Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

286 results found

Raleigh, Sir Walter

(Encyclopedia)Raleigh or Ralegh, Sir Walter both: rŏlˈē, rălˈē [key], 1554?–1618, English soldier, explorer, courtier, and man of letters. Raleigh was made governor of Jersey in 1600, but his fortunes e...

Henry VI, king of England

(Encyclopedia)Henry VI, 1421–71, king of England (1422–61, 1470–71). Henry was a mild, honest, and pious man, a patron of literature and the arts and the founder of Eton College (1440). He was, however, u...

Plymouth Colony

(Encyclopedia)Plymouth Colony, settlement made by the Pilgrims on the coast of Massachusetts in 1620. After several years the colonists could no longer be restrained from settling on the more productive land to t...

Reagan, Ronald Wilson

(Encyclopedia)Reagan, Ronald Wilson rāˈgən [key], 1911–2004, 40th president of the United States (1981–89), b. Tampico, Ill. In 1932, after graduation from Eureka College, he became a radio announcer and spo...

acting

(Encyclopedia)acting, the representation of a usually fictional character on stage or in films. At its highest levels of accomplishment acting involves the employment of technique and/or an imaginative ...

Penal Laws

(Encyclopedia)Penal Laws, in English and Irish history, term generally applied to the body of discriminatory and oppressive legislation directed chiefly against Roman Catholics but also against Protestant nonconfor...

Maine, state, United States

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Maine, largest of the New England states of the NE United States. It is bordered by New Hampshire (W), the Canadian provinces of Quebec (NW) and New Brunswick (NE), the Bay of Fundy (E), and th...

criticism

(Encyclopedia)criticism, the interpretation and evaluation of literature and the arts. It exists in a variety of literary forms: dialogues (Plato, John Dryden), verse (Horace, Alexander Pope), letters (John Keats),...

Counter Reformation

(Encyclopedia)Counter Reformation, 16th-century reformation that arose largely in answer to the Protestant Reformation; sometimes called the Catholic Reformation. Although the Roman Catholic reformers shared the Pr...

Industrial Revolution

(Encyclopedia)Industrial Revolution, term usually applied to the social and economic changes that mark the transition from a stable agricultural and commercial society to a modern industrial society relying on comp...