Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Phyfe, Duncan

(Encyclopedia)Phyfe, Duncan fīf [key], c.1768–1854, American cabinetmaker, b. Scotland. He emigrated to America c.1783, settling at Albany, N.Y., where he was apprenticed to a cabinetmaker. In the early 1790s he...

Turner, Nat

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

purslane

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Purslane, Portulaca oleraceae purslane, common name for some plants of the Portulaceae, a family of herbs and a few small shrubs, chiefly of the Americas. The portulacas or purslanes (genus Po...

Voznesensky, Andrei Andreyevich

(Encyclopedia)Voznesensky, Andrei Andreyevich əndrāˈ əndrāˈəvĭch vəznyəsyānˈskē [key], 1933–2010, Russian poet, b. Moscow. Voznesensky studied at the Moscow Architectural Institute and later became a...

Boulle, André Charles

(Encyclopedia)Boulle or Buhl, André Charles both: äNdrāˈ shärl bo͞ol [key], 1642–1732, French cabinetmaker, the master of a distinctive style of furniture, much imitated, for which his name has become a syn...

oceanography

(Encyclopedia)oceanography, study of the seas and oceans. The major divisions of oceanography include the geological study of the ocean floor (see plate tectonics) and features; physical oceanography, which is conc...

Livadiya

(Encyclopedia)Livadiya lyĭväˈdyēə [key], town, S Crimea near Yalta, on the Black Sea. From 1954 part of Ukraine (then the Ukrainian SSR), it passed to Russian control in 2014 after the occupation and annexatio...

Matsudaira, Tsuneo

(Encyclopedia)Matsudaira, Tsuneo tso͞onāˈō mätso͞odīˈrä [key], 1877–1949, Japanese diplomat. He was much involved in negotiations with the United States and Great Britain and as a delegate to the post–...

Gildersleeve, Virginia Crocheron

(Encyclopedia)Gildersleeve, Virginia Crocheron, 1877–1965, American educator, b. New York City, grad. Columbia (B.A., Barnard, 1899; Ph.D., 1908). She was professor of English at Barnard from 1900 to 1911, when s...

American Geographical Society

(Encyclopedia)American Geographical Society (AGS), oldest geographical society in the United States, founded 1852 in New York City. Its purpose is to advance the science of geography through discussion and publicat...