Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Conway of Allington, William Martin Conway, 1st Baron

(Encyclopedia)Conway of Allington, William Martin Conway, 1st Baron, 1856–1937, English explorer, art historian, and writer. Conway filled several university positions and in 1918–31 represented the combined En...

Hani, Martin Thembisile

(Encyclopedia)Hani, Chris 1942–1993, anti-apartheid activist, politician, and soldier. A legendary figure in South African history and a key participant in the ...

Beeson, Jack

(Encyclopedia)Beeson, Jack, 1921–2010, American composer, b. Muncie, Ind. Beeson studied at the Eastman School of Music and privately in New York with Béla Bartók. Teaching at Columbia from 1945, he was named M...

Marcuse, Herbert

(Encyclopedia)Marcuse, Herbert märko͞oˈzə [key], 1898–1979, U.S. political philosopher, b. Berlin. He was educated at the Univ. of Freiburg and with Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer founded the Frankfurt In...

Tallapoosa

(Encyclopedia)Tallapoosa, river, 268 mi (431 km) long, rising in NW Ga. and flowing SW through E Ala.; joins the Coosa River near Montgomery, Ala., to form the Alabama River. Martin, Thurlow, and Yates dams provide...

Hernández, José

(Encyclopedia)Hernández, José hōsāˈ ārnänˈdĕs [key], 1834–86, Argentine poet, journalist, and soldier. Hernández lived in the pampas as a child. He was the author of the national classic of gaucho liter...

King, Coretta Scott

(Encyclopedia)King, Coretta Scott, 1927–2006, American civil-rights leader, b. Heiberger, Ala.; the wife (1953–68) of Martin Luther King, Jr. After her husband's assassination, she carried on his civil-rights w...

Marprelate controversy

(Encyclopedia)Marprelate controversy märˈprĕlˌĭt [key], a 16th-century English religious argument. Martin Marprelate was the pseudonym under which appeared several Puritan pamphlets (1588–89) satirizing the ...

Chacabuco, battle of

(Encyclopedia)Chacabuco, battle of, Feb. 12, 1817, fought between Chilean independence forces and Spanish troops. It took place just N of Santiago, Chile. José de San Martín, with Bernardo O'Higgins, assaulted an...

epitaph

(Encyclopedia)epitaph, strictly, an inscription on a tomb; by extension, a statement, usually in verse, commemorating the dead. The earliest such inscriptions are those found on Egyptian sarcophagi. In England epit...

Browse by Subject