Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

skiing

(Encyclopedia)skiing, sport of sliding over snow on skis—long, narrow, flexible runners. Water skiing is a warm-weather sport in which a motor-propelled craft tows a skier through the water. Although its orig...

Du Chaillu, Paul Belloni

(Encyclopedia)Du Chaillu, Paul Belloni pōl bĕlōnēˈ dü shāyüˈ [key], c.1831–1903, French-American explorer in Africa. Born probably in Paris, he spent his youth on the west coast of Africa, where his fath...

Ekholm, Gordon Frederick

(Encyclopedia)Ekholm, Gordon Frederick ĕkˈhōlm [key], 1909–87, American archaeologist, b. St. Paul, Minn., Ph.D. Harvard, 1941. Working with the American Museum of Natural History in New York City after 1937, ...

laurel, in botany

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Sassafras, Sassafras albidum, a member of the laurel family laurel, common name for the Lauraceae, a family of forest trees and shrubs found mainly in tropical SE Asia but also abundant in tro...

Chillán, Nevados de

(Encyclopedia)Chillán, Nevados de, stratovolcano complex, Bíobío region, S central Chile, in the Andes. One of the country's most active volcanoes, it consists of three overlapping peaks; the highest, at 10,538 ...

Geingob, Hage

(Encyclopedia)Geingob, Hage, 1941–, Namibian political leader. Geingob joined the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) in the early 1960s. In exile from 1962, he became a member of SWAPO's central comm...

Arce Catacora, Luis Alberto

(Encyclopedia)Arce Catacora, Luis Alberto, 1963–, Bolivian government official and political leader. Trained as an economist, Arce held several positions at Bolivia's central bank (1987–2006) before becoming mi...

Berkshire swine

(Encyclopedia)Berkshire swine bûrkˈshər, bärkˈ–, –shĭr [key], one of the oldest of the improved breeds of swine, originating in the county of Berkshire in S central England. The breed was imported to the ...

Rajshahi

(Encyclopedia)Rajshahi rämˈpo͝or bōäˈlēä [key], city (1991 pop. 318,000), W central Bangladesh, on the Ganges River. It is the administrative center for a district that produces practically all of the count...

Bangui

(Encyclopedia)Bangui bäng-gēˈ [key], city (1994 est. pop. 560,000), capital of the Central African Republic, a port on the Ubangi River, near the Congo (Kinshasa) border. Bangui is an administrative, trade, and ...