Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Cooper, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Cooper, Thomas, 1759–1839, American scientist, educator, and political philosopher, b. London, educated at Oxford. His important works include Political Essays (1799); the appendixes to the Memoirs ...

Charles Augustus

(Encyclopedia)Charles Augustus, 1757–1828, duke and, after 1815, grand duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach; friend and patron of Goethe, Schiller, and Herder. Though his duchy was small, he was important in German polit...

monitorial system

(Encyclopedia)monitorial system, method of elementary education devised by British educators Joseph Lancaster and Andrew Bell during the 19th cent. to furnish schooling to the underprivileged even under conditions ...

Safra

(Encyclopedia)Safra, family of Brazilian bankers with Sephardic Jewish roots. They began as merchant bankers in Syria and Lebanon, financing caravans throughout the Middle East. The Safras are also noted philanthro...

Alma

(Encyclopedia)Alma älmäˈ, ălˈmə [key], city, S central Que., Canada, on the Saguenay River. In 1954 its name was shortened from St. Joseph d'Alma. There are granite quarries in th...

Elkhart

(Encyclopedia)Elkhart, city (2020 pop. 53,923), Elkhart co., N Ind., at the confluence of the Elkhart and St. Joseph rivers; settled 1824, inc. 1877. The city's statu...

Foyt, A. J.

(Encyclopedia)Foyt, A. J. (Anthony Joseph Foyt, Jr.), 1935–, American auto-racing driver, b. Houston. Foyt was the first person to win the Indianapolis 500 race four times (1961, 1964, 1967, 1977). He also won th...

Montebello, village, Canada

(Encyclopedia)Montebello mŏntĭbĕlˈō [key], village (1991 pop. 1,022), SW Que., Canada, on the Ottawa River NE of Ottawa. It is a summer resort in a lumbering and farming area. The political leader Louis Joseph...

Hooker, Sir William Jackson

(Encyclopedia)Hooker, Sir William Jackson, 1785–1865, English botanist. A leading authority of his time on ferns, he formed a famous herbarium and built up the Glasgow Garden and the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew....

Kimhi

(Encyclopedia)Kimhi kĭmˈkhē [key], family of Jewish scholars and grammarians in Spain and France. Joseph ben Isaac Kimhi, c.1105–c.1170, besides writing a Bible commentary, making numerous translations, and wr...