Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Tippett, Sir Michael

(Encyclopedia)Tippett, Sir Michael, 1905–98, English composer, b. London. Tippett studied at the Royal College of Music. During World War II he was briefly imprisoned as a conscientious objector. His strongly hel...

Drayton, Michael

(Encyclopedia)Drayton, Michael, 1563–1631, English poet. The son of a prosperous tradesman, he received his educational training in the house of Sir Henry Goodere, where he served as page. There he made a lasting...

Faraday, Michael

(Encyclopedia)Faraday, Michael fârˈədē, –dāˌ [key], 1791–1867, English scientist. The son of a blacksmith, he was apprenticed to a bookbinder at the age of 14. He had little formal education, but acquired...

Pakenham, Sir Edward Michael

(Encyclopedia)Pakenham, Sir Edward Michael păkˈənəm [key], 1778–1815, British general. He entered the army in 1794 and served in the wars against Napoleon I, emperor of France. He distinguished himself in the...

Somare, Sir Michael Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Somare, Sir Michael Thomas sōmäˈrā [key], 1936–2021, Papua New Guinea political leader. He was a ...

Ignatieff, Michael Grant

(Encyclopedia)Ignatieff, Michael Grant ĭgnătˈēəf [key], 1947–, Canadian politician, writer, and academic, b. Toronto, B.A. Univ. of Toronto (1969), Ph.D. Harvard (1976), M.A. Cambridge (1978). He was an assi...

Arlen, Michael

(Encyclopedia)Arlen, Michael, 1895–1956, English novelist, b. Bulgaria as Dikran Kuyumjian. The son of Armenian parents, he was brought to England as a child. In 1922 he became a British subject and changed his n...

Michael, archangel

(Encyclopedia)Michael mīˈkəl [key] [Heb.,=who is like God?], archangel prominent in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions. In the Bible and early Jewish literature, Michael is one of the angels of God's prese...

Moore, Michael

(Encyclopedia)Moore, Michael, 1954–, American documentary filmmaker, author, and activist, b. Flint, Mich. A highly personal, populist, and frequently controversial and polarizing documentary filmmaker, he made h...

Levitt, Michael

(Encyclopedia)Levitt, Michael, 1947–, British-Israeli-American biophysicist, b. South Africa, Ph.D. Cambridge, 1971. Levitt was a faculty member at Cambridge from 1974 to 1979 and at the Weizmann Institute in Isr...