Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Yeomen of the Guard

(Encyclopedia)Yeomen of the Guard, bodyguard, now ceremonial in function, of the sovereign of England. When the guard was originated by Henry VII in 1485, its members had numerous duties as defenders of the king's ...

Vorkuta

(Encyclopedia)Vorkuta vərko͞otäˈ [key], city (2010 pop. 70,548), Komi Republic, NE European Russia, above the Arctic Circle. It is the industrial center of the Pechora coal basin. Founded in 1932 as the site of...

Walafrid Strabo

(Encyclopedia)Walafrid Strabo (Walafrid the Squinter), c.809–849, German scholar, b. Swabia. Educated at the abbey of Reichenau, he wrote, at 18, a Latin verse account of a journey to the hereafter, Visio Wettini...

Bideford

(Encyclopedia)Bideford bĭdˈəfərd [key], town (1985 est. 12,300), Devon, SW England, on the Torridge estuary. Formerly a major seaport, it still maintains some foreign trade (timber is imported) and has a boatbu...

Red Rock chicken

(Encyclopedia)Red Rock chicken, the only chicken still popular to any large extent in the United States today for both meat and eggs. It resulted from a cross between a Rhode Island Red male and a Plymouth Rock fem...

Stanford, Sir Charles Villiers

(Encyclopedia)Stanford, Sir Charles Villiers, 1852–1924, English composer and teacher, b. Dublin, studied in Cambridge, and Leipzig. In 1883 he became professor of music at the Royal College of Music, and in 1887...

Tommaseo, Niccolò

(Encyclopedia)Tommaseo, Niccolò nēk-kōlôˈ tōm-mäzāˈō [key], 1802–74, Italian poet and critic, b. Sibenik, Dalmatia. In addition to poetry, novels, and literary criticism, he wrote well in history, philo...

Barre

(Encyclopedia)Barre băˈrē [key], city (2020 pop. 8,378), Washington co., central Vt., SE of Montpelier; ...

Shaki, city, Azerbaijan

(Encyclopedia)Shaki shĕkˈ– [key], city (1989 pop. 56,223), N Azerbaijan, on the southern slopes of the Caucasus. It is a silk and manufacturing center in a district that grows fruit and rice. Until its annexati...

Plymouth Rock chicken

(Encyclopedia)Plymouth Rock chicken, one of the most popular early breeds of poultry. The Barred Plymouth Rock was a favorite farm chicken since it was both a good egg producer and also developed a large quantity o...

Browse by Subject