Fairy tale by Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen, in which a young swan
is adopted by a family of ducks. The ducks, thinking the adoptee is another
duck, ridicule his odd appearance until, in his unhappiness, he runs away; the
"duckling" matures through many adventures, and finally meets other swans.
Thus he discovers his true nature and recognizes his own beauty.
(Starman Jones)
Ukiah, California
City in Mendocino County in the Ukiah Valley, first settled in 1856.
(Friday)
Underwood
Company founded in 1873 by John Underwood to provide carbon paper and
other supplies for typewriters. In 1895, his son John Thomas Underwood bought
the patent for a "front-stroke" typewriter that improved the user's ability to
see what was being typed, and built a factory in Hartford, Connecticut to
manufacture the new typewriter.
(The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress)
Undine
(Also ondine) In European legends, a water nymph who becomes human
when she falls in love with a man but is doomed to die if he is unfaithful to
her.
(The Number of the Beast)
Union Theological Seminary
Nondenominational Christian graduate school of theology founded in 1836 in
New York City for training parish ministers, teachers of religion,
missionaries, and workers for ecclesiastical agencies.
(Stranger in a Strange Land)
United States of America
[A concise definition of the USA is beyond my abilities. I figure most
people will know what it is, though whether it really exists in the real world
may be a matter of intense debate.]
(Beyond This Horizon, Citizen of the Galaxy, "Coventry",
Methuselah's Children, The Day After Tomorrow, Double
Star, Farnham's Freehold, Friday, I Will Fear No
Evil, "If This Goes On—", The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Space
Cadet, The Star Beast)
United States Military Academy
(West Point) Institution for the training of commissioned officers for the
U.S. Army. Originally founded in 1802 as a school for the U.S. Corps of
Engineers, it is one of the oldest service academies in the world. It is
situated near the Hudson River in Orange county, New York, 50 miles (80 km)
north of New York City.
("If This Goes On—")
University of California
State-sponsored university system with campuses in Berkeley (main campus),
Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa
Barbara, and Santa Cruz. The first campus was established in Oakland,
California, in 1855, but was moved to Berkeley in 1873.
(The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress)
University of Edinburgh
Private institution of higher education at Edinburgh, Scotland. It was
founded in 1583 by the Edinburgh town council under a charter granted in 1582
by King James VI (James I of England). The university initially consisted of a
liberal arts college and a school of divinity. Schools of medicine and law
were established in the early 18th century, and faculties of music, science,
arts, social sciences, and veterinary medicine were added later.
(Stranger in a Strange Land)
University of Missouri
The University of Missouri campus located in Rolla, Missouri, was
founded in 1870 as the School of Mines and Metallurgy; it was one of the first
technological institutions in the United States. The school was incorporated
into the state university system in 1964.
(To Sail Beyond the Sunset)
Upjohn Company
Pharmaceutical company founded as The Upjohn Pill and Granule Company in
Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 1886 by W. E. Upjohn. By 1902 the firm, renamed the
Upjohn Company, expanded into a full line of pharmaceutical products. The
company has since merged with Pharmacia.
(I Will Fear No Evil)
Utah State University
Land-grant university in Logan, Utah, comprising colleges of Agriculture,
Business, Education, Engineering, Family Life, Natural Resources, Science, and
Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. The territorial legislature founded the
Agricultural College of Utah in 1888, and classes first met in 1890. The
College was renamed Utah State University in 1957.
(The Number of the Beast)
Utopia
Word coined by the English humanist Sir Thomas More as the name of a
commonwealth governed entirely by reason, which he described in detail in
"Concerning the highest state of the republic and the new island Utopia",
written in 1516 (originally in Latin). Utopia has come to refer to any
impossibly idealistic vision of society or the human condition. [Greek
ou, "not"; topos, "place"; i.e., "nowhere"]
The Heinlein
Society was founded by Virginia Heinlein on behalf of her husband, science
fiction author Robert Anson Heinlein, to "pay forward" the legacy of Robert A. Heinlein to future generations of "Heinlein's Children."
