Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Biddle, Nicholas, American financier

(Encyclopedia)Biddle, Nicholas, 1786–1844, American financier, b. Philadelphia. After holding important posts in the American legations in France and England, he returned to the United States in 1807 and became o...

Shays's Rebellion

(Encyclopedia)Shays's Rebellion, 1786–87, armed insurrection by farmers in W Massachusetts against the state government. Debt-ridden farmers, struck by the economic depression that followed the American Revolutio...

Adams, Abigail

(Encyclopedia)Adams, Abigail, 1744–1818, wife of President John Adams and mother of President John Quincy Adams, b. Weymouth, Mass., as Abigail Smith. A lively, intelligent woman, she married John Adams in 1764 a...

Du Pont, Pete

(Encyclopedia) Du Pont, Pete (Pierre Samuel du Pont IV), 1935-2021, Wilmington, Del, Princeton Univ. (Mech. Engr., 1956); Harvard Law School (J.D., 1963). Du Pont wa...

De Mille, Cecil B.

(Encyclopedia)De Mille, Cecil B. (Cecil Blount De Mille), 1881–1959, American movie director and producer, b. Ashfield, Mass. In 1914, together with Samuel Goldwyn, he made the first feature-length film in Hollyw...

Derby, Elias Hasket

(Encyclopedia)Derby, Elias Hasket dûrˈbē [key], 1739–99, American merchant, b. Salem, Mass. He inherited the considerable wealth and maritime business that his father, Richard Derby (1712–83), also of Salem,...

America, in music

(Encyclopedia)America, in music, a patriotic hymn of the United States. The words (beginning “My country, 'tis of thee”) were written in 1832 by Samuel Francis Smith while he was a theological student in Andove...

Hancock, John

(Encyclopedia)Hancock, John, 1737–93, political leader in the American Revolution, signer of the Declaration of Independence, b. Braintree, Mass. From an uncle he inherited Boston's leading mercantile firm, and n...

Giles, William Branch

(Encyclopedia)Giles, William Branch jīlz [key], 1762–1830, American statesman, b. Amelia co., Va. After practicing as a lawyer in Petersburg, Va., he entered the U.S. House of Representatives as an Anti-Federali...

Nujoma, Sam

(Encyclopedia)Nujoma, Sam (Samuel Daniel Shafiishuna Nujoma) no͞oyōˈmä [key], 1929–, Namibian political leader. A railway worker in what was then the South African mandate of South West Africa, Nujoma became ...