Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Oswego, city, United States

(Encyclopedia)Oswego ŏswēˈgō [key], city (1990 pop. 19,195), seat of Oswego co., N central N.Y., on Lake Ontario and the Oswego River; founded 1722, inc. as a city 1848. The largest U.S. port on Lake Ontario, i...

Burlington, cities, United States

(Encyclopedia)Burlington. 1 City (2020 pop. 23,982), seat of Des Moines co., SE Iowa, on four hills overlooking the Mississippi (spanned there by rail and highway ...

Missouri Compromise

(Encyclopedia)Missouri Compromise, 1820–21, measures passed by the U.S. Congress to end the first of a series of crises concerning the extension of slavery. By 1818, Missouri Territory had gained sufficient popul...

Duane, William John

(Encyclopedia)Duane, William John, 1780–1865, U.S. Secretary of Treasury (June–Sept., 1833), b. Clonmel, Ireland. He emigrated (1796) to Philadelphia with his father, William Duane (1760–1835), and assisted h...

Space Force, United States

(Encyclopedia)Space Force, United States (USSF), military force that forms a separate service within the U.S. Dept. of the Air Force, est. Dec. 20, 2019, by act of Congress. The head of the Space Force is the Chief...

Mellon Foundation

(Encyclopedia)Mellon Foundation, officially the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, philanthropic trust formed (1969) through the merger of the Avalon Foundation (est. 1940 by Ailsa Mellon Bruce) and the Old Dominion Foun...

Yakima, city, United States

(Encyclopedia)Yakima yăkˈəmô, –mə [key], city (1990 pop. 54,827), seat of Yakima co., S central Wash., on the Yakima River just below its confluence with the Naches; inc. 1886. It is the trade and shipping c...

American Federation of Teachers

(Encyclopedia)American Federation of Teachers (AFT), an affiliate of the AFL-CIO. It was formed (1916) out of the belief that the organizing of teachers should follow the model of a labor union, rather than that of...

bed and breakfast

(Encyclopedia)bed and breakfast (B&B or BnB), small business that offers guests rooms and breakfast, usually in a private home or apartment. In a B&B, service and meal preparation is typically provided by t...

Communist party, in the United States

(Encyclopedia)Communist party, in the United States, political party that espoused the Marxist-Leninist principles of communism. In 1945, Browder's policy was attacked as being one of the “right deviationism,�...

Browse by Subject