Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Videla, Jorge Rafael

(Encyclopedia)Videla, Jorge Rafael hôrˈhā räfäĕlˈ vēdāˈlä [key], 1925–2013, Argentine general and president. Born to a military family, he graduated (1944) from the National Military College and rose t...

Belaúnde Terry, Fernando

(Encyclopedia)Belaúnde Terry, Fernando fārnänˈdō bāläo͞onˈdā tāˈrē [key], 1912–2002, president of Peru (1963–68, 1980–85). A successful architect, he served in the chamber of deputies (1945–48)...

Berlin, Irving

(Encyclopedia)Berlin, Irving bərlĭnˈ [key], 1888–1989, American songwriter, b. Russia as Israel Baline; his Jewish family fled a pogrom in 1893 and settled in New York's Lower East Side. Alexander's Ragtime Ba...

Piccolomini, Ottavio

(Encyclopedia)Piccolomini, Ottavio ōt-täˈvyō pēk-kōlôˈmēnē [key], 1599–1656, Italian general in the service of the Holy Roman emperor during the Thirty Years War (1618–48). He came of a distinguished ...

Sherman, William Tecumseh

(Encyclopedia)Sherman, William Tecumseh, 1820–91, Union general in the American Civil War, b. Lancaster, Ohio. Sherman is said by many to be the greatest of the Civil War generals. Sherman was promoted to lie...

Jackson, Stonewall

(Encyclopedia)Jackson, Stonewall (Thomas Jonathan Jackson), 1824–63, Confederate general, b. Clarksburg, Va. (now W.Va.), grad. West Point, 1846. With the diversion in the Shenandoah Valley a complete success...

North Africa, campaigns in

(Encyclopedia)North Africa, campaigns in, series of military contests for control of North Africa during World War II. The desert war started in 1940 and for more than two years thereafter seesawed between NE Libya...

fife, in music

(Encyclopedia)fife, small transverse flute with six to eight finger holes adopted for military music by Swiss regiments serving in France in the late 15th cent. The fife was used in the British army until the end o...

Blair Atholl

(Encyclopedia)Blair Atholl ăthˈəl [key], parish, Perth and Kinross, central Scotland, at the confluence of the Garry and the Tilt rivers. Blair Castle, begun c.1269, is the seat of the duke of Atholl and his Ath...

Shaka

(Encyclopedia)Shaka shäˈkä [key], d. 1828, paramount chief (1818–28) of the Zulus. He organized an army of some 40,000, and after reducing many enemy peoples to vassalage, he subjugated all of what is now KwaZ...