Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

452 results found

Æthelred, king of Wessex

(Encyclopedia)Æthelred ĕˈthəlrĕd, ăˈ– [key], d.871, king of Wessex (865–71), son of Æthelwulf and brother of Alfred. He succeeded his brother Æthelbert as king of Wessex and as overlord of Kent and pos...

Du Pont, Pierre Samuel

(Encyclopedia)Du Pont, Pierre Samuel, 1870–1954, American industrialist, b. Wilmington, Del., grad. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1890. Du Pont worked as a chemist with the family's company, helping to d...

Athelney, Isle of

(Encyclopedia)Athelney, Isle of ăthˈəlnē [key], small area formerly surrounded by marshland, Somerset, SW England. King Alfred took refuge from the Danes there in 878 and founded a Benedictine abbey in 888. Rel...

Teutoburg Forest

(Encyclopedia)Teutoburg Forest, Ger. Teutoburger Wald, hilly range, in NW Germany, stretching roughly between Osnabrück and Paderborn. It is forested, and it rises to 1,465 ft (447 m) S of Detmold. Near Detmold is...

Elizabeth, queen of Romania

(Encyclopedia)Elizabeth, 1843–1916, queen of Romania, consort of King Carol I, whom she married in 1869. Of German birth, she was the daughter of Hermann, prince of Wied. She completely identified herself with he...

Brugmann, Karl

(Encyclopedia)Brugmann, Karl kärl bro͝okˈmän [key], 1849–1919, German philologist. A professor at Leipzig, Brugmann believed that scientific rules of linguistics do not admit of exceptions. With the help of o...

Davenport, Herbert Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Davenport, Herbert Joseph, 1861–1931, American economist, b. Wilmington, Vt., Ph.D. Univ. of Chicago, 1898. He taught at the Univ. of Missouri and at Cornell. In Value and Distribution (1908) and Th...

Lear, Norman

(Encyclopedia)Lear, Norman, 1922–2023, American television and film producer, director, and writer, b. New Haven, Conn. He wrote for comedians and television shows ...

Harvey, Fred

(Encyclopedia)Harvey, Fred (Frederick Henry Harvey), 1835–1901, Anglo-American entrepreneur and restauranteur, the father of America's hospitality industry, b. London. He sailed to New York City in 1850, worked i...

Browse by Subject