Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Berry, Martha McChesney

(Encyclopedia)Berry, Martha McChesney, 1866–1942, American educator and philanthropist, b. near Rome, Ga., Ph.D. Univ. of Georgia, 1920. Determined to provide educational opportunities for underprivileged mountai...

Bethune-Cookman College

(Encyclopedia)Bethune-Cookman College, at Daytona Beach, Fla.; United Methodist; coeducational. Named for its founder and first president, Mary McCleod Bethune, the school was formed as a result of a merger (1923) ...

Bradley, Tom

(Encyclopedia)Bradley, Tom (Thomas Bradley), 1917–98, African-American politician, b. Calvert, Tex. A sharecropper's son who became (1940) a Los Angeles police officer, he earned (1956) a law degree from Southwes...

obelisk

(Encyclopedia)obelisk ŏbˈəlĭsk [key], slender four-sided tapering monument, usually hewn of a single great piece of stone, terminating in a pointed or pyramidal top. Among the ancient Egyptians these monoliths ...

shuffleboard

(Encyclopedia)shuffleboard, sport in which players use cue sticks to push disks onto a scoring diagram at either end of a concrete or terrazzo court. The court is 52 ft (15.85 m) long and 6 ft (1.83 m) wide. The ba...

Fathers of the Church

(Encyclopedia)Fathers of the Church, collective name for the Christian writers of early times whose work is considered generally orthodox. A convenient definition includes all such writers up to and including St. G...

Brady, Tom

(Encyclopedia)Brady, Tom (Thomas Edward Patrick Brady, Jr.), 1977–, American football player, b. San Mateo, Calif. One of the greatest professional quarterbacks of all time, he attended the Univ. of Michigan (199...

Mabinogion

(Encyclopedia)Mabinogion măbĭnōˈgēən [key], title given to a collection of medieval Welsh stories. Scholars differ as to the meaning of the word mabinogion: some think it to be the plural of the Welsh word ma...

Little Sioux

(Encyclopedia)Little Sioux so͞o [key], river, 221 mi (356 km) long, rising in SW Minn. and flowing generally SW across NW Iowa to the Missouri River S of Sioux City. Flowing through a rich agricultural area in the...

Montreux Jazz Festival

(Encyclopedia)Montreux Jazz Festival, international music festival held in Montreux, Switzerland, founded in 1967 by Chuck Nobs. Held annually for two weeks in July, it began as a purely jazz event and has evolved ...

Browse by Subject