Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

185 results found

Mekas, Jonas

(Encyclopedia)Mekas, Jonas, 1922–2019, Lithuanian-American avant-garde filmmaker, critic, and journalist. During and after World War II, he and his younger brother, Adolfus, were interned in labor and displaced-p...

Moore's Law

(Encyclopedia)Moore's Law, a projection of semiconductor manufacturing trends made by Gordon E. Moore, cofounder of the Intel Corp., in a 1965 magazine article. He observed that the number of transistors per square...

Terry, Dame Ellen Alicia

(Encyclopedia)Terry, Dame Ellen Alicia, 1848–1928, English actress. Of a prominent theatrical family, she made her debut at nine as Mamillius in Charles Kean's production of The Winter's Tale. She played juvenile...

Pasolini, Pier Paolo

(Encyclopedia)Pasolini, Pier Paolo pyĕr päˈōlō päsōlēˈnē [key], 1922–75, Italian writer and film director. A former Roman Catholic and a Marxist, Pasolini brought to his work a combination of religious ...

Catholic Emancipation

(Encyclopedia)Catholic Emancipation, term applied to the process by which Roman Catholics in the British Isles were relieved in the late 18th and early 19th cent. of civil disabilities. They had been under oppressi...

Venturi, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Venturi, Robert, 1925–2018, American architect and architectural theorist, b. Philadelphia, grad. Princeton (B.A., 1947; M.F.A., 1950). An important and highly influential theorist, Venturi inveighe...

equestrianism

(Encyclopedia)equestrianism, art of riding and handling a horse. Horseback riding was practiced as far back as the Bronze Age and was thereafter adapted to commerce, industry, war, sport, and recreation. Diverse st...

Sondheim, Stephen Joshua

(Encyclopedia)Sondheim, Stephen Joshua sôndˈhīm [key], 1930–2021, American composer and lyricist, b. New York City. ...

Dickinson, Emily

(Encyclopedia)Dickinson, Emily, 1830–86, American poet, b. Amherst, Mass. She is widely considered one of the greatest poets in American literature. Her unique, gemlike lyrics are distillations of profound feelin...

Blair, Tony

(Encyclopedia)Blair, Tony (Anthony Charles Lynton Blair), 1953–, British politician, b. Edinburgh. An Oxford-educated lawyer, he was first elected to Parliament in 1983 as the Labour party candidate from a distri...