Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

407 results found

music festivals

(Encyclopedia)music festivals, series of performances separate from the normal concert season and often, but not always, organized around an idea or theme. Music festivals usually are held annually in the summer, s...

Marsalis, Wynton

(Encyclopedia)Marsalis, Wynton märsălˈĭs [key], 1961–, American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer, b. New Orleans. Born into a distinguished jazz family, he studied classical music at Juilliard. He joined A...

Lipchitz, Jacques

(Encyclopedia)Lipchitz, Jacques zhäk lēpshētsˈ [key], 1891–1973, French sculptor, b. Lithuania as Chaim Jacob Lipchitz. From 1909, Lipchitz studied in Paris, where he became a member of the Esprit Nouveau gro...

Knights of the Golden Circle

(Encyclopedia)Knights of the Golden Circle, secret order of Southern sympathizers in the North during the Civil War. Its members were known as Copperheads. Dr. George W. L. Bickley, a Virginian who had moved to Ohi...

Vidal, Gore

(Encyclopedia)Vidal, Gore (Eugene Luther Gore Vidal, Jr.), 1925–2012, American writer, b. West Point, N.Y. He grew up in Washington, D.C., where a formative influence was his witty and scholarly grandfather, Sena...

Quincy

(Encyclopedia)Quincy. 1 kwĭnˈzē [key] City (1990 pop. 84,985), Norfolk co., E Mass., a suburb of Boston, on Boston Bay; settled 1634, set off from Braintree 1792, inc. as a city 1888. It has plants that make pow...

Bryan, William Jennings

(Encyclopedia)Bryan, William Jennings brīˈən [key], 1860–1925, American political leader, b. Salem, Ill. Although the nation consistently rejected him for the presidency, it eventually adopted many of the refo...

draft riots

(Encyclopedia)draft riots, in the American Civil War, mob action to protest unfair Union conscription. The Union Conscription Act of Mar. 3, 1863, provided that all able-bodied males between the ages of 20 and 45 w...

Black Muslims

(Encyclopedia)Black Muslims, African-American religious movement in the United States, split since the late 1970s into the American Society of Muslims and the Nation of Islam. The original group was founded (1930) ...

screen

(Encyclopedia)screen, in architecture, partition or enclosure not extending to the ceiling; usually a structure in stone, wood, or metal. It frequently serves to mark the boundaries of portions of churches and cath...

Browse by Subject