Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

263 results found

settlement house

(Encyclopedia)settlement house, neighborhood welfare institution generally in an urban slum area, where trained workers endeavor to improve social conditions, particularly by providing community services and promot...

Sigismund II

(Encyclopedia)Sigismund II or Sigismund Augustus, 1520–72, king of Poland (1548–72). Crowned in 1530 to assure his succession, he assumed the royal functions at the death of his father, Sigismund I. By the Unio...

Ovid

(Encyclopedia)Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) ŏvˈĭd [key], 43 b.c.–a.d. 18, Latin poet, b. Sulmo (present-day Sulmona), in the Apennines. Although trained for the law, he preferred the company of the literary cote...

Samaria

(Encyclopedia)Samaria səmârˈēə [key], city, ancient Palestine, on a hill NW of modern-day Nablus (Shechem). The site is now occupied by a village, Sabastiyah (West Bank). Samaria (named for Shemer, who owned t...

Illyria and Illyricum

(Encyclopedia)Illyria ĭlĭrˈĭkəm [key], ancient region of the Balkan Peninsula. In prehistoric times a group of tribes speaking dialects of an Indo-European language swept down to the northern and eastern shore...

Douglass, Frederick

(Encyclopedia)Douglass, Frederick dŭgˈləs [key], c.1818–1895, American abolitionist, b. near Easton, Md. as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey. The son of a black slave, Harriet Bailey, and a white father, m...

Dalmatia

(Encyclopedia)Dalmatia dălmāˈshə [key], Croatian Dalmacija, historic region of Croatia, extending along the Adriatic Sea, approximately from Rijeka (Fiume) to the Gulf of Kotor. Split is the provincial capital;...

Trier

(Encyclopedia)Trier trēr [key], Latin Augusta Treverorum, city (1994 pop. 99,183), Rhineland-Palatinate, SW Germany, a port on the Moselle (Ger. Mosel) River, near the Luxembourg border. It is also known, in Engli...

Theodosius I

(Encyclopedia)Theodosius I or Theodosius the Great, 346?–395, Roman emperor of the East (379–95) and emperor of the West (394–95), son of Theodosius, the general of Valentinian I. He became (375) military gov...

Venetia

(Encyclopedia)Venetia vənēˈshə [key], Ital. Veneto or Venezia Euganea, region (1991 pop. 4,380,797), 7,095 sq mi (18,376 sq km), NE Italy, bordering on the Gulf of Venice (an arm of the Adriatic Sea) in the eas...

Browse by Subject