Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

beluga

(Encyclopedia)beluga bəlo͞oˈgə [key] or white whale, small, toothed northern whale, Delphinapterus leucas. The beluga may reach a length of 19 ft (5.8 m) and a weight of 4,400 lb (2,000 kg). It has a small, rou...

Leonard, William Ellery

(Encyclopedia)Leonard, William Ellery, 1876–1944, American poet, b. Plainfield, N.J., grad. Boston Univ., 1899, Ph.D. Columbia, 1904. For many years he was professor of English at the Univ. of Wisconsin. Of his n...

Lange, Christian Louis

(Encyclopedia)Lange, Christian Louis krĭsˈtyän lo͞oˈē längˈə [key], 1869–1938, Norwegian pacifist. In his youth he joined the Young Norway movement and worked for the separation of Norway from Sweden. He...

MacKenzie, Sir Compton

(Encyclopedia)MacKenzie, Sir Compton, 1883–1972, English author, b. West Hartelpool, Durham, educated at Oxford. In Apr., 1923, he founded the Gramophone, a periodical devoted to reviewing recordings. A prolific ...

Aspen Music Festival

(Encyclopedia)Aspen Music Festival, classical music festival held annuallly each summer in Aspen, Colo. Chicagoans Walter and Elizabeth Paepcke established the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies (now the Aspen ...

Thunberg, Greta

(Encyclopedia)Thunberg, Greta, 2003–, Swedish climate activist. She came to public notice in 2018 when she encouraged students to skip school on Fridays to protest societal inaction on climate change. Through soc...

Seaver, Tom

(Encyclopedia)Seaver, Tom (George Thomas Seaver), 1944–2020, American baseball pitcher and sportscaster, b. Fresno, Calif. During his career (1967–86), he won a total of 311 games for the New York Mets, Cincinn...

Abed-nego

(Encyclopedia)Abed-nego əbĕdˈnēgō [key], in the Book of Daniel, one of the Three Young Men, educated with Daniel in the court of Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. With his three companions, Abed-nego was thrown into ...

Despiau, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Despiau, Charles shärl dāpēōˈ [key], 1874–1946, French sculptor. He studied at the École des Arts décoratifs and the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and worked in Rodin's studio (1907–14). Hi...

graveyard school

(Encyclopedia)graveyard school, 18th-century school of English poets who wrote primarily about human mortality. Often set in a graveyard, their poems mused on the vicissitudes of life, the solitude of death and the...

Browse by Subject