Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

333 results found

Chaldaea

(Encyclopedia)Chaldaea or Chaldea both: kăldēˈə [key], properly the southernmost portion of the valley of the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. Sometimes it is extended to include Babylonia and thus comprises al...

Duffy, Sir Charles Gavan

(Encyclopedia)Duffy, Sir Charles Gavan, 1816–1903, Irish-Australian statesman. He founded (1842) the Nation, a patriotic Irish literary journal. Duffy agitated for the repeal of the union of Ireland and England, ...

Adams, Doc

(Encyclopedia)Adams, Doc (Daniel Lucius Adams), 1814–1899, American baseball player and team executive, b. Mont Vernon, N.H., grad. Yale (1835), Harvard Medical School (1838). After working in his father's medica...

Pembroke, William Herbert, 3d earl of

(Encyclopedia)Pembroke, William Herbert, 3d earl of, 1580–1630, English courtier and patron of letters. Son of Mary Herbert, countess of Pembroke, and nephew of Sir Philip Sidney, he was tutored by the poet Samue...

Binney, Horace

(Encyclopedia)Binney, Horace, 1780–1875, American lawyer, b. Philadelphia. A leading lawyer in Pennsylvania, Binney was appointed in 1808 a director of the First Bank of the United States. He served in Congress f...

Black Hand

(Encyclopedia)Black Hand, symbol and name for a criminal and terroristic secret society, and especially associated with the Mafia and the Camorra. The Black Hand flourished in Sicily in the late 19th cent., and in ...

Revelation

(Encyclopedia)Revelation or Apocalypse əpŏkˈəlĭps [key], the last book of the New Testament. It was written c.a.d. 95 on Patmos Island off the coast of Asia Minor by an exile named John, in the wake of local p...

Middleton, Conyers

(Encyclopedia)Middleton, Conyers, 1683–1750, English clergyman, one of the earliest English rationalistic theologians. A fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, he became known through his disputes with Richard Ben...

Virginius affair

(Encyclopedia)Virginius affair, 1873, incident that came near to causing war between the United States and Spain. The Virginius, a filibustering ship, was fraudulently flying the American flag and carrying arms to ...

Tara

(Encyclopedia)Tara târˈə [key], village, Co. Meath, E Republic of Ireland. The Hill of Tara (507 ft/155 m high) was the seat of the high kings of Ireland from ancient times until the 6th cent. and may have been ...