Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Jemison, Mary

(Encyclopedia)Jemison, Mary, 1743–1833, American frontierswoman. She was born at sea while her parents were en route from Ireland to America. In W Pennsylvania she was captured (1758) by a French and Indian War p...

Mycenae

(Encyclopedia)Mycenae mīsēˈnē [key], ancient city of Greece, in Argolis. In historical times it had little importance and was usually dependent on Argos. Its significance is in its remote past as a center of My...

Mun, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Mun, Thomas mŭn [key], 1571–1641, English writer on economics. A merchant in Italy and the Levant, he became (1615) a director in the East India Company. In his Discourse of Trade from England unto...

Murphy, Charles Francis

(Encyclopedia)Murphy, Charles Francis, 1858–1924, American political boss, b. New York City. He was the owner of many saloons in New York City and took a keen interest in Democratic politics. His services to Tamm...

Heaviside, Oliver

(Encyclopedia)Heaviside, Oliver hĕvˈēsīdˌ [key], 1850–1925, English physicist. He did valuable work in telephony and in the theory of electrical conduction in cables and other areas of electric theory. He su...

Habima Theater

(Encyclopedia)Habima Theater häbēˈmä [key], [Heb.,=the stage], the national theater of Israel. Founded in 1917 in Moscow by Nahum Zemach and at first affiliated with the Moscow Art Theatre, it was one of the fi...

Goodell, William

(Encyclopedia)Goodell, William go͝odĕlˈ [key], 1792–1867, American missionary in the Middle East, b. Templeton, Mass. He went in 1823, for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, to what is n...

Giraldus Cambrensis

(Encyclopedia)Giraldus Cambrensis jĭrălˈdəs kămbrĕnˈsĭs [key], c.1146–1223, Norman-Welsh churchman and historian, also called Gerald of Wales and Gerald de Barri. He was associated (from 1184) with the ki...

Gage, Thomas, English traveler

(Encyclopedia)Gage, Thomas, d. 1656, English traveler. He went (1612) to Spain to study and became a Dominican. He lived and traveled among the Native populations of Central America from 1625 to 1637, when he retur...

interlude

(Encyclopedia)interlude, development in the late 15th cent. of the English medieval morality play. Played between the acts of a long play, the interlude, treating intellectual rather than moral topics, often contai...