Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

332 results found

diplomatic service

(Encyclopedia)diplomatic service, organized body of agents maintained by governments to communicate with one another. In the 20th and 21st cent. there have been numerous meetings of heads of state and foreign min...

revival, religious

(Encyclopedia)revival, religious, renewal of attention to religious faith and service in a church or community, usually following a period of comparative inactivity and frequently marked by intense fervor. As appli...

calligraphy

(Encyclopedia)calligraphy kəlĭgˈrəfē [key] [Gr.,=beautiful writing], skilled penmanship practiced as a fine art. See also inscription; paleography. The art of calligraphy is also practiced with the limited l...

Central Intelligence Agency

(Encyclopedia)Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), independent executive bureau of the U.S. government established by the National Security Act of 1947, replacing the wartime Office of Strategic Services (1942–45),...

comedy

(Encyclopedia)comedy, literary work that aims primarily to provoke laughter. Unlike tragedy, which seeks to engage profound emotions and sympathies, comedy strives to entertain chiefly through criticism and ridicul...

tragedy

(Encyclopedia)tragedy, form of drama that depicts the suffering of a heroic individual who is often overcome by the very obstacles he is struggling to remove. The protagonist may be brought low by a character flaw ...

Magna Carta

(Encyclopedia)Magna Carta or Magna Charta [Lat., = great charter], the most famous document of British constitutional history, issued by King John at Runnymede under compulsion from the barons and the church in...

Jacobites

(Encyclopedia)Jacobites jăkˈəbītsˌ [key], adherents of the exiled branch of the house of Stuart who sought to restore James II and his descendants to the English and Scottish thrones after the Glorious Revolut...

Portsmouth, cities, United States

(Encyclopedia)Portsmouth. 1 City (1990 pop. 25,925), Rockingham co., SE N.H., a port of entry with a good harbor and a state-owned port terminal at the mouth of the Piscataqua River opposite Kittery, Maine; inc. 16...

progressivism

(Encyclopedia)progressivism, in U.S. history, a broadly based reform movement that reached its height early in the 20th cent. In the decades following the Civil War rapid industrialization transformed the United St...