Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Hamilton, Sir William Rowan

(Encyclopedia)Hamilton, Sir William Rowan, 1805–65, Irish mathematician and astronomer, b. Dublin. A child prodigy, he had mastered 13 languages by the age of 13 and was still an undergraduate when he became prof...

Baylor University

(Encyclopedia)Baylor University, mainly at Waco, Tex.; coeducational; chartered and opened 1845 by Baptists (see Baylor, Robert E. B.) at Independence, moved 1886 and absorbed Waco Univ. (chartered 1861). The libra...

Bean, Roy

(Encyclopedia)Bean, Roy, c.1825–1903, legendary American frontier judge, b. Mason co., Ky. He left Kentucky in 1847 to seek his fortune in California. Soon, however, he was managing a trading post in Chihuahua, M...

Birney, James Gillespie

(Encyclopedia)Birney, James Gillespie bûrˈnē [key], 1792–1857, American abolitionist, b. Danville, Ky. He practiced law at Danville from 1814 to 1818, before he moved to Alabama, where he served one term in th...

North Braddock

(Encyclopedia)North Braddock, borough (1990 pop. 7,036), Allegheny co., W Pa., a suburb of Pittsburgh, on the Monongahela River; inc. 1897. Andrew Carnegie's first steel plant was built there in 1875. The borough w...

Mello, Craig Cameron

(Encyclopedia)Mello, Craig Cameron, 1960–, American geneticist, b. New Haven, Conn., Ph.D. Harvard, 1990. Mello has been on the faculty at the Univ. of Massachusetts since 1994. In 2006 Mello and Andrew Fire were...

McDuffie, George

(Encyclopedia)McDuffie, George, 1790–1851, American politician, b. Columbia co., Ga. He was a member of the South Carolina legislature and served (1821–34) in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he quickly...

McIntosh, William

(Encyclopedia)McIntosh, William măkˈəntŏshˌ [key], c.1775–1825, Native American chief, b. in the Creek country now within the limits of Carroll co., Ga.; son of a British army officer and a Creek woman. Frie...

Chew, Benjamin

(Encyclopedia)Chew, Benjamin, 1722–1810, American public official and judge, b. Anne Arundel co., Md. He read law in Philadelphia under Andrew Hamilton and was admitted (1746) to the bar. After practicing law at ...

Grundy, Felix

(Encyclopedia)Grundy, Felix, 1777–1840, American political leader, b. Berkeley co., Va. After a successful career in Kentucky, he moved to Nashville, Tenn., where he became a noted criminal lawyer. A member (1811...

Browse by Subject