Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

agricultural subsidies

(Encyclopedia)agricultural subsidies, financial assistance to farmers through government-sponsored price-support programs. Beginning in the 1930s most industrialized countries developed agricultural price-support p...

Secret Service, United States

(Encyclopedia)Secret Service, United States, a law enforcement division (since 2003) of the Dept. of Homeland Security. It was established in 1865 in the the Dept. of the Treasury to investigate and prevent counter...

Curry, Jabez Lamar Monroe

(Encyclopedia)Curry, Jabez Lamar Monroe jāˈbĕz [key], 1825–1903, American educator, b. Lincoln co., Ga., grad. Univ. of Georgia, 1843. He studied law at Harvard and later became a member of the Alabama legisla...

Curtin, John

(Encyclopedia)Curtin, John, 1885–1945, Australian political leader. A labor union secretary, he edited (1917–28) a labor weekly and was later a member of the lower house—from 1928 to 1941, except for three ye...

neutrality

(Encyclopedia)neutrality, in international law, status of a nation that refrains from participation in a war between other states and maintains an impartial attitude toward the belligerents. Neutrality is not to be...

game laws

(Encyclopedia)game laws, restrictions on the hunting or capture of wild game, whether bird, beast, or fish. After the Norman Conquest (1066), England enacted stringent game laws, known as the Forest Laws, which mad...

poliomyelitis

(Encyclopedia)poliomyelitis pōˌlēōmīˌəlīˈtĭs [key], polio, or infantile paralysis, acute viral infection, mainly of children but also affecting older persons. Historically, there were three immunologic ty...

adoption

(Encyclopedia)adoption, act by which the legal relation of parent and child is created. Adoption was recognized by Roman law but not by common law. Statutes first introduced adoption into U.S. law in the mid-19th c...

nationality

(Encyclopedia)nationality, in political theory, the quality of belonging to a nation, in the sense of a group united by various strong ties. Among the usual ties are membership in the same general community, common...

Coudert, Frederic René

(Encyclopedia)Coudert, Frederic René ko͞odârˈ [key], 1832–1903, American lawyer and public official, b. New York City. He practiced law in New York City and for many years was counsel in the United States for...