Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Sweet, Henry

(Encyclopedia)Sweet, Henry, 1845–1912, English philologist and phonetician. An authority on Anglo-Saxon and the history of the English language, Sweet was also a pioneer in modern scientific phonetics. His Histor...

Henry the Navigator

(Encyclopedia)Henry the Navigator, 1394–1460, prince of Portugal, patron of exploration. Because he fought with extraordinary valor in the Portuguese conquest of Ceuta (1415), he was created duke of Viseu by his ...

McCoy, Joseph Geating

(Encyclopedia)McCoy, Joseph Geating, 1837–1915, American cattle-trade pioneer, b. Sangamon co., Ill. He selected Abilene, Kans., as the site for a railroad shipping center for the marketing of Western cattle. In ...

Davenport, Herbert Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Davenport, Herbert Joseph, 1861–1931, American economist, b. Wilmington, Vt., Ph.D. Univ. of Chicago, 1898. He taught at the Univ. of Missouri and at Cornell. In Value and Distribution (1908) and Th...

Derwinski, Edward Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Derwinski, Edward Joseph,1926–2012, U.S. politican and government official, b. Chicago. After serving in the army during World War II, he graduated (1951) from Loyola Univ., Chicago, and was preside...

Greenberg, Joseph Harold

(Encyclopedia)Greenberg, Joseph Harold, 1915–2001, American anthropological linguist, b. New York City, grad. Columbia (A.B., 1936) and Northwestern Univ. (Ph.D., 1940). He was a professor of anthropology at Colu...

Spellman, Francis Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Spellman, Francis Joseph, 1889–1967, American Roman Catholic cardinal, b. Whitman, Mass. Educated at Fordham and the American College at Rome, he was ordained May 14, 1916. He was a parish priest in...

Le Bel, Joseph Achille

(Encyclopedia)Le Bel, Joseph Achille zhôsĕfˈ äshēlˈ ləbĕl [key], 1847–1930, French chemist. He was educated at the École polytechnique and carried out much of his research in his own private laboratory. ...

Debye, Peter Joseph Wilhelm

(Encyclopedia)Debye, Peter Joseph Wilhelm dēbīˈ [key], 1884–1966, American physicist, b. the Netherlands. He was professor at the universities of Zürich, Utrecht, Göttingen, Leipzig, and Berlin. In 1940 he c...

MacCracken, Henry Mitchell

(Encyclopedia)MacCracken, Henry Mitchell, 1840–1918, American educator, b. Oxford, Ohio, grad. Miami Univ. (Ohio), 1857. After a brief teaching career MacCracken entered the Presbyterian ministry in 1863. From 18...

Browse by Subject