Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

bluegrass

(Encyclopedia)bluegrass, any species of the large and widely distributed genus Poa, chiefly range and pasture grasses of economic importance in temperate and cool regions. In general, bluegrasses are perennial with...

Karaites

(Encyclopedia)Karaites or Caraites both: kârˈəīts [key], form of Judaism, reputedly founded (8th cent.) in Persia by Anan ben David and originally known as Ananites. Its adherents were called Karaites after the...

Sabbatai Zevi

(Encyclopedia)Sabbatai Zevi säbätīˈ zāˈvē [key], 1626–76, Jewish mystic and pseudo-Messiah, founder of the Sabbatean sect, b. Smyrna. After a period of study of Lurianic kabbalah (see Luria, Isaac ben Solo...

Tunisia

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Tunisia to͞onēˈzhə, tyo͞o– [key], Fr. Tunisie, officially Republic of Tunisia, republic (2015 est. pop. 11,274,000), 63,378 sq mi (164,150 sq km), NW Africa. Occupying the eastern portio...

Morgan, Joe

(Encyclopedia)Morgan, Joe (Joe Leonard Morgan), 1943–2020, American baseball player, b. Bonham, Tex. An outstanding second baseman, he signed with the Houston Colt .45s (now the Astros) in 1962, becoming their re...

Mather, John Cromwell

(Encyclopedia)Mather, John Cromwell, 1946–, American astrophysicist, b. Roanoke, Va., Ph.D. Univ. of California, Berkeley, 1974. He has been a researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., s...

Anderson, Sparky

(Encyclopedia)Anderson, Sparky (George Lee Anderson), 1934–2010, American baseball manager, b. Bridgewater, S.Dak. A one-season (1959) infielder for the National League's Philadelphia Phillies, he became the mana...

Fitch, Val Logsdon

(Encyclopedia)Fitch, Val Logsdon, 1923–2015, American nuclear physicist, b. Merriman, Neb., Ph.D. Columbia, 1954. During World War II Fitch was drafted into the army and worked on the detonator for the atomic bom...

Ulitskaya, Lyudmila Evgenyevna

(Encyclopedia)Ulitskaya, Lyudmila Evgenyevna, 1943–, Russian writer and Soviet-era dissident, grad. Moscow State Univ. She worked as a geneticist at the USSR Academy of Sciences (1968–70), was fired for reprint...

Tilden, William Tatem, 2d

(Encyclopedia)Tilden, William Tatem, 2d (Bill Tilden), 1893–1953, American tennis player, b. Philadelphia. He developed into a brilliant, versatile tennis player, and from 1913 he won several doubles titles in th...