Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

67 results found

Ford, Betty

(Encyclopedia)Ford, Betty, 1918–2011, American first lady (1974–77), wife of President Gerald Ford, b. Chicago as Elizabeth Anne Bloomer. A candid, outspoken, and popular first lady, she became an effective soc...

Joffrey Ballet

(Encyclopedia)Joffrey Ballet, one of the major American dance companies. It was founded in New York City in 1956 by the dancer-choreographer Robert Joffrey. From 1956 to 1964 it made yearly tours of the United Stat...

Ormonde, Thomas Butler, 10th earl of

(Encyclopedia)Ormonde, Thomas Butler, 10th earl of, 1532–1614, Irish nobleman. Brought up at the English court, he was the first of his family to embrace Protestantism. He succeeded to the earldom of Ormonde in 1...

Tyson, Mike

(Encyclopedia)Tyson, Mike (Michael Gerald Tyson), 1966–, American boxer, b. Brooklyn, N.Y. At the age of 12, Tyson was sent to reform school, where he began to box. In a whirlwind career begun in 1985 when he tur...

Union party

(Encyclopedia)Union party, in American history. 1 Coalition of Republicans and War Democrats in the election of 1864. Abraham Lincoln was renominated for President with Andrew Johnson, the Democratic war governor o...

Du Maurier, George Louis Palmella Busson

(Encyclopedia)Du Maurier, George Louis Palmella Busson dyo͞o môrˈēā [key], 1834–96, English artist and novelist, b. Paris of a French father and an English mother. He studied chemistry, but later turned to a...

Buss, Jerry

(Encyclopedia)Buss, Jerry (Gerald Hatten Buss), 1933–2013, American businessman and basketball executive, b. Salt Lake City. He worked in the aerospace industry unt...

Golding, William

(Encyclopedia)Golding, William (Sir William Gerald Golding), 1911–93, English novelist, grad. Oxford (B.A. 1934). Praised for his highly imaginative and original writings, Golding was basically concerned with the...

McCulloch v. Maryland

(Encyclopedia)McCulloch v. Maryland, case decided in 1819 by the U.S. Supreme Court, dealing specifically with the constitutionality of a Congress-chartered corporation, and more generally with the dispersion of po...

Laird, Melvin Robert

(Encyclopedia)Laird, Melvin Robert, 1922–2016, American politician, U.S. secretary of defense (1969–73), b. Omaha, Nebr. After serving (1942–46) in the navy during World War II, he entered politics as a Repub...

Browse by Subject