Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

333 results found

Kibaki, Mwai

(Encyclopedia)Kibaki, Mwai (Emilio Mwai Kibaki), 1931–, Kenyan political leader. An economist educated at the London School of Economics, he was elected to Kenya's first parliament (1963) as a member of the Kenya...

chansons de geste

(Encyclopedia)chansons de geste shäNsôNˈ də zhĕst [key] [Fr.,=songs of deeds], a group of epic poems of medieval France written from the 11th through the 13th cent. Varying in length from 1,000 to 20,000 lines...

Fahrenheit temperature scale

(Encyclopedia)Fahrenheit temperature scale fârˈənhītˌ [key], temperature scale in which the temperature difference between two reference temperatures, the melting and boiling points of water, is divided into 1...

O'Brien, William Smith

(Encyclopedia)O'Brien, William Smith, 1803–64, Irish revolutionary. He entered Parliament from Ireland in 1828 and worked for Catholic Emancipation, Irish poor relief, and state support of the Irish Catholic cler...

MacLeish, Archibald

(Encyclopedia)MacLeish, Archibald məklēshˈ [key], 1892–1982, American poet and public official, b. Glencoe, Ill., grad. Yale, 1915, LL.B Harvard, 1919. He practiced law for only three years and during the 1920...

Lodge, Henry Cabot

(Encyclopedia)Lodge, Henry Cabot, 1850–1924, U.S. senator (1893–1924), b. Boston. He was admitted to the bar in 1876. Before beginning his long career in the U.S. Senate he edited (1873–76) the North American...

Pentagon Papers

(Encyclopedia)Pentagon Papers, government study of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. Commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara in June, 1967, the 47-volume, top secret study covered the period from ...

Shays's Rebellion

(Encyclopedia)Shays's Rebellion, 1786–87, armed insurrection by farmers in W Massachusetts against the state government. Debt-ridden farmers, struck by the economic depression that followed the American Revolutio...

Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (table)

(Encyclopedia)Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel ...

Hampton, Wade, Confederate general

(Encyclopedia)Hampton, Wade, 1818–1902, Confederate general in the American Civil War, b. Charleston, S.C.; grandson of Wade Hampton (c.1752–1835). Hampton, a wealthy planter, served (1852–61) in the South Ca...