Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Vidal de la Blache, Paul

(Encyclopedia)Vidal de la Blache, Paul pōl vēdälˈ də lä bläsh [key], French geographer, 1845–1918, the father of French human geography. He was educated at the École Normale Supérieure, Paris, and had an...

Issy-les-Moulineaux

(Encyclopedia)Issy-les-Moulineaux ēsēˈ-lā-mo͞olēnōˈ [key], suburb SW of Paris, Hauts-de-Seine dept., N central France. It i...

Bouchardon, Edmé

(Encyclopedia)Bouchardon, Edmé ĕdmāˈ bo͞oshärdôNˈ [key], 1698–1762, French sculptor; pupil of Guillaume Coustou. He is known for his fountain in the Rue de Grenelle, Paris, and for numerous works at Versa...

Garden, Mary

(Encyclopedia)Garden, Mary, 1874–1967, Scottish-American operatic soprano, b. Aberdeen, Scotland, studied in Paris. Her debut (1900) occurred when she replaced, without rehearsal, the star of Charpentier's Louise...

Dupuytren, Guillaume, Baron

(Encyclopedia)Dupuytren, Guillaume, Baron gēyōmˈ bärôNˈ düpüēträNˈ [key], 1777–1835, French surgeon. As professor at the Hôtel Dieu, Paris, from 1812, he was noted as diagnostician, lecturer, and surg...

Panama Canal

(Encyclopedia)Panama Canal, waterway across the Isthmus of Panama, connecting the Atlantic (by way of the Caribbean Sea) and Pacific oceans, built by the United States (1904–14, on territory leased from the repub...

Commonwealth of Independent States

(Encyclopedia)Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), community of independent nations established by a treaty signed at Minsk, Belarus, on Dec. 8, 1991, by the heads of state of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. Bet...

French and Indian Wars

(Encyclopedia)French and Indian Wars, 1689–1763, the name given by American historians to the North American colonial wars between Great Britain and France in the late 17th and the 18th cent. They were really cam...

Haussmann, Georges Eugène, Baron

(Encyclopedia)Haussmann, Georges Eugène, Baron zhôrzh özhĕnˈ bärôNˈ ōsmänˈ [key], 1809–91, French civic official and city planner. Distinguished for his bold alterations in the layout of Paris under Na...

Delaunay-Terk, Sonia

(Encyclopedia)Delaunay-Terk, Sonia dəlōnāˈ-tĕrkˈ [key], 1885–1979, Russian painter and designer; wife of Robert Delaunay. Raised in St. Petersburg, she moved to Paris in 1905. With her husband, she develope...