Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Needham, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Needham, Joseph nēdˈəm [key], 1900–1995, British biochemist, historian of science, and sinologist, b. London. He had a lifelong association with Cambridge, where he was educated (Ph.D. 1924), tau...

Dudley, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Dudley, Joseph, 1647–1720, colonial governor of Massachusetts, b. Roxbury, Mass.; son of Thomas Dudley. In 1682 he was one of the agents sent to England to protest against the threatened loss of the...

X Prize Foundation

(Encyclopedia)X Prize Foundation, private, nonprofit prize institute est. 1995 by commercial space entrepreneur Peter Diamandis. Based in Santa Monica, Calif., and funded by foundations and private individuals and ...

Dyer, Mary

(Encyclopedia)Dyer, Mary, d. 1660, Quaker martyr in Massachusetts, b. England. She accompanied (c.1635) her husband to Massachusetts and supported Anne Hutchinson, whom she followed to Rhode Island, where her husba...

Gardiner, Sir Christopher

(Encyclopedia)Gardiner, Sir Christopher, fl. 1630–32, figure in the early history of the Massachusetts Bay colony. When the Puritans arrived in Massachusetts Bay in 1630, they found that Gardiner had preceded the...

North Adams

(Encyclopedia)North Adams, city (1990 pop. 16,797), Berkshire co., NW Mass., in the Berkshire Hills, on the Hoosic River near the Vt. border; settled c.1737, set off from Adams and inc. 1878. It is located in a sum...

Oppenheimer, J. Robert

(Encyclopedia)Oppenheimer, J. Robert ŏpˈənhīˌmər [key], 1904–67, American physicist, b. New York City, grad. Harvard (B.A., 1925), Ph.D. Univ. of Göttingen, 1927. He taught at the Univ. of California and t...

Mather, Increase

(Encyclopedia)Mather, Increase, 1639–1723, American Puritan clergyman, b. Dorchester, Mass.; son of Richard Mather. After graduation (1656) from Harvard, he studied at Trinity College, Dublin (M.A., 1658), and pr...

Bradstreet, Simon

(Encyclopedia)Bradstreet, Simon, 1603–97, colonial governor of Massachusetts, b. Lincolnshire, England. He emigrated to New England in 1630 and was assistant in the Massachusetts Bay Company for 49 years (1630–...

Barton, Derek H. R.

(Encyclopedia)Barton, Derek H. R., 1918–98, British chemist, b. Gravesend, England, grad. Imperial College of Science and Technology (B.S. 1940, Ph.D. 1942, D.Sc. 1949). He was on the faculty of Imperial College ...