Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Kassebaum-Baker, Nancy Landon

(Encyclopedia)Kassebaum-Baker, Nancy Landon kăsˈəbômˌ, –boumˌ [key], 1932–, U.S. senator from Kansas (1979–97), b. Topeka, Kans. A Republican and the daughter of Kansas governor Alfred Mossman (Alf) Lan...

Butler, Richard Austen

(Encyclopedia)Butler, Richard Austen, 1902–82, British politician. Educated at Cambridge, he entered Parliament in 1929 as a Conservative. As minister of education (1941–45), he piloted through Parliament the E...

Capecchi, Mario Renato

(Encyclopedia)Capecchi, Mario Renato, 1937–, American geneticist, b. Verona, Italy, Ph.D. Harvard, 1967. On the faculty at Harvard from 1967 to 1973, Capecchi became a professor at the Univ. of Utah School of Med...

Wyeth, N. C.

(Encyclopedia)Wyeth, N. C. (Newell Convers Wyeth), 1882–1945, American painter and illustrator, b. Needham, Mass., studied with Howard Pyle. Among his many well-known murals are those in the Missouri state capito...

Houston, Samuel

(Encyclopedia)Houston, Samuel, 1793–1863, American frontier hero and statesman of Texas, b. near Lexington, Va. In 1836 Houston was elected the first president of the new Republic of Texas. The independence of ...

Gallitzin

(Encyclopedia)Gallitzin gəlyēˈtsĭn [key], Russian princely family. Among many alternate spellings are Galitzin, Galytzin, and Galitsin. Vasily Vasilyevich Gallitzin, d. 1619, helped to enthrone the first false ...

Juárez, Benito

(Encyclopedia)Juárez, Benito bānēˈtō hwäˈrās [key], 1806–72, Mexican liberal statesman and national hero. Revered by Mexicans as one of their greatest political figures, Juárez, with great moral courage ...

Leopardi, Giacomo

(Encyclopedia)Leopardi, Giacomo jäˈkōmō lāōpärˈdē [key], 1798–1837, Italian poet and scholar, considered Italy's outstanding 19th-century poet. An intellectual prodigy, he taught himself Hebrew and ancie...

Beaufort scale

(Encyclopedia)Beaufort scale, a scale of wind velocity devised (c.1805) by Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort of the British navy. An adaptation of Beaufort's scale is used by the U.S. National Weather Service; it employ...

Walker, Kara Elizabeth

(Encyclopedia)Walker, Kara Elizabeth,1969–, American artist, b. Stockton, Calif., grad. Atlanta College of Art (B.F.A., 1981), Rhode Island School of Design (M.F.A., 1994). Walker is best known for her large, cut...

Browse by Subject