Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

345 results found

Louisiana Purchase

(Encyclopedia)Louisiana Purchase, 1803, American acquisition from France of the formerly Spanish region of Louisiana. Reasons for the Purchase The revelation in 1801 of the secret agreement of 1800, whereby Spain r...

Louisiana

(Encyclopedia)Louisiana lwzn´, loo– [key], state in the S central United States. It is bounded by Mississippi, with the Mississippi River forming about half of the border (E), the Gulf of Mexic...

Gadsden Purchase

(Encyclopedia)Gadsden Purchasegdz´dn, strip of land purchased (1853) by the United States from Mexico. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) had described the U.S.-Mexico boundary vaguely, and President Pierc...

Silver Purchase Act

(Encyclopedia)Silver Purchase Act: see Sherman Silver Purchase Act.

Louisiana Tech University

(Encyclopedia)Louisiana Tech University, at Ruston; coeducational; state supported; chartered 1894, opened 1895 as an industrial institute. It became Louisiana Polytechnic Institute in 1921 and attained university ...

Claiborne, William Charles Coles

(Encyclopedia)Claiborne, William Charles Coles, 1775–1817, governor of Louisiana, b. Sussex co., Va. He began law practice in Sullivan co., Tenn., and was appointed a judge of the state supreme court in 1796. As ...

West Florida Controversy

(Encyclopedia)West Florida Controversy, conflict between Spain and the United States concerning possession of Florida. By the Treaty of Paris of 1763, Britain received Florida from Spain, and from France that porti...

Sherman Silver Purchase Act

(Encyclopedia)Sherman Silver Purchase Act, 1890, passed by the U.S. Congress to supplant the Bland-Allison Act of 1878. It not only required the U.S. government to purchase nearly twice as much silver as before, bu...

Tulane University of Louisiana

(Encyclopedia)Tulane University of Louisiana tooln´, tyoo´– [key], at New Orleans; coeducational; opened 1834, chartered 1835 as a state medical college. It became the Univ. of Louisiana in 1847 but was r...

Nacogdoches

(Encyclopedia)Nacogdoches nkd´chs [key], city (1990 pop. 30,872), seat of Nacogdoches co., E Tex., in a pine and hardwood forest area; settled 1779. Industries in the city include lumbering, livestock an...