis, Josh (American musician)
...their mark in trip-hop but moved on to other musical pursuits, including Funky Porcini, DJ Vadim, Wagon Christ (Luke Francis Vibert), DJ Food, and U.N.K.L.E. The notable exception is DJ Shadow (byname of Josh Davis; b. Jan. 1, 1973 Hayward, Calif., U.S.), an American, who honed his....
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Davis, Katharine Bement (American penologist)
American penologist, social worker, and writer who had a profound effect on American penal reform in the late 19th and early 20th centuries....
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Davis, Kingsley (American sociologist)
American sociologist and demographer who coined the terms population explosion and zero population growth. His specific studies of American society led him to work on a general science of world society, based on empirical analysis of each society in its habitat....
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Davis, Marc (American cartoonist)
American cartoonist (b. March 30, 1913, Bakersfield, Calif.—d. Jan. 12, 2000, Glendale, Calif.), was an animator for Walt Disney Studios from 1935 to 1978 and helped create the title characters for such classic Disney films as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951), and Sleeping Beauty...
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Davis, Miles (American musician)
American jazz musician, a great trumpeter who as a bandleader and composer was one of the major influences on the art from the late 1940s....
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Davis, Miles Dewey, III (American musician)
American jazz musician, a great trumpeter who as a bandleader and composer was one of the major influences on the art from the late 1940s....
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Davis, Mount (mountain, Pennsylvania, United States)
highest point in Pennsylvania, U.S., at an elevation of 3,213 feet (979 metres). The peak is on a ridge of the Allegheny and Appalachian mountains in Somerset county, 15 miles (24 km) south-southwest of Somerset, near the Maryland border....
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Davis Mountains (mountains, Texas, United States)
segment of the southern Rocky Mountains, mainly in Jeff Davis county, western Texas, U.S., extending northward for 45 miles (72 km) above the town of Marfa. Locally called the Texas Alps, the range has many peaks that exceed 7,000 feet (2,100 metres), the highest of which is Mount Livermore (8,382 feet [2,555 metres]; also called Mount Baldy, or Baldy Peak), t...
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Davis, Nancy (American first lady)
American first lady (1981–89), the wife of Ronald Reagan, 40th president of the United States, and an actress, noted for her efforts to discourage drug use by American youths....
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Davis, Ossie (American actor and playwright)
American writer, actor, director, and social activist who was known for his contributions to African American theatre and film and for his passionate support of civil rights and humanitarian causes. He was also noted for his artistic partnership with his wife, Ruby Dee, which was considered one of the theatre and film world’s most distinguished....
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