Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Giaever, Ivar

(Encyclopedia)Giaever, Ivar, 1929–, Norwegian-American physicist, Ph.D. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1964. He was a researcher at General Electric from 1954 to 1988, when he joined the faculty at his alma ma...

Malone, Dumas

(Encyclopedia)Malone, Dumas do͞omäˈ məlōnˈ [key], 1892–1986, American historian and editor, b. Coldwater, Miss. He received his Ph.D. from Yale in 1923 and was an instructor of history at Yale (1919–23) a...

Tu Fu

(Encyclopedia)Tu Fu do͞o fo͞o [key], 712–70, Chinese poet. In Pinyin, his name is romanized as Du Fu. Tu Fu is often considered the greatest of Chinese poets. He did not pass the imperial civil service examinat...

Woodbury

(Encyclopedia)Woodbury. 1 Residential city (1990 pop. 10,904), seat of Gloucester co., SW N.J., in the Philadelphia–Camden metropolitan area; settled 1683, inc. as a city 1871. It is a trade and service center, a...

Corinthian War

(Encyclopedia)Corinthian War (395 b.c.–86 b.c.), armed conflict between Corinth, Argos, Thebes, and Athens on one side and Sparta on the other. Angered by Sparta's tyrannical overlordship in Greece after the Pelo...

Murdoch, Rupert

(Encyclopedia)Murdoch, Rupert (Keith Rupert Murdoch), 1931–, Australian-American publishing magnate. Combining sensationalist journalism (often reflective of his generally hawkish, strongly conservative political...

Sowerby, Leo

(Encyclopedia)Sowerby, Leo sōˈərbē [key], 1895–1968, American composer and organist, b. Grand Rapids, Mich. Sowerby studied at the American Conservatory, Chicago, and with Percy Grainger. In 1921 an American ...

Berechiah

(Encyclopedia)Berechiah bĕrˌəkīˈə [key], in the Bible. 1 Son of Zerubbabel. 2 Father of Meshullam (5.) 3 Important Ephraimite. 4 Father of Asaph the psalmist. An alternate spelling is Berachiah. 5 Father of Z...

Gris, Juan

(Encyclopedia)Gris, Juan hwän grēs [key], 1887–1927, Spanish cubist painter, whose original name was José Victoriano González. After studying in Madrid he settled in Paris in 1906, where he held his first exh...

Bird, Robert Montgomery

(Encyclopedia)Bird, Robert Montgomery, 1806–54, American playwright and novelist, b. New Castle, Del., M.D. Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1827. He wrote several prizewinning verse plays for the actor Edwin Forrest, nota...

Browse by Subject