Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Locke, John

(Encyclopedia)Locke, John lŏk [key], 1632–1704, English philosopher, founder of British empiricism. Locke summed up the Enlightenment in his belief in the middle class and its right to freedom of conscience and ...

Anne, queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland

(Encyclopedia)Anne, 1665–1714, queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1702–7), later queen of Great Britain and Ireland (1707–14), daughter of James II and Anne Hyde; successor to William III. Queen Anne ...

Old Testament

(Encyclopedia)Old Testament, Christian name for the Hebrew Bible, which serves as the first division of the Christian Bible (see New Testament). The designations “Old” and “New” seem to have been adopted af...

particle accelerator

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Linear accelerator (LINAC) CE5 Cyclotron: As the charged particles move faster, they spiral out to the edge of the Ds. particle accelerator, apparatus used in nuclear physics to produce bea...

Compromise of 1850

(Encyclopedia)Compromise of 1850. The annexation of Texas to the United States and the gain of new territory by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo at the close of the Mexican War (1848) aggravated the hostility betwee...

nuclear strategy

(Encyclopedia)nuclear strategy, a policy for the use of nuclear weapons. The first atomic bombs were used in the context of the Allies' World War II policy of strategic bombing. Early in the cold war, U.S. policy w...

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),...

mass extinction

(Encyclopedia)mass extinction, the extinction of a large percentage of the earth's species, opening ecological niches for other species to fill. There have been at least ten such events. The five greatest were thos...

Cleveland, Grover

(Encyclopedia)Cleveland, Grover (Stephen Grover Cleveland), 1837–1908, 22d (1885–89) and 24th (1893–97) President of the United States, b. Caldwell, N.J.; son of a Presbyterian clergyman. Cleveland's independ...

nitrogen

(Encyclopedia)nitrogen nīˈtrəjən [key], gaseous chemical element; symbol N; at. no. 7; interval in which at. wt. ranges 14.00643–14.00728; m.p. −209.86℃; b.p. −195.8℃; density 1.25 grams per liter at ...