Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Thompson, Jacob

(Encyclopedia)Thompson, Jacob, 1810–85, U.S. Representative (1839–51) and Secretary of the Interior (1857–61), b. Caswell co., N.C. Thompson was a prosperous lawyer and prominent Democrat of Oxford, Miss. He ...

Richards, Thomas Addison

(Encyclopedia)Richards, Thomas Addison, 1820–1900, American landscape painter, illustrator, and author, b. London. He emigrated to the United States in 1831. Richards organized and was first director of the Schoo...

Scherchen, Hermann

(Encyclopedia)Scherchen, Hermann hĕrˈmän shĕrˈkhĕn [key], 1891–1966, German conductor. Scherchen was largely self-taught. He played viola in the Berlin Philharmonic (1907–10) and made his debut there as a...

Schimper, Karl Friedric

(Encyclopedia)Schimper, Karl Friedric shĭmˈpər [key], 1803–67, German botanist. He did important work in plant morphology and originated the theory, called phyllotaxis, that there is a fixed order to the arran...

colophon

(Encyclopedia)colophon kŏlˈəfŏnˌ [key] [Gr.,=finishing stroke]. Before the use of printing in Western Europe a manuscript often ended with a statement about the author, the scribe, or the illuminator. The firs...

Crystal Palace

(Encyclopedia)Crystal Palace, building designed by Sir Joseph Paxton and erected in Hyde Park, London, for the Great Exhibition in 1851. In 1854 it was removed to Sydenham, where, until its damage by fire in 1936, ...

Chinchón, Luis Jerónimo Fernández de Cabrera Bobadilla Cerda y Mendoza, conde de

(Encyclopedia)Chinchón, Luis Jerónimo Fernández de Cabrera Bobadilla Cerda y Mendoza, conde de lo͞oēsˈ hārōˈnēmō fārnänˈdās dā käbrāˈrä bōbäᵺēˈyä sārˈdä ē mĕndōˈsä kōnˈdā dā c...

Cioloş, Dacian Julien

(Encyclopedia)Cioloş, Dacian Julien, 1969–, Romanian agricultural engineer and political leader, Ph.D. Univ. of Montpellier, 2006. He served as Romania's minister of agriculture and rural development (2007–8) ...

cittern

(Encyclopedia)cittern sĭtˈərn [key], stringed musical instrument of the guitar family having an oval body, a flat back, and a fretted neck. Its strings, made of wire and varying in number, were plucked. It was f...

Fellenberg, Philipp Emanuel von

(Encyclopedia)Fellenberg, Philipp Emanuel von fēˈlĭp āmäˈno͞oĕl fən fĕlˈənbĕrkh [key], 1771–1844, Swiss educator and agriculturist. He purchased (1799) an estate, Hofwyl (near Bern), where he put int...