Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

259 results found

Schuyler, Philip John

(Encyclopedia)Schuyler, Philip John skīˈlər [key], 1733–1804, American Revolutionary general, b. Albany, N.Y. He was a member of one of the wealthiest colonial New York families. After serving in the French an...

pupa

(Encyclopedia)pupa pyo͞oˈpə [key], name for the third stage in the life of an insect that undergoes complete metamorphosis, i.e., develops from the egg through the larva and the pupa stages to the adult. A compl...

Kerouac, Jack

(Encyclopedia)Kerouac, Jack (John Kerouac) kĕrˈəwăkˌ [key], 1922–69, American novelist, b. Lowell, Mass., studied at Columbia. One of the leaders of the beat generation, a term he is said to have coined, he ...

Sun Ra

(Encyclopedia) Sun Ra, 1914-1993, African-American jazz composer, bandleader, and keyboard player, b. Birmingham, Al., as Herman Poole Blount. Sun Ra was a leading c...

beat generation

(Encyclopedia)beat generation, term applied to certain American artists and writers who were popular during the 1950s. Essentially anarchic, members of the beat generation rejected traditional social and artistic f...

Ungaretti, Giuseppe

(Encyclopedia)Ungaretti, Giuseppe jo͞ozĕpˈpā o͞ongärĕtˈtē [key], 1888–1970, Italian poet, critic, and translator, b. Alexandria, Egypt. Ungaretti spent his youth in North Africa, where he was greatly inf...

Brooks, Garth

(Encyclopedia) Brooks, Garth , 1962- , American country singer/songwriter, b. Luba, OK, Oklahoma State Univ. (B.A., 1984). Brooks's mother was a country singer who pe...

Coen Brothers

(Encyclopedia)Coen Brothers, American filmmakers Joel Coen, 1955–, and Ethan Coen, 1958–, both b. St. Louis Park, Minn. Joel studied at New York Univ. Film School (B.A., 1978), Ethan at Princeton (B.A., 1979). ...

MacMillan, Donald Baxter

(Encyclopedia)MacMillan, Donald Baxter, 1874–1970, American arctic explorer, b. Provincetown, Mass., grad. Bowdoin College, 1898, and studied at Harvard. After a decade of teaching, he went on the expedition (190...

Ponzi, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Ponzi, Charles or Carlo, 1882–1949), Italian-American swindler. He came to the United States from his native Italy in 1903, then went in 1907 to Canada, where he was convicted of check forgery. In 1...