Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

355 results found

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

(Encyclopedia)Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, established in 1805, incorporated in 1806. It is supported by private endowment. The academy grew out of a proposal by Charles Willson Peale for an...

Tyson, Mike

(Encyclopedia)Tyson, Mike (Michael Gerald Tyson), 1966–, American boxer, b. Brooklyn, N.Y. At the age of 12, Tyson was sent to reform school, where he began to box. In a whirlwind career begun in 1985 when he tur...

Brooks, Van Wyck

(Encyclopedia)Brooks, Van Wyck văn wĭkˈ [key], 1886–1963, American critic, b. Plainfield, N.J., grad. Harvard, 1908. His first book, The Wine of the Puritans (1909), presented the thesis that American culture ...

Portland, cities, United States

(Encyclopedia)Portland. 1 City (1990 pop. 64,358), seat of Cumberland co., SW Maine, situated on a small peninsula and adjacent land, with a large, deepwater harbor on Casco Bay; settled c.1632, set off from Falmou...

Irving, Sir Henry

(Encyclopedia)Irving, Sir Henry, 1838–1905, English actor and theatrical manager, originally named John Henry Brodribb. He made his debut in 1856 and achieved fame in 1871 with his portrayal of Mathias in Leopold...

Kahneman, Daniel

(Encyclopedia)Kahneman, Daniel, 1934–, Israeli-American psychologist, b. Tel Aviv, Ph.D. Univ. of California, Berkeley, 1961. Born to Lithuanian parents, he spent his youth in France, and immigrated to what soon ...

Nobile, Umberto

(Encyclopedia)Nobile, Umberto o͞ombĕrˈtō nōˈbēlā [key], 1885–1978, Italian aeronautical engineer and arctic explorer. He designed the dirigible Norge and piloted it in the Amundsen-Ellsworth flight over t...

marines

(Encyclopedia)marines, troops that serve on board ships of war or in conjunction with naval operation. A British marine corps was established in 1664, and the need for skilled riflemen aboard military vessels broug...

Watkins, Carleton Eugene

(Encyclopedia)Watkins, Carleton Eugene, 1829–1916, America's premier 19th-century landscape photographer, b. Oneonta, N.Y. Watkins created images that helped define the American West for his contemporaries and th...

Rumi, Jalal ad-Din

(Encyclopedia)Rumi, Jalal ad-Din jälälˈ ĕd-dēnˈ ro͞oˈmē [key], 1207–73, great Islamic Persian sage and poet mystic, b. in Balkh. His father, a scholar, was invited by the Seljuk sultan of Rum to settle i...