Quisquilia: Lib. nov.

Osage orange, (p. 930)
deciduous spiny tree (Maclura pomifera) native to Ark. and Texas, useful as a hedge. It has inedible orangelike fruits. The flexible, durable wood was a favorite bow wood of the Osage indians.

Dostoyevsky, Feodor Mikhailovich, (p. 349)
1821-81, Russian novelist, one of the giants of modern literature. He won his first success with Poor Folk (1845). Arrested 1849 for membership in a Fourierist circle, he was sentenced to death; while he was waiting for death, his sentence was commuted to hard labor in Siberia. The shock of the experience and the hardship of Siberian life (described in The House of the Dead, 1862) aggravated his epilepsy and caused him to turn to religion. […] His chronic financial difficulties were increased by his passion for gambling. His novels are characterized by deep psychological insight; compassion for all men, even the vilest of whom he thought capable of redemption; and morbid preoccupation with guilt and crime. […]

Strasbourg, (p. 1220-1221)
Ger. Strassburg […], cap. of Bas-Rhin dept., E France, on the Ill near its junction with the Rhine; cultural and commercial cap. of Alsace. […] [S]eat of a university (founded 1538) and of the Council of Europe. Its importance dates from Roman times. Its bishops ruled a considerable territory as princes of the Holy Roman Empire, but Strasbourg itself became a free imperial city (13th cent.), ruled by its guild corporations. Here medieval German literature reached its flower in Gottfried von Strassburg, and here Gutenberg may have invented the printing press. […]

ex:
The Columbia Viking Desk Encyclopedia (in 2 volumes),
The Viking Press / Columbia University Press: New York 1953