Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Chopin, Kate O'Flaherty

(Encyclopedia)Chopin, Kate O'Flaherty shōˌpănˈ [key], 1851–1904, American author, b. St. Louis. Of Creole-Irish descent, she married (1870) a Louisiana businessman and lived with him in Natchitoches parish an...

Gilbreth, Frank Bunker

(Encyclopedia)Gilbreth, Frank Bunker, 1868–1924, b. Fairfield, Me., and his wife, Lillian Moller Gilbreth, 1878–1972, b. Oakland, Calif., pioneering American industrial engineers. He was a largely self-taught e...

Turner, Nat

(Encyclopedia)Turner, Nat, 1800–1831, American slave, leader of the Southampton Insurrection (1831), b. Southampton co., Va. Deeply religious from childhood, Turner...

Pareto, Vilfredo

(Encyclopedia)Pareto, Vilfredo vēlfrĕˈdō pärĕˈtō [key], 1848–1923, Italian economist and sociologist, b. Paris, of an exiled noble family that returned to Italy in 1858. He studied mathematics and enginee...

passive resistance

(Encyclopedia)passive resistance a method of nonviolent protest against laws or policies in order to force a change or secure concessions; it is also known as nonviolent resistance and is the main tactic of civil d...

Fredericksburg, battle of

(Encyclopedia)Fredericksburg, battle of, in the Civil War, fought Dec. 13, 1862, at Fredericksburg, Va. In Nov., 1862, the Union general Ambrose Burnside moved his three “grand divisions” under W. B. Franklin, ...

Holbrook, Hal

(Encyclopedia) Holbrook, Hal (Harold Rowe, Jr.), 1925-2021, American actor, b. Cleveland, Oh. (Denison Univ., BA, 1947). Holbrook was raised by his grandparents in S...

Douglas, Donald Wills

(Encyclopedia)Douglas, Donald Wills, 1892–1981, aviation pioneer and aerospace executive, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., B.S. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1914. He helped design the first wind tunnel (1914–15) an...

White, Charles

(Encyclopedia)White, Charles (Charles Wilbert White, Jr.), 1918–79, American figurative painter, printmaker, and teacher, b. Chicago, studied School of the Art Institute of Chicago. A left-leaning activist whose ...

Pierce, Franklin

(Encyclopedia)Pierce, Franklin, 1804–69, 14th President of the United States (1853–57), b. Hillsboro, N.H., grad. Bowdoin College, 1824. Admitted to the bar in 1827, he entered politics as a Jacksonian Democrat...