Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Johnson, John Albert

(Encyclopedia)Johnson, John Albert, 1861–1909, American political leader, governor of Minnesota, b. St. Peter, Minn. The son of poor parents, he left school early and worked at various trades until 1887, when he ...

Glenn, John Herschel, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)Glenn, John Herschel, Jr., 1921–2016, American astronaut and politician, b. Cambridge, Ohio. On Feb. 20, 1962, he became the first American and the third person to orbit the earth, circling the glob...

Lippold, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Lippold, Richard lĭpˈōld [key], 1915–2002, American sculptor, engineer, and designer, b. Milwaukee. Until 1941, Lippold worked as an industrial designer. As a sculptor, he achieved startling effe...

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

(Encyclopedia)Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at Cambridge; coeducational; chartered 1861, opened 1865 in Boston, moved 1916. It has long been recognized as an outstanding technological institute and its Slo...

housing

(Encyclopedia)housing, in general, living accommodations available for the inhabitants of a community. Throughout the 19th cent., with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, housing as a problem worsened as urban...

Perlmutter, Saul

(Encyclopedia)Perlmutter, Saul, 1959–, American astrophysicist, b., Champaign-Urbana, Ill., Ph.D. Univ. of California, Berkeley, 1986. He is a researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a professor a...

Schmidt, Brian Paul

(Encyclopedia)Schmidt, Brian Paul, 1967–, Australian-American astrophysicist, b. Missoula, Mont., Ph.D. Harvard, 1993. He has been associated with Australian National Univ. since 1995. Schmidt and Adam Riess shar...

Kourou

(Encyclopedia)Kourou, town and commune (2007 pop. 25,918), N French Guiana, on the coast 26 mi (42 km) NW of Cayenne. A rocket-launching base, the Guiana Space Center, is mainly in the commune near the town; the So...

Roca, Julio Argentino

(Encyclopedia)Roca, Julio Argentino ho͞oˈlyō ärhāntēˈnō rōˈkä [key], 1843–1914, general who became president of Argentina (1880–86, 1898–1904). Minister of war under Nicolas Avellaneda, he crushed ...

Key Largo

(Encyclopedia)Key Largo, narrow island, c.30 mi (48 km) long, off S Fla., largest of the Florida Keys. Along with other Florida Keys, especially Key West, it has become an increasingly popular tourist spot, noted f...