Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

161 results found

Muhlenberg, William Augustus

(Encyclopedia)Muhlenberg, William Augustus myo͞oˈlənbûrg [key], 1796–1877, American Episcopal clergyman, hymn writer, and philanthropist, b. Philadelphia. He was a great-grandson of Heinrich Melchior Mühlenb...

Wittstock

(Encyclopedia)Wittstock vĭtˈshtôk [key], town, Brandenburg, NE Germany. Manufactures include woolen textiles, machinery, and forest products. At Wittstock in 1636 the Swedes under Baner defeated the Saxon and im...

Buyoya, Pierre

(Encyclopedia)Buyoya, Pierre, 1949–2020, Burundian political leader. An ethnic Tutsi, he had a successful military career before he overthrew President Jean-Baptiste Bagaza and became president of a Tutsi-led mil...

Wise Men of the East

(Encyclopedia)Wise Men of the East, Magi, or Three Kings, men who came from the East to adore the newborn Jesus. Mat. 2. They were the first to tell Herod of the birth. A star (the Star of Bethlehem) had been a si...

Lowie, Robert Harry

(Encyclopedia)Lowie, Robert Harry, or Robert Heinrich Lowie lōˈē [key], 1883–1957, American anthropologist, b. Vienna, grad. College of the City of New York, 1901, Ph.D. Columbia, 1908. He was on the staff of ...

Rose, Gustav

(Encyclopedia)Rose, Gustav go͝osˈtäf rōˈzə [key], 1798–1873, German mineralogist. He served as professor at the Univ. of Berlin from 1839. Noted especially as a crystallographer, he advanced the scientific ...

hertz

(Encyclopedia)hertz hûrts [key] [for Heinrich R. Hertz], abbr. Hz, unit of frequency, equal to 1 cycle per second. The term is combined with metric prefixes to denote multiple units such as the kilohertz (1,000 Hz...

Hartmann von Aue

(Encyclopedia)Hartmann von Aue härtˈmän fən ouˈə [key], c.1170–c.1220, German poet whose name is also spelled von Ouwe. His chivalric romances Erec and Iwain are tales of Arthurian legend. Other works inclu...

Neruda, Jan

(Encyclopedia)Neruda, Jan yän nĕˈro͝odä [key], 1834–91, Czech essayist and poet, b. Prague. His popular Stories from Malá Strana (1878), tales drawn from his childhood in Prague and satiric portraits of mem...

Browse by Subject