Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Chimborazo

(Encyclopedia)Chimborazo chēmbōräˈsō [key], inactive volcano, 20,577 ft (6,272 m) high, central Ecuador; the highest in Ecuador. Its summit is always snowcapped. First explored by Alexander von Humboldt in 180...

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...

Grange, Red

(Encyclopedia)Grange, Red (Harold Edward Grange), 1903–91, American football player, b. Forksville, Pa. Grange was All-America halfback at the Univ. of Illinois (1923–25). After a spectacular college career in ...

Haakon VII

(Encyclopedia)Haakon VII, 1872–1957, king of Norway (1905–57). Formerly Prince Charles, second son of King Frederick VIII of Denmark, he was elected by the Storting to the throne on the separation of Norway fro...

Havering

(Encyclopedia)Havering hāˈvərĭng [key], outer borough of Greater London, SE England. The borough is largely ...

Hawkwood, Sir John de

(Encyclopedia)Hawkwood, Sir John de, d. 1394, English soldier. He fought in the French wars of Edward III and was knighted, although it is not known when or where. With his “white company” of mercenaries, he en...

Bridewell

(Encyclopedia)Bridewell brīdˈwəl [key], area in London, England, between Fleet St. and the Thames River. The Bridewell house of correction, demolished in 1863, was on the site of a palace built under Henry VIII ...

Cadalso, José de

(Encyclopedia)Cadalso, José de hōsāˈ dā käᵺälˈsō [key], 1741–82, Spanish poet, critic, and satirist. Cadalso's rhapsodic prose autobiography, Noches lúgubres (1798), probably suggested by Edward Young...

Pictou

(Encyclopedia)Pictou pĭkˈto͞o, pĭkto͞oˈ [key], town (1991 pop. 4,134), N N.S., Canada, on Pictou Harbour, an inlet of Northumberland Strait. It is a lobster-fishing port and the terminal of a ferry to Prince ...

Winslow, Josiah

(Encyclopedia)Winslow, Josiah, c.1629–1680, American governor of Plymouth Colony, b. Plymouth, Mass.; son of Edward Winslow. Educated at Harvard, he was an assistant of the Plymouth Colony (1657–73) and then go...

Browse by Subject