Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Wooden, John

(Encyclopedia)Wooden, John, 1910–2010, American basketball coach, b. Martinsville, Ind. He was the first athlete to be honored in the basketball Hall of Fame as both player and coach. An All-American guard at Pur...

Whipple, Fred Lawrence

(Encyclopedia)Whipple, Fred Lawrence, 1906–2004, American astronomer, b. Red Oak, Iowa. After graduating from the Univ. of California, Berkeley (Ph.D. 1931), he accepted a position at Harvard, where he remained f...

surfperch

(Encyclopedia)surfperch, any member of the family Embiotocidae, a large family of spiny-finned, carnivorous fishes of the perch order. Also known as seaperches and surf fish, most surfperches are found off sandy sh...

Stern, Otto

(Encyclopedia)Stern, Otto stûrn, Ger. ôˈtō shtĕrn [key], 1888–1969, American physicist, b. Germany, Ph.D. Univ. of Breslau, 1912. After resigning from his post at the Univ. of Hamburg in 1933, he became prof...

Taylor, Bayard

(Encyclopedia)Taylor, Bayard, 1825–78, American journalist and author, b. Kennett Square, Pa. His romantic verse in Ximena … and Other Poems (1844) secured him a long-standing assignment as correspondent fo...

Strong, William Duncan

(Encyclopedia)Strong, William Duncan, 1899–1962, American anthropologist, b. Portland, Oreg., grad. Univ. of California (B.A., 1923; Ph.D., 1926). He served as curator at the Chicago Field Museum (1926–29) and ...

San Juan del Sur

(Encyclopedia)San Juan del Sur dĕl so͞or [key], town, SW Nicaragua, on the Pacific Ocean. It was the Pacific terminus of the transit route across the isthmus during the California gold rush and is today connected...

Calvin, Melvin

(Encyclopedia)Calvin, Melvin, 1911–97, American organic chemist and educator, b. St. Paul, Minn., grad. Michigan College of Mining and Technology, 1931, Ph.D. Univ. of Minnesota, 1935. In 1937 he joined the facul...

Revillagigedo Islands

(Encyclopedia)Revillagigedo Islands or Revillagigedo Archipelago rāvēˈyähēhāˈᵺō [key], volcanic island group in the Pacific Ocean, c.450 mi (720 km) W of Colima state and S of Baja California, Mexico. The...

Didion, Joan

(Encyclopedia)Didion, Joan dĭdˈēŏn [key], 1934–2021, American writer, b. Sacramento, Calif., Univ. of ...