Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

luxury tax

(Encyclopedia)luxury tax, levy on articles that are not essential to a normal standard of living. Such taxes may be imposed strictly for revenue purposes or they may be intended to discourage consumption of certain...

Tigris

(Encyclopedia)Tigris tīˈgrĭs [key], river of SW Asia, c.1,150 mi (1,850 km) long, rising in the Taurus Mts., E Turkey, and flowing SE through Iraq to join the Euphrates River, with which it forms the Shatt al Ar...

Saint John the Divine, Cathedral of

(Encyclopedia)Saint John the Divine, Cathedral of, New York City, the world's largest Gothic cathedral. The Episcopal cathedral was begun in 1892 in the Byzantine-Romanesque style after designs by G. L. Heins and C...

Akeley, Carl Ethan

(Encyclopedia)Akeley, Carl Ethan ākˈlē [key], 1864–1926, American naturalist, animal sculptor, and author, b. Orleans co., N.Y. He served (1887–95) at the Museum of Milwaukee; from 1895 to 1909 he was at the...

Yamaguchi

(Encyclopedia)Yamaguchi yämäˈgo͞ochē [key], city (1990 pop. 129,461), capital of Yamaguchi prefecture, SW Honshu, Japan. A great castle city from the 14th to 16th cent. and the site of many Buddhist temples an...

Ohlin, Bertil

(Encyclopedia)Ohlin, Bertil bĕrˈtĭl ōˈlĭn [key], 1899–1979, Swedish economist, b. Klippan. A professor at several Swedish universities, he wrote the influential Interregional and International Trade (1933, ...

Open University

(Encyclopedia)Open University, headquartered at Milton Keynes, England; founded 1969 as the Univ. of the Air. In 1971 a distance learning program was begun that now consists of correspondence courses integrated wit...

Tompkins, Douglas Rainsford

(Encyclopedia)Tompkins, Douglas Rainsford, 1943–2015, American business executive, conservationist, and philanthropist, b. Conneaut, Ohio. In 1964, he and his first wife, Susie Tompkins Buell, founded The North F...

Cowell, Henry Dixon

(Encyclopedia)Cowell, Henry Dixon kouˈəl [key], 1897–1965, American composer and pianist, b. Menlo Park, Calif., largely self-educated, studied musicology in Berlin (1931–32). Cowell experimented with new mus...

latex

(Encyclopedia)latex, emulsion of a polymer (e.g., rubber) in water (see colloid). Natural latexes are produced by a number of plants, are usually white in color, and often contain, in addition to rubber, various gu...