Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

484 results found

Morton, Rosalie Slaughter

(Encyclopedia)Morton, Rosalie Slaughter, 1876–1955, American surgeon, b. Lynchburg, Va., M.D. Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1897. She was the first woman faculty member of both the New York Polyclinic ...

Hevelius, Johannes

(Encyclopedia)Hevelius, Johannes yōhänˈəs hāvāˈlēo͝os [key], 1611–87, Polish astronomer, b. Danzig. From a finely equipped observatory in his house at Danzig, assisted by his wife Elizabeth, he made valu...

Escondido

(Encyclopedia)Escondido ĕskəndēˈdō [key], city (2020 pop. 151,038), San Diego co., S Calif.; inc. 1888. ...

cymbals

(Encyclopedia)cymbals sĭmˈbəlz [key], percussion instruments of ancient Asian origin. They consist of a pair of slightly concave metal plates which produce a vibrant sound of indeterminate pitch. Known in Europe...

saxophone

(Encyclopedia)saxophone, musical instrument invented in the 1840s by Adolphe Sax. Although it uses the single reed of the clarinet family, it has a conical tube and is made of metal. By 1846 there was a double fami...

Newburyport

(Encyclopedia)Newburyport, city (1990 pop. 16,317), a seat of Essex co., NE Mass., at the mouth of the Merrimack River; settled 1635, set off from Newbury and inc. 1764. Its silverware industry dates from colonial ...

Belleville, cities, United States

(Encyclopedia)Belleville. 1 City (2020 pop. 42,404), seat of St. Clair co., SW Ill.; inc. 1819. Located in a coal-mining area, Belleville also has farm-related ...

Zhytomyr

(Encyclopedia)Zhytomyr zhĭtôˈmēr [key], Rus. Zhitomir, city (1989 pop. 292,000), capital of Zhytomyr region, central Ukraine, on the Teteriv River, a tributary of the Dnieper. It is a road and rail junction in ...

key, in music

(Encyclopedia)key. 1 In music, term used to indicate the scale from which the tonal material of a given composition is derived. To say, for example, that a composition is in the key of C major means that it uses as...

Harrison, Lou Silver

(Encyclopedia)Harrison, Lou Silver, 1917–2003, American composer, b. Portland, Oreg. He studied composition in California with Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg. His early work stresses percussion while combinin...