Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Lahontan, Lake

(Encyclopedia)Lahontan, Lake ləhŏnˈtən [key], extinct lake of W Nev. and NE Calif. It was formed by heavy precipitation caused by the Pleistocene glaciers and with Lake Bonneville (see under Bonneville Salt Fla...

Whittredge, Thomas Worthington

(Encyclopedia)Whittredge, Thomas Worthington hwĭtˈrĭj [key], 1820–1910, American painter, b. Springfield, Ohio. He studied in Paris, Düsseldorf, and Rome before returning to the United States. He is numbered ...

Coward, Noël

(Encyclopedia)Coward, Noël (Sir Noël Pierce Coward) nōˈəl [key], 1899–1973, English playwright, actor, composer, and director, b. Teddington, England. Coward first gained wide prominence in 1924 acting in hi...

Tillich, Paul Johannes

(Encyclopedia)Tillich, Paul Johannes tĭlˈĭk [key], 1886–1965, American philosopher and theologian, b. Germany, educated at the universities of Berlin, Tübingen, Halle, and Breslau. In 1912 he was ordained a m...

Miller, Arthur

(Encyclopedia)Miller, Arthur, 1915–2005, American dramatist, b. New York City, grad. Univ. of Michigan, 1938. One of America's most distinguished playwrights, he has been hailed as the finest realist of the 20th-...

Australian literature

(Encyclopedia)Australian literature, the literature of Australia. Because the vast majority of early Australian settlers were transported prisoners, the beginnings of Australian literature were oral rather than wri...

Lindsey, Benjamin Barr

(Encyclopedia)Lindsey, Benjamin Barr (Ben Lindsey), 1869–1943, American judge and reformer, b. Jackson, Tenn. As judge of the juvenile court of Denver from 1900 to 1927, he founded the American juvenile court sys...

Gilbreth, Frank Bunker

(Encyclopedia)Gilbreth, Frank Bunker, 1868–1924, b. Fairfield, Me., and his wife, Lillian Moller Gilbreth, 1878–1972, b. Oakland, Calif., pioneering American industrial engineers. He was a largely self-taught e...

Pareto, Vilfredo

(Encyclopedia)Pareto, Vilfredo vēlfrĕˈdō pärĕˈtō [key], 1848–1923, Italian economist and sociologist, b. Paris, of an exiled noble family that returned to Italy in 1858. He studied mathematics and enginee...

Wilson, Colin

(Encyclopedia)Wilson, Colin, 1931–2013, English writer, b. Leicester. Born into a working-class family and largely self-educated, Wilson in many of his books exhorts humankind to expand its powers and realize its...

Browse by Subject