Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Virginia Company

(Encyclopedia)Virginia Company, name of two English colonizing companies, chartered by King James I in 1606. By the terms of the charter, the Virginia Company of London (see London Company) was given permission to ...

Virginia creeper

(Encyclopedia)Virginia creeper, native woody vine (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) of the family Vitaceae (grape family), tall growing and popular as a wall covering in the temperate United States. It has blue-black b...

Virginia Tech

(Encyclopedia)Virginia Tech: see Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ. ...

West Flanders

(Encyclopedia)West Flanders, Du. West-Vlaanderen, Fr. Flandre Occidentale, province (1991 pop. 1,106,829), W Belgium, bordering on the North Sea in the west, on the Netherlands in the northeast, and on France in th...

history painting

(Encyclopedia)history painting, the painting of scenes from classical and Christian history and mythology. It was taught in the academies of art, from the Renaissance to the 19th cent., as the highest form of art i...

art history

(Encyclopedia)art history, the study of works of art and architecture. In the mid-19th cent., art history was raised to the status of an academic discipline by the Swiss Jacob Burckhardt, who related art to its cul...

oral history

(Encyclopedia)oral history, compilation of historical data through interviews, usually tape-recorded and sometimes videotaped, with participants in, or observers of, significant events or times. Primitive societies...

West Indies

(Encyclopedia)CE5 West Indies, archipelago, between North and South America, curving c.2,500 mi (4,020 km) from Florida to the coast of Venezuela and separating the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico from the ...

Browse by Subject