Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

lac

(Encyclopedia)lac, resinous exudation from the bodies of females of a species of scale insect (Tachardia lacca), from which shellac is prepared. India is the chief source of shellac, although some is obtained from ...

Longhi, Pietro

(Encyclopedia)Longhi, Pietro pyāˈtrō lôngˈgē [key], 1702–85, Venetian genre painter. Longhi studied with Crespi in Bologna. He is best known for his small pictures depicting the life of upper-middle-class V...

Marshall, Kerry James

(Encyclopedia)Marshall, Kerry James, 1955–, American painter, b. Birmingham, Ala., B.F.A. Otis Art Institute (now Otis College of Art and Design), Los Angeles, 1978. A figurative and narrative artist whose subjec...

Karakul sheep

(Encyclopedia)Karakul sheep kărˈəkəl [key], breed native to central Asia. The newborn lambs usually have tightly curled black fur and are skinned before they are three days old to provide the commercial lambski...

Kidder, Alfred Vincent

(Encyclopedia)Kidder, Alfred Vincent, 1885–1963, American archaeologist, b. Marquette, Mich., grad. Harvard (B.A. 1908; Ph.D. 1914). From 1915 to 1929 he conducted excavations at Pecos, N.Mex., for the Phillips A...

Harrison, Wallace Kirkman

(Encyclopedia)Harrison, Wallace Kirkman, 1895–1981, American architect and city planner, b. Worcester, Mass. Harrison designed the Trylon and Perisphere, the structures that came to symbolize the 1939 New York Wo...

Gary

(Encyclopedia)Gary, city (2020 pop. 69,093), Lake co., NW Ind., a port of entry on Lake Michigan; inc. 1909. Gary was founded by the U.S. Steel Corporation, which pur...

Huskisson, William

(Encyclopedia)Huskisson, William hŭsˈkĭsən [key], 1770–1830, British statesman. First elected to Parliament in 1796, he was secretary of the treasury (1804–5, 1807–9) but resigned with his close associate...

Jabotinsky, Vladimir

(Encyclopedia)Jabotinsky, Vladimir yăbˌətĭnˈskē [key], 1880–1940, Jewish Zionist leader, b. Russia. A fiery orator and an accomplished writer in several languages, he was a militant Zionist and a persistent...

Council for Mutual Economic Assistance

(Encyclopedia)Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON or MEA), international organization active between 1956 and 1991 for the coordination of economic policy among certain nations then under Communist domi...

Browse by Subject