Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

King, Rufus

(Encyclopedia)King, Rufus, 1755–1827, American political leader, b. Scarboro, Maine (then a district of Massachusetts). He served briefly in the American Revolution and practiced law in Massachusetts before servi...

Lee, Fitzhugh

(Encyclopedia)Lee, Fitzhugh, 1835–1905, Confederate cavalry general in the American Civil War, b. “Clermont,” Fairfax co., Va.; nephew of Robert E. Lee. He campaigned against the Comanche in Texas and later w...

botanical garden

(Encyclopedia)botanical garden, public place in which plants are grown both for display and for scientific study. An arboretum is a botanical garden devoted chiefly to the growing of woody plants. The plants in bot...

Aleijadinho

(Encyclopedia)Aleijadinho älāzhädēˈnyō [key] [Port.,=little cripple], 1730–1814, Brazilian sculptor. His real name was Antônio Francisco Lisboa. Although he was maimed in hands and feet, he is known for th...

Curitiba

(Encyclopedia)Curitiba ko͞orētēˈbä [key], city, capital of Paraná state, SE Brazil. It was founded in ...

Hsia Kuei

(Encyclopedia)Hsia Kuei shyä gwā [key], c.1180–1230, Chinese painter of the Sung dynasty. Little is known of his life. He and his contemporary Ma Yüan were regarded as the greatest landscape painters of the da...

Frederick III, elector of Saxony

(Encyclopedia)Frederick III or Frederick the Wise, 1463–1525, elector of Saxony (1486–1525). At Wittenberg he founded (1502) the university where Martin Luther and Melanchthon taught. At a crucial period for th...

Andersson, Dan

(Encyclopedia)Andersson, Dan dän änˈdərsōnˌ [key], 1888–1920, Swedish poet, novelist, and short-story writer. Although his entire life was lived in extreme poverty, Andersson dealt in his works with religio...

Fröding, Gustaf

(Encyclopedia)Fröding, Gustaf gŭsˈtäv fröˈdĭng [key], 1860–1911, Swedish lyric poet. His first two volumes of poems, Guitar and Concertina (1891) and New Poems (1894), both translated into English in 1925,...

Fletcher, John Gould

(Encyclopedia)Fletcher, John Gould, 1886–1950, American poet, b. Little Rock, Ark., educated (1903–7) at Harvard. After traveling throughout Europe, he became a leader of the imagists in England. His early coll...

Browse by Subject