Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

321 results found

Belichick, Bill

(Encyclopedia)Belichick, Bill (William Stephen Belichick), 1952–, American professional football coach, b. Nashville, Tenn. The son of a college coach, he played football at Wesleyan Univ. He held various coachin...

island

(Encyclopedia)island, relatively small body of land surrounded entirely by water. (As the oceans form a continuous mass of water on the earth's surface, all continents are islands in the strict sense of the word.) ...

Chattanooga campaign

(Encyclopedia)Chattanooga campaign, Aug.-Nov., 1863, military encounter in the American Civil War. Chattanooga, Tenn., which commanded Confederate communications between the East and the Mississippi River and was a...

Isle Royale National Park

(Encyclopedia)Isle Royale National Park roiˈəl [key], 571,790 acres (231,575 hectares), comprising about 200 islands, in Lake Superior, NW Mich.; est. 1940. Isle Royale, 210 sq mi (544 sq km), is the largest isla...

East Sussex

(Encyclopedia)East Sussex, county, 693 sq mi (1,795 sq km), extreme SE England. It comprises five administrative districts: Eastbourne, Hastings, Lewes, Rother, and W...

aardwolf

(Encyclopedia)aardwolf ärdˈwo͝olf [key], carnivore of the hyena family. The aardwolf, Proteles cristatus, resembles the true hyena but is smaller and more delicate. It has less powerful teeth and jaws and five i...

Banks, Dennis James

(Encyclopedia)Banks, Dennis James, 1937–2017, Native American civil-rights activist, b. Leech Lake Reservation, Minn. Of Ojibwa (Chippewa) heritage, he helped found the American Indian Movement (1968) to fight fo...

Spotswood, Alexander

(Encyclopedia)Spotswood, Alexander, 1676–1740, colonial governor of Virginia, b. Tangier, Morocco. Appointed in 1710, he was officially lieutenant governor under the nominal governorship of George Hamilton, 1st e...

Highsmith, Patricia

(Encyclopedia)Highsmith, Patricia, 1921–95, American novelist, b. Fort Worth, Tex., as Mary Patricia Plangman, grad. Barnard College (B.A. 1942). She first traveled to Europe in 1949 and moved there in 1963, livi...

Close, Glenn

(Encyclopedia)Close, Glenn, 1947–, American actress, b. Greenwich, Conn. She began her career in the theater, debuting on Broadway in Love for Love (1974), winning an Obie for the off-Broadway The Singular Life o...