Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Bradford, William, 1722–91, American Revolutionary printer and patriot

(Encyclopedia)Bradford, William, 1722–91, American Revolutionary printer and patriot; grandson of William Bradford (1663–1752). He learned printing from his uncle, Andrew Bradford, in Philadelphia, and in 1742 ...

Cambridge Platonists

(Encyclopedia)Cambridge Platonists, group of English philosophers, centered at Cambridge in the latter half of the 17th cent. In reaction to the mechanical philosophy of Thomas Hobbes this school revived certain Pl...

Bohr, Aage Niels

(Encyclopedia)Bohr, Aage Niels ägə nēls bōr [key], 1922–2009, Danish physicist, Ph.D. Univ. of Copenhagen, 1954. He worked with his father Niels Bohr (who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922) in the 1940s ...

Bonneville Salt Flats

(Encyclopedia)Bonneville Salt Flats bŏnˈəvĭl, bŏˈnēvĭl, bŏnˈvĭl [key], desert area in Tooele co., NW Utah, c.14 mi (22.5 km) long and 7 mi (11.2 km) wide. The smooth salt surface of the Flats is ideal fo...

Lang, Andrew

(Encyclopedia)Lang, Andrew, 1844–1912, English scholar and man of letters, b. Scotland. His poetry, much of it written in the forms of ballades, triolets, and rondeaux, appeared in such volumes as his Ballads in ...

Lewis, Matthew Gregory

(Encyclopedia)Lewis, Matthew Gregory, 1775–1818, English author, b. London. In addition to his writing he pursued a diplomatic career and served for a time in Parliament. He was often called “Monk” Lewis from...

Gondomar, Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, conde de

(Encyclopedia)Gondomar, Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, conde de gŏnˈdəmär, Span. dyāˈgō särmyānˈtō ᵺā äko͞oˈnyä kōnˈdā ᵺā gōndōmärˈ [key], 1567?–1626, Spanish ambassador to England (1613�...

Gorgas, William Crawford

(Encyclopedia)Gorgas, William Crawford, 1854–1920, American disease and sanitation expert, surgeon general of the United States, b. Mobile, Ala., grad. Bellevue Hospital Medical College, 1879. He served with the ...

Schirra, Wally

(Encyclopedia)Schirra, Wally, (Walter Marty Schirra, Jr.), 1923–2007, the only American astronaut to fly in all of NASA's first three manned spaceflight programs, b. Hackensack, N.J., grad. U.S. Naval Academy (19...

Shockley, William Bradford

(Encyclopedia)Shockley, William Bradford, 1910–89, American physicist, b. London. He graduated from the California Institute of Technology (B.S., 1932) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D., 1936)....