Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Stuart, British royal family

(Encyclopedia)Stuart or Stewart, royal family that ruled Scotland and England. The Stuart lineage began in a family of hereditary stewards of Scotland, the earliest of whom was Walter (d. 1177), grandson of a Norma...

Cobb, Ty

(Encyclopedia)Cobb, Ty (Tyrus Raymond Cobb), 1886–1961, American baseball player, b. Narrows, Ga. In 1905 he joined the Detroit Tigers as center fielder and in his 24 years in the American League was one of the m...

Rich, Adrienne

(Encyclopedia)Rich, Adrienne, 1929–2012, American poet, b. Baltimore, grad. Radcliffe, 1951. From the 1970s her exquisitely wrought verse became looser and more personal as her works increasingly reflected femini...

South, the

(Encyclopedia)South, the, region of the United States embracing the southeastern and south-central parts of the country. Traditionally, all states S of the Mason-Dixon Line and the Ohio River (except West Virginia)...

Java

(Encyclopedia)Java jäˈvə [key], island (1990 pop. 107,525,520), c.51,000 sq mi (132,090 sq km), Indonesia, S of Borneo, from which it is separated by the Java Sea, and SE of Sumatra across Sunda Strait. Although...

science fiction

(Encyclopedia)science fiction, literary genre in which a background of science or pseudoscience is an integral part of the story. Although science fiction is a form of fantastic literature, many of the events recou...

Billy the Kid

(Encyclopedia)Billy the Kid, 1859–81, American outlaw, b. New York City. His real name was probably Henry McCarty; he was known as William H. Bonney. His family moved to Kansas and then to New Mexico when he was ...

Hardwick, Elizabeth

(Encyclopedia)Hardwick, Elizabeth, 1916–2007, American literary critic, novelist, and short-story writer, b. Lexington, Ky.; grad Univ. of Kentucky (B.A., 1938; M.A., 1939). She moved (1939) to New York City, whe...

patron

(Encyclopedia)patron [Lat.,=like a father], one who lends influential support to some person, cause, art or institution. Patronage existed in various ancient cultures but was primarily a Roman institution. In Roman...