Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

164 results found

Ingersoll, Robert Green

(Encyclopedia)Ingersoll, Robert Green, 1833–99, American orator and lawyer, b. Dresden, N.Y. The son of a Congregational minister who eventually settled in Illinois, Ingersoll was admitted (1854) to the bar and b...

Talmadge, Eugene

(Encyclopedia)Talmadge, Eugene, 1884–1946, governor of Georgia (1933–37, 1941–43), b. Forsyth, Ga. In his second term as governor (1935–37) of Georgia, his staff was forbidden by Harry Hopkins to disburse f...

Balboa, Vasco Núñez de

(Encyclopedia)Balboa, Vasco Núñez de bălbōˈə, Span. väˈskō no͞oˈnyāth dā bälbōˈä [key], c.1475–1519, Spanish conquistador, discoverer of the Pacific Ocean. After sailing with Bastidas in 1501, Ba...

stall

(Encyclopedia)stall, small division of a larger space, sometimes partly partitioned. The term is used for a booth for display and selling at an exhibition, for a compartment in a stable or kennel, or, in England, f...

Whitney Museum of American Art

(Encyclopedia)Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York City, founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney with a core group of 700 artworks, many from her own collection. The museum was an outgrowth of the Whi...

short story

(Encyclopedia)short story, brief prose fiction. The term covers a wide variety of narratives—from stories in which the main focus is on the course of events to studies of character, from the “short short” sto...

Dante Alighieri

(Encyclopedia)Dante Alighieri dănˈtē, Ital. dänˈtā älēgyĕˈrē [key], 1265–1321, Italian poet, b. Florence. Dante was the author of the Divine Comedy, one of the greatest of literary classics. Dante's ...

Randolph, Asa Philip

(Encyclopedia)Randolph, Asa Philip, 1889–1979, U.S. labor leader, b. Crescent City, Fla., attended the College of the City of New York. As a writer and editor of the black magazine The Messenger, which he helped ...

cribbage

(Encyclopedia)cribbage krĭbˈĭj [key], card game played by two persons with a deck of 52 cards and a scoring (pegging) device known as a cribbage board. The board contains four rows of 30 holes each (two rows for...

Dirac, Paul Adrien Maurice

(Encyclopedia)Dirac, Paul Adrien Maurice dĭrăkˈ [key], 1902–84, English physicist. He was educated at the Univ. of Bristol and St. John's College, Cambridge, and became professor of mathematics at Cambridge in...