Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Torrens, Sir Robert Richard

(Encyclopedia)Torrens, Sir Robert Richard tŏrˈənz [key], 1814–84, Australian statesman, b. Ireland. Son of Col. Robert Torrens (1780–1864), one of the founders of South Australia, he went to that colony in 1...

Otis, James

(Encyclopedia)Otis, James, 1725–83, American colonial political leader, b. Barnstable co., Mass. A lawyer first in Plymouth and then in Boston, he won great distinction and served (1756–61) as advocate general ...

Gálvez, José de

(Encyclopedia)Gálvez, José de gälˈvāth [key], 1720–87, Spanish colonial administrator. Appointed as a governor in the Philippines in 1750, he later became visitor general to New Spain (1765–72), holding m...

Hepburn, William Peters

(Encyclopedia)Hepburn, William Peters, 1833–1916, American legislator, b. Wellsville, Ohio. He was raised in Iowa and entered law there. He was a Civil War cavalry officer. From 1881 to 1887 he served as a Republ...

Treasury, United States Department of the

(Encyclopedia)Treasury, United States Department of the, federal executive department established in 1789. It is charged with advising the president on fiscal policy and acting as fiscal agent for the federal gover...

Baldwin, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Baldwin, Robert, 1804–58, Canadian statesman, leader of the movement for representative government in Canada, b. York (now Toronto), Ont. His father, William Warren Baldwin (1775–1844), was a lead...

Frederick the Winter King

(Encyclopedia)Frederick the Winter King, 1596–1632, king of Bohemia (1619–20), elector palatine (1610–20) as Frederick V. The Protestant diet of Bohemia deposed the Roman Catholic King Ferdinand (Holy Roman E...

telecommuting

(Encyclopedia)telecommuting, an arrangement by which people work at home using a computer and telephone, accessing work-related materials at a business office, or transmitting materials to an office, by means of a ...

Know-Nothing movement

(Encyclopedia)Know-Nothing movement, in U.S. history. The increasing rate of immigration in the 1840s encouraged nativism. In Eastern cities where Roman Catholic immigrants especially had concentrated and were welc...

District of Columbia, University of the

(Encyclopedia)District of Columbia, University of the, at Washington, D.C.; coeducational; land-grant and federally supported; est. 1976 with the merger of three existing colleges; predominantly African American. I...