Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Pater, Walter Horatio

(Encyclopedia)Pater, Walter Horatio pāˈtər [key], 1839–94, English essayist and critic. In 1864 he was elected a fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford, and he subsequently led an austere and uneventful life. An ...

Sui

(Encyclopedia)Sui swā [key], dynasty of China that ruled from 581 to 618. This short-lived dynasty reunified China in 589 after 400 years of division and laid the foundation for further consolidation under the T'a...

Bedouin

(Encyclopedia)Bedouin bĕdˈo͞oĭn [key] [Arab.,=desert dwellers], primarily nomad Arab peoples of the Middle East, where they form about 10% of the population. They are of the same Semitic stock as their sedentar...

Fillmore, Millard

(Encyclopedia)Fillmore, Millard, 1800–1874, 13th President of the United States (July, 1850–Mar., 1853), b. Locke (now Summer Hill), N.Y. Because he was compelled to work at odd jobs at an early age to earn a l...

Dubochet, Jacques

(Encyclopedia)Dubochet, Jacques, 1942–, Swiss biophysicist and molecular biologist, Ph.D., Univ. of Geneva 1973. Dubochet was a researcher at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg from 1978 to 1...

Gross, David Jonathan

(Encyclopedia)Gross, David Jonathan, 1941–, American particle physicist, b. Washington, D.C., Ph.D. Univ. of California, Berkeley, 1966. Gross was a professor at Princeton from 1969 to 1997, when he joined the fa...

Koop, C. Everett

(Encyclopedia)Koop, C. Everett (Charles Everett Koop), 1916–2013, American physician, U.S. surgeon general (1982–89), b. Brooklyn, N.Y., grad. Dartmouth (B.S., 1937), Cornell Medical College (M.D., 1941), Univ....

Kramer, Jack

(Encyclopedia)Kramer, Jack (John Albert Kramer), 1921–2009, American tennis player, b. Las Vegas, Nev. He excelled at tennis while still in high school. Kramer and Frederick (Ted) Schroeder won the U.S. national ...

Bogan, Louise

(Encyclopedia)Bogan, Louise bōˈgən [key], 1897–1970, American poet and critic, b. Livermore, Maine. She spent much of her life in New York City and was for many years poetry editor for the New Yorker. Her vers...

Browse by Subject