Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

150 results found

navigation

(Encyclopedia)navigation, science and technology of finding the position and directing the course of vessels and aircraft. The next great revolution in navigation occurred in the 20th cent., when radio signals ...

Hudson, Henry

(Encyclopedia)Hudson, Henry, fl. 1607–11, English navigator and explorer. He was hired (1607) by the English Muscovy Company to find the Northeast Passage to Asia. He failed, and another attempt (1608) to find a ...

Alfonso V, king of Portugal

(Encyclopedia)Alfonso V, 1432–81, king of Portugal (1438–81), son of Duarte and Queen Leonor. During his minority there was a struggle for the regency between the queen mother and Alfonso's uncle, Dom Pedro, du...

tyrant

(Encyclopedia)tyrant, in ancient history, ruler who gained power by usurping the legal authority. The word is perhaps of Lydian origin and carried with it no connotation of moral censure. With the growth of the con...

Magellanic Clouds

(Encyclopedia)Magellanic Clouds măjˌəlănˈĭk [key], two dwarf galaxies located in the far southern sky and visible to the unaided eye; they are classified as irregular because they show no definite symmetry or...

chart

(Encyclopedia)chart, term referring to maps prepared for marine navigation and for air navigation. All charts show, in some convenient scale, geographic features useful to the navigator, as well as indications of d...

Vespucci, Amerigo

(Encyclopedia)Vespucci, Amerigo ämārēˈgō vāspo͞otˈchē [key], 1454–1512, Italian navigator in whose honor America was named, b. Florence. He entered the commercial service of the Medici and in 1492 moved ...

Dampier, William

(Encyclopedia)Dampier, William dămˈpēr [key], 1651–1715, English explorer, buccaneer, hydrographer, and naturalist. He fought (1673) in the Dutch War, managed a plantation in Jamaica (1674), and then worked wi...

Cook, James

(Encyclopedia)Cook, James, 1728–79, English explorer and navigator. The son of a Yorkshire agricultural laborer, he had little formal education. After an apprenticeship to a firm of shipowners at Whitby, he joine...

Saint Helena

(Encyclopedia)Saint Helena həlēˈnə [key], island, 47 sq mi (122 sq km), in the S Atlantic Ocean, 1,200 mi (1,931 km) W of Africa. Together with the islands of Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, it comprises the Br...