Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Khodorkovsky, Mikhail Borisovich

(Encyclopedia)Khodorkovsky, Mikhail Borisovich mēkhəyēlˈ bərēˈsəvĭch kōdôrkôfˈskē [key], 1963–, Russian business executive. In the waning years of the Soviet Union, he ran a computer import business...

Pestalozzi, Johann Heinrich

(Encyclopedia)Pestalozzi, Johann Heinrich yōˈhän hīnˈrĭkh pĕsˌtälôtˈsē [key], 1746–1827, Swiss educational reformer, b. Zürich. His theories laid the foundation of modern elementary education. He stu...

Arkansas, state, United States

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Arkansas ärˈkənsôˌ, ärkănˈzŭs [key], state in the south-central United States. It is bordered by Tennessee and Mississippi, across the Mississippi River (E), Louisiana (S), Texas and O...

Hastings, Warren

(Encyclopedia)Hastings, Warren, 1732–1818, first governor-general of British India. Employed (1750) as a clerk by the East India Company, he soon became manager of a trading post in Bengal. When Calcutta (now Kol...

Wilkes, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Wilkes, Charles, 1798–1877, American naval officer and explorer, b. New York City, educated by his father. In 1815 he entered the merchant service and received (1818) an appointment as a midshipman....

Soros, George

(Encyclopedia)Soros, George sôrˈōs [key], 1930–, American stock trader and philanthropist, b. Budapest, Hungary, as George Schwartz. He studied under Sir Karl Popper at the London School of Economics (grad. 19...

Pritzker Prize

(Encyclopedia)Pritzker Prize, officially The Pritzker Architecture Prize prĭtˈskər [key], award for excellence in architecture, given annually since 1979. Largely modeled on the Nobel Prize, it is the premier ar...

Rothschild

(Encyclopedia)Rothschild rŏthˈchīld, Ger. rōtˈshĭlt [key], prominent family of European bankers. The first important member was Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1743–1812), son of a money changer in the Jewish ghe...

Cambridge, University of

(Encyclopedia)Cambridge, University of, at Cambridge, England, one of the oldest English-language universities in the world. Originating in the early 12th cent. (legend places its origin even earlier than that of t...

Crenshaw, Kimberlé Williams

(Encyclopedia)Crenshaw, Kimberlé, 1959–, American legal scholar and critical race theorist, b. Canton, Ohio, J.D. Harvard University, 1984. An influential writer o...

Browse by Subject