Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

lyre

(Encyclopedia)lyre, generic term for stringed musical instruments having a sound box from which project curved arms joined by a crossbar. The strings are stretched between the crossbar and the sound box and are plu...

Rostow, Eugene Victor Debs

(Encyclopedia)Rostow, Eugene Victor Debs, 1913–2002, U.S. lawyer, educator, and government official, brother of Walt Whitman Rostow, b. Brooklyn, N.Y. Admitted to the bar in 1938, Rostow joined the Yale law schoo...

Tula , city, Russia

(Encyclopedia)Tula to͞oˈlə [key], city (1991 pop. 545,000), capital of Tula region, N central European Russia, on the Upa River, a tributary of the Oka. It is an important rail and highway hub and a manufacturin...

Social War

(Encyclopedia)Social War or Marsic War [Lat. socii=allies], 91b.c.–88 b.c., struggle brought on by demands of the Italian allies for the privileges of Roman citizenship. The allies had fought on the side of Rome ...

Brüning, Heinrich

(Encyclopedia)Brüning, Heinrich hīnˈrĭkh brünˈĭng [key], 1885–1970, German chancellor. Elected to the Reichstag in 1924, he was a leader of the Catholic Center party and a fiscal expert. In 1930 he was app...

Walsh, Thomas James

(Encyclopedia)Walsh, Thomas James wôlsh [key], 1859–1933, American political leader, b. Two Rivers, Wis. A lawyer, he was Democratic Senator from Montana from 1913 until his death. Walsh helped write the Eightee...

annexation

(Encyclopedia)annexation, in international law, formal act by which a state asserts its sovereignty over a territory previously outside its jurisdiction. Many kinds of territory have been subject to annexation, chi...

Brachiopoda

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Internal anatomy of a lamp shell, Magellania, representative of the phylum Brachiopoda Brachiopoda brākēŏpˈədə [key], phylum of shelled sessile or sedentary marine animals, commonly know...

Mason-Dixon Line

(Encyclopedia)Mason-Dixon Line, boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland (running between lat. 39°43′26.3″N and lat. 39°43′17.6″N), surveyed by the English team of Charles Mason, a mathematician and ast...

Maxim

(Encyclopedia)Maxim măkˈsĭm [key], name of a family of inventors and munition makers. Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim, 1840–1916, was born near Sangerville, Maine. After launching on a career of inventing, he moved to...

Browse by Subject