Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Sumner, William Graham

(Encyclopedia)Sumner, William Graham, 1840–1910, American sociologist and political economist, b. Paterson, N.J., grad. Yale, 1863, and studied in Germany, in Switzerland, and at Oxford. He was ordained an Episco...

Alice

(Encyclopedia)Alice, city (2020 pop. 17,891), seat of Jim Wells co., S Tex.; inc. 1910. Long a cow town at a railroad junction, Alice remains a cattle-shipping center. Oil and natural gas are also impor...

Pharr

(Encyclopedia)Pharr fär [key], city (1990 pop. 32,921), Hidalgo co., extreme S Tex.; inc. 1916. It is located in the irrigated region of the lower Rio Grande valley. Transportation equipment and concrete blocks ar...

Burkburnett

(Encyclopedia)Burkburnett bûrkbərnĕtˈ [key], city (2020 pop. 10,939), Wichita co., N Tex., near the Okla. line; ...

Valois, Dame Ninette de

(Encyclopedia)Valois, Dame Ninette de vălˈwä [key], 1898–2001, English ballet director, b. County Wicklow, Ireland. She was originally named Edris Stannus. After attaining distinction as a dancer, most notably...

Filmer, Sir Robert

(Encyclopedia)Filmer, Sir Robert, d. 1653, English royalist political writer, author of Patriarcha; or, The Natural Power of Kings (pub. posthumously in 1680), a defense of the divine right of monarchs by an exposi...

Ramanujan, Srinivasa

(Encyclopedia)Ramanujan, Srinivasa shrēˌnĭväˈsə rämäˈno͝ojən [key], 1889–1920, Indian mathematician. He was a self-taught genius in pure mathematics who made original contributions to function theory, ...

Verga, Giovanni

(Encyclopedia)Verga, Giovanni jōvänˈnē vĕrˈgä [key], 1840–1922, Italian novelist, b. Sicily. He abandoned the study of law for literature and wrote several novels of passion in the style of the French real...

Wye

(Encyclopedia)Wye, river, c.130 mi (210 km) long, rising on Plynlimon Mt., W Wales, and flowing generally SE past Builth Wells (Wales), Hereford (England), and Monmouth (Wales) to the estuary of the Severn River. I...

Wilson, Colin

(Encyclopedia)Wilson, Colin, 1931–2013, English writer, b. Leicester. Born into a working-class family and largely self-educated, Wilson in many of his books exhorts humankind to expand its powers and realize its...