Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

491 results found

Cressy, Hugh Paulinus

(Encyclopedia)Cressy, Hugh Paulinus krĕˈsē [key], 1605–74, English Benedictine monk. He was educated at Oxford and converted to Roman Catholicism in Rome in 1646. His Exomologesis (1647) is an apologia for his...

Kerr, Jean Collins

(Encyclopedia)Kerr, Jean Collins, 1923–2003, American comic author and playwright, b. Scranton, Pa., wife of Walter Kerr. Kerr had a knack for finding wry humor in the worlds of marriage, suburbia, and show busin...

Katrine, Loch

(Encyclopedia)Katrine, Loch lŏkh kătˈrĭn [key], lake, 8 mi (12.9 km) long and 1 mi (1.6 km) wide, Stirling, central Scotland. Its beauty is celebrated in Sir Walter Scott's Lady of the Lake. When Loch Katrine b...

Basie, Count

(Encyclopedia)Basie, Count (William Basie) bāˈsē [key], 1904–84, American jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer, b. Red Bank, N.J. After working in dance halls and vaudeville in New York City, Basie moved to ...

Smith, Red

(Encyclopedia)Smith, Red (Walter Wellesley Smith), 1905–82, American sportswriter, b. Green Bay, Wis., grad. Notre Dame, 1927. After working on newspapers in St. Louis and Philadelphia, he began a syndicated colu...

Stone Mountain Memorial

(Encyclopedia)Stone Mountain Memorial, memorial to the Confederacy, consisting of the equestrian figures of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis carved on the northern face of Stone Mt., a granite ...

Porteous, John

(Encyclopedia)Porteous, John pôrˈtēəs [key], d. 1736, British soldier. He was captain of the Edinburgh town guard at the execution (1736) of Andrew Wilson, a smuggler. When the crowd, which was sympathetic to W...

Radcliffe, Ann (Ward)

(Encyclopedia)Radcliffe, Ann (Ward), 1764–1823, English novelist, b. London. The daughter of a successful tradesman, she married William Radcliffe, a law student who later became editor of the English Chronicle. ...

Plath, Sylvia

(Encyclopedia)Plath, Sylvia, 1932–63, American poet, b. Boston. Educated at Smith College and Cambridge, Plath published poems even as a child and won many academic and literary awards. Her first volume of poetry...

California State University System

(Encyclopedia)California State University System, coordinating agency established in 1960 by the merger of individual California state colleges, now consisting of 23 campuses. It constitutes one of the three Califo...