Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

melodrama

(Encyclopedia)melodrama [Gr.,=song-drama], originally a spoken text with musical background, as in Greek drama. The form was popular in the 18th cent., when its composers included Georg Benda, J. J. Rousseau, and W...

Lofoten and Vesterålen

(Encyclopedia)Lofoten vĕstˈərôlən [key], two contiguous island groups (1995 est. pop. 56,700), Nordland and Troms counties, NW Norway, in the Norwegian Sea. Situated within the Arctic Circle, the islands exten...

Kurosawa, Akira

(Encyclopedia)Kurosawa, Akira äkēˈrä ko͞orōˈsäwä [key], 1910–98, Japanese film director, scriptwriter, and producer, b. Tokyo. He is regarded as one of the world's greatest directors. In Rashomon (1950),...

Streep, Meryl

(Encyclopedia)Streep, Meryl, 1949–, American actress, b. Summit, N.J., as Mary Louise Streep. She attended Yale Drama School and appeared in many Broadway and off-Broadway productions during the early 1970s. Movi...

Sutter, John Augustus

(Encyclopedia)Sutter, John Augustus, 1803–80, American pioneer, b. Kandern, Baden, of Swiss parents. His original name was Johann August Suter. He emigrated to the United States in 1834, went to St. Louis, then t...

Udall, Stewart Lee

(Encyclopedia)Udall, Stewart Lee yo͞oˈdôl [key], 1920–2010, U.S. cabinet member and environmentalist, b. St. Johns, Ariz. After serving in World War II, Udall practiced law in Tucson until elected to the U.S. ...

Dickinson, Edwin Walter

(Encyclopedia)Dickinson, Edwin Walter, 1891–1978, American painter, b. Seneca Falls, N.Y. He studied in New York City with William Merritt Chase, and spent most of his life on Cape Cod. Working during the moderni...

Diem, Ngo Dinh

(Encyclopedia)Diem, Ngo Dinh nō dĭn dyĕm [key], 1901–63, president of South Vietnam (1955–63). A member of an influential Roman Catholic family, he was a civil servant before World War II and was connected w...

Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani

(Encyclopedia)Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, 1952–, emir of Qatar (1995–2013). The son of Emir Khalifa bin Hamad al-Thani, Hamad is credited with having turned a country of desert nomads into a modern, industriali...

Milstein, César

(Encyclopedia)Milstein, César, 1927–2002, Anglo-Argentine immunologist, Ph.D. Cambridge, 1960. He worked (1961–63) at the National Institute of Microbiology, Buenos Aires, but following a military coup he resi...