Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Yamamoto, Isoroku

(Encyclopedia)Yamamoto, Isoroku yämäˈmōtō [key], 1884–1943, Japanese admiral in World War II. He headed the combined fleet in 1941 and was the mastermind behind Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. After he was ...

Yokuts

(Encyclopedia)Yokuts yōˈko͝ots [key], Native North Americans of S California. Their culture was essentially that of the California cultural area, and their basketry and pictographs are notable. In the late 18th ...

Byles, Mather

(Encyclopedia)Byles, Mather măᵺˈər bīlz [key], 1707–88, American clergyman and poet, b. Boston. Famous minister of the Hollis St. Congregational Church, Boston, from 1732, he was dismissed for his Tory symp...

Boreman, Arthur Ingram

(Encyclopedia)Boreman, Arthur Ingram, 1823–96, first governor of West Virginia (1863–69), b. Waynesburg, Pa. A member (1855–61) of the Virginia house of delegates, Boreman opposed secession and presided over ...

Smith, Hamilton Othanel

(Encyclopedia)Smith, Hamilton Othanel, 1931–, American biologist, b. New York City, M.D. Johns Hopkins, 1956. A professor at the Univ. of Michigan and Johns Hopkins, Smith worked with Daniel Nathans and Werner Ar...

Reed, Walter

(Encyclopedia)Reed, Walter, 1851–1902, American army surgeon, b. Gloucester co., Va. In 1900 he was sent to Havana as head of an army commission to investigate an outbreak of yellow fever among American soldiers....

Strickland, William

(Encyclopedia)Strickland, William, 1788–1854, American architect of the classic revival, b. Navesink, New Jersey. He studied under B. H. Latrobe. In his buildings Strickland sought to reconcile the proportions of...

Thomas, Martha Carey

(Encyclopedia)Thomas, Martha Carey, 1857–1935, American educator and feminist, b. Baltimore, grad. Cornell, 1877, studied at Johns Hopkins and at Leipzig, the Sorbonne, and Zürich (Ph.D., 1882). In 1884 she was ...

Sheppard, Jack

(Encyclopedia)Sheppard, Jack, 1702–24, English criminal. Raised in a workhouse, he ran away with Bess Lyon, known as Edgeworth Bess, who, with another girl known as Poll Maggott, incited him to a short but specta...

Sherman, Roger

(Encyclopedia)Sherman, Roger, 1721–93, American political leader, b. Newton, Mass. Sherman helped to draft and signed the Declaration of Independence. He was long a member (1774–81, 1783–84) of the Continenta...