Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

infantry

(Encyclopedia)infantry, body of soldiers who fight in an army on foot and are equipped with hand-carried weapons, in contradistinction originally to cavalry and other branches of an army. Infantry has often been di...

Afghanistan War

(Encyclopedia)Afghanistan War, 1978–92, conflict between anti-Communist Muslim Afghan guerrillas (mujahidin) and Afghan government and Soviet forces. The conflict had its origins in the 1978 coup that overthrew A...

cavalry

(Encyclopedia)cavalry, a military force consisting of mounted troops trained to fight from horseback. Horseback riding probably evolved independently in the Eurasian steppes and the mountains above the Mesopotamian...

Glashow, Sheldon Lee

(Encyclopedia)Glashow, Sheldon Lee glăshˈō [key], 1932–, American physicist, b. New York City, Ph.D. Harvard, 1959. He became a professor at the Univ. of California at Berkeley in 1961 before moving to Harvard...

Lavrov, Sergey Viktorovich

(Encyclopedia)Lavrov, Sergey Viktorovich, 1950– Russian and Soviet diplomat, b. Moscow, grad. Moscow State Institute of International Relations, 1972. He began his career in the Soviet foreign service, working in...

Lawrence, Ernest Orlando

(Encyclopedia)Lawrence, Ernest Orlando, 1901–58, American physicist, b. Canton, S. Dak., grad. Univ. of South Dakota, 1922, Ph.D. Yale, 1925. Affiliated with the Univ. of California from 1928 onward, he became a ...

York, city, United States

(Encyclopedia)York, city (1990 pop. 42,192), seat of York co., SE Pa., on Codorus Creek, in an agricultural area; laid out 1741, inc. as a city 1887. It is a market, trade, processing, and distribution center in th...

Strong, William Duncan

(Encyclopedia)Strong, William Duncan, 1899–1962, American anthropologist, b. Portland, Oreg., grad. Univ. of California (B.A., 1923; Ph.D., 1926). He served as curator at the Chicago Field Museum (1926–29) and ...

Van de Graaff, Robert Jemison

(Encyclopedia)Van de Graaff, Robert Jemison văn də gräf [key], 1901–67, American physicist, b. Tuscaloosa, Ala., grad. Univ. of Alabama (B.S., 1922), Ph.D. Oxford, 1928. He was research associate at Massachuse...

Philippe, Édouard Charles

(Encyclopedia)Philippe, Édouard Charles, 1970–, French lawyer and political leader, b. Rouen, grad. Paris Institute of Political Studies, 1992, National School of Administration, 1997. He worked as a lawyer for ...

Browse by Subject