Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Westphalia

(Encyclopedia)Westphalia wĕstfālˈyə [key], Ger. Westfalen, region and former province of Prussia, W Germany. Münster was the capital of the province. After 1945 the province was incorporated into the West Germ...

Garrison, William Lloyd

(Encyclopedia)Garrison, William Lloyd, 1805–79, American abolitionist, b. Newburyport, Mass. He supplemented his limited schooling with newspaper work and in 1829 went to Baltimore to aid Benjamin Lundy in publis...

European Commission

(Encyclopedia)European Commission (EC), institution of the European Union (EU) invested with executive powers; it also is the main EU institution that initiates legislation. Located in Brussels, Belgium, it was fou...

sentence

(Encyclopedia)sentence, in criminal law, punishment that a court orders, imposed on a person convicted of criminal activity. Sentences typically consist of fines, corporal punishment, imprisonment for varying perio...

president

(Encyclopedia)president, in modern republics, the chief executive and, therefore, the highest officer in a government. Many nations of the world, including the United States, France, Germany, India, and the majorit...

states' rights

(Encyclopedia)states' rights, in U.S. history, doctrine based on the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to ...

Meuse, river, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands

(Encyclopedia)Meuse myo͞oz, Fr. möz [key], Du. Maas, river, c.560 mi (900 km) long, rising in the Langres Plateau, NE France and flowing N past Sedan (the head of navigation) and Charleville-Mézières into S Bel...

Munro, Alice

(Encyclopedia)Munro, Alice, 1931–, Canadian writer, b. Wingham, Ont., as Alice Ann Laidlaw. Much acclaimed as one of the finest contemporary short-story writers, Munro is known for quiet, insightfully realistic, ...

Amman

(Encyclopedia)Amman ämänˈ [key], city (1997 est. pop. 1,415,000), capital of Jordan, N central Jordan, on the Jabbok (Wadi Zerka) River. Jordan's largest city and industrial and commercial heart, it is also a tr...

Jordan, river, Asia

(Encyclopedia)Jordan, river, c.200 mi (320 km) long, formed in the Hula basin, N Israel, by the confluence of three headwater streams and meandering S through the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea; the region of Pales...