Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Petraeus, David Howell

(Encyclopedia)Petraeus, David Howell pĕtrāˈəs [key], 1952–, American military officer and government official, b. Cornwall, N.Y., studied West Point (B.S., 1974), U.S. Army Command and General Staff College (...

Delaware, indigenous people of North America

(Encyclopedia)Delaware dĕlˈəwâr, –wər [key], English name given several closely related Native American groups of the Algonquian branch of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock (see Native American langua...

Rubens, Peter Paul

(Encyclopedia)Rubens, Peter Paul, 1577–1640, foremost Flemish painter of the 17th cent., b. Siegen, Westphalia, where his family had gone into exile because of his father's Calvinist beliefs. Almost every princ...

Araucanians

(Encyclopedia)Araucanians əroukänˈēən [key], South American people, occupying most of S central Chile at the time of the Spanish conquest (1540). The Araucanians were an agricultural people living in small set...

Alamo, the

(Encyclopedia)Alamo, the ălˈəmōˌ [key] [Span.,=cottonwood], building in San Antonio, Tex., “the cradle of Texas liberty.” Built as a chapel after 1744, it is all that remains of the mission of San Antonio ...

astronaut

(Encyclopedia)astronaut, crew member on a U.S. manned spaceflight mission; the Soviet term is cosmonaut. Candidates for manned spaceflight are carefully screened to meet the highest physical and mental standards, a...

Natchez, indigenous people of North America

(Encyclopedia)Natchez năchˈĭz [key], indigenous North American people who lived along St. Catherine's Creek east of the present-day city of Natchez in Mississippi. At the time of contact with the French in 1682,...

Kent, kingdom of

(Encyclopedia)Kent, kingdom of, one of the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England. It was settled in the mid-5th cent. by aggressive bands of people called Jutes (see Anglo-Saxons). Historians are in dispute over the auth...

Mercia

(Encyclopedia)Mercia mûrˈshə [key], one of the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England, consisting generally of the region of the Midlands. It was settled by Angles c.500, probably first along the Trent valley. Its hist...

le Carré, John

(Encyclopedia)le Carré, John lə kärāˈ [key], pseud. of David John Moore Cornwell, 1931–2020, English novelist. He was a tutor at Eton College (1956–58), and subsequently worked for the British foreign serv...