Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

MacNeice, Louis

(Encyclopedia)MacNeice, Louis məknēsˈ [key], 1907–63, Irish poet b. Belfast. Educated at Oxford, he became a classical scholar and teacher and later was a producer and traveled the world for the British Broadc...

Merton, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Merton, Thomas, 1915–68, American religious writer and poet, b. France. He grew up in France, England, and the United States and studied at Cambridge and at Columbia (B.A., 1938; M.A., 1939). Conver...

Armstrong, Louis

(Encyclopedia)Armstrong, Louis (Daniel Louis Armstrong), known as “Satchmo” and “Pops,” 1901–1971, American jazz trumpet virtuoso, singer, and bandleader, b. New Orleans. He learned to play the cornet in ...

laetrile

(Encyclopedia)laetrile lāˈətrĭlˌ [key], name given to the chemical amygdalin, a substance derived from an extract of the kernels of many fruits, notably apricots, bitter almonds, and peaches. The idea that lae...

Powell, Dawn

(Encyclopedia)Powell, Dawn, 1896–1965, American novelist, b. Mt. Gilead, Ohio. She came to New York City in 1918 and settled several years later in Greenwich Village, where she spent most of the rest of her life ...

DeLillo, Don

(Encyclopedia)DeLillo, Don dəlĭlˈō [key], 1936–, American novelist, b. New York City, grad. Fordham (1958). DeLillo is an accomplished prose stylist with a dark vision and mordant wit. In a steady stream of n...

Bloomer, Amelia Jenks

(Encyclopedia)Bloomer, Amelia Jenks, 1818–94, American reformer, b. Homer, N.Y. She was editor (1848–54) of the Lily, first published in Seneca Falls, N.Y., and devoted to women's rights and to temperance. In 1...

Stone, Barton Warren

(Encyclopedia)Stone, Barton Warren, 1772–1844, American clergyman of Kentucky. With four other ministers he withdrew from the Presbyterian Church and in 1804 began to form new churches whose members called themse...

War of 1812

(Encyclopedia)War of 1812, armed conflict between the United States and Great Britain, 1812–15. It followed a period of great stress between the two nations as a result of the treatment of neutral countries by bo...

Copahue

(Encyclopedia)Copahue, active volcano, 9,688 ft (2,953 m) high, on the central Argentina-Chile border. A stratovolcano (see volcano) consisting of an elongated composite cone with nine craters extending along a 1.2...