Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Fyt, Jan

(Encyclopedia)Fyt, Jan yän fīt [key], 1611–61, Flemish animal and still-life painter and etcher. A pupil of Frans Snyders, Fyt spent 10 years in France and Italy. Returning to Antwerp in 1641, he enjoyed consid...

Ermine Street

(Encyclopedia)Ermine Street, Saxon name for the Roman road in Britain that ran from London to Lincoln and York. It was one of the four main highways of Saxon England. The name is derived from the Earningas, a group...

Chukchi Sea

(Encyclopedia)Chukchi Sea chəkˈchē [key], part of the Arctic Ocean N of the Bering Strait, between Siberia and Alaska, Wrangell Island lies to the west and the Beaufort Sea lies to the east. The sea has an appro...

Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel

(Encyclopedia)Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, officially the Lucius J. Kellam, Jr. Bridge-Tunnel, 17.6 mi (28.2 km) long, across the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, E Va., connecting Cape Charles with Norfolk, Va. Opened in...

Newmarket

(Encyclopedia)Newmarket, town (1991 pop. 15,861), Suffolk, E England. It has been a horse-racing center since early in the 17th cent. There are four principal races: the One Thousand Guineas, the Two Thousand Guine...

Wistar, Isaac Jones

(Encyclopedia)Wistar, Isaac Jones, 1827–1905, American financier, b. Philadelphia; great-nephew of Caspar Wistar. His early manhood was spent adventurously in the West as a muleteer, trapper, and gold miner. In t...

Still, William Grant

(Encyclopedia)Still, William Grant, 1895–1978, American composer, b. Woodville, Miss. Still was of Native American, African-American, and European ancestry. He studied music at Oberlin, with Chadwick at the New E...

poker

(Encyclopedia)poker, card game, believed to have originated in Asia and first played in the United States in the 19th cent. A traditional cutthroat gambling game at first, it is now also an internationally popular ...

bridge, card game

(Encyclopedia)bridge, card game derived from whist, played with 52 cards by four players in two partnerships. Bridge probably originated in the Middle East in the 19th cent. Auction bridge, one form of the game, ...

Matovič, Igor

(Encyclopedia)Matovič, Igor, 1973–, Slovakian political leader. A businessman before he entered politics, he founded a publishing house that acquired control of a number of regional newspapers and also invested ...