Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

box turtle

(Encyclopedia)box turtle, hard-shelled land turtle of the genus Terrapene, native to North America. Its lower shell, or plastron, has a hinge dividing it into front and rear sections; the animal can raise these sec...

Spangenberg, August Gottlieb

(Encyclopedia)Spangenberg, August Gottlieb ouˈgo͝ost gôtˈlēp shpängˈənbĕrk [key], 1704–92, a bishop of the Moravian Church and a founder of that church in America, b. Prussia. While at the Univ. of Jena,...

Rhodes, James Ford

(Encyclopedia)Rhodes, James Ford rōdz [key], 1848–1927, American historian, b. Ohio City (now part of Cleveland). While studying in Europe he visited ironworks and steelworks in Germany and Great Britain, and up...

Robertson, James

(Encyclopedia)Robertson, James, 1742–1814, American frontiersman, a founder of Tennessee, b. Brunswick co., Va. He was reared in North Carolina. After the failure of the Regulator movement, he led (1771) a group ...

Native American languages

(Encyclopedia)Native American languages, languages of the native peoples of the Western Hemisphere and their descendants. A number of the Native American languages that were spoken at the time of the European arriv...

Alice

(Encyclopedia)Alice, city (2020 pop. 17,891), seat of Jim Wells co., S Tex.; inc. 1910. Long a cow town at a railroad junction, Alice remains a cattle-shipping center. Oil and natural gas are also impor...

Colma

(Encyclopedia)Colma, city (2020 pop. 1,483), San Mateo co., W Calif., a suburb S of San Francisco, on Colma Creek, inc. 1924 as Lawndale, renamed 1941. Shopping ...

Bastiat, Frédéric

(Encyclopedia)Bastiat, Frédéric frādārēkˈ bästyäˈ [key], 1801–50, French economist. In his Harmonies of Political Economy (1850, tr. 1860) he developed the classical theories of economic individualism an...

Xichang

(Encyclopedia)Xichang shēˈchängˈ [key], city (1994 est. pop. 504,800), SW Sichuan prov., China. A trading and transport center, the city has an economy based on agricultural products and processing; there also ...

Massawa

(Encyclopedia)Massawa məsäˈwə [key], city (1984 pop. 15,441), Eritrea, a port on the Red Sea. Before Eritrean independence (1993) it was the main port for N Ethiopia and is linked by rail with Asmara. Agreement...

Browse by Subject