Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Ward, John Quincy Adams

(Encyclopedia)Ward, John Quincy Adams, 1830–1910, American sculptor, b. Urbana, Ohio. He was trained under H. K. Brown, whom he assisted in the execution of the equestrian statue of George Washington in New York ...

catamaran

(Encyclopedia)catamaran kătˌəmərănˈ [key], watercraft made up of two connected hulls or a single hull with two parallel keels. Originally used by the natives of Polynesia, the catamaran design was adopted by ...

Franklin, John Hope

(Encyclopedia)Franklin, John Hope, 1915–2009, the dean of 20th-century African-American historians, b. Rentiesville, Okla., grad. Fisk Univ. (A.B., 1935), Harvard (M.A., 1936; Ph.D., 1941). Franklin served on the...

Torrington

(Encyclopedia)Torrington, city (1990 pop. 33,687), Litchfield co., NW Conn., on the Naugatuck River; inc. 1740. It is the industrial and commercial hub of NW Connecticut and is known for its metal (especially brass...

Hay, John Milton

(Encyclopedia)Hay, John Milton, 1838–1905, American author and statesman who was an important political figure from the mid-19th cent. into the early 20th cent.; b. Salem, Ind., grad. Brown. He practiced law at S...

Macdonald, Sir John Alexander

(Encyclopedia)Macdonald, Sir John Alexander, 1815–91, Canadian statesman, first prime minister of the Dominion of Canada, b. Glasgow. His parents settled in 1820 in Kingston, Ont. Macdonald first practiced law. W...

Booth, John Wilkes

(Encyclopedia)Booth, John Wilkes wĭlks [key], 1838–65, American actor, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln, b. near Bel Air, Md.; son of Junius Brutus Booth and brother of Edwin Booth. He made his stage debut at the...

Harpers Ferry

(Encyclopedia)Harpers Ferry, town (2020 pop. 285), Jefferson co., easternmost W Va., at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers; inc. 1763. The town is a ...

Doulton ware

(Encyclopedia)Doulton ware dōlˈtən [key], English pottery produced at Lambeth after 1815, first by John Doulton and his partners, then by his descendants. It won the medal at the Exhibition of 1851 and more than...

Plessy v. Ferguson

(Encyclopedia)Plessy v. Ferguson, case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1896. The court upheld an 1890 Louisiana statute mandating racially segregated but equal railroad carriages, ruling that the equal protect...

Browse by Subject