Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

David, T. W. E.

(Encyclopedia)David, T. W. E. (Sir Tannatt William Edgeworth), 1858–1935, Australian geologist and explorer, b. near Cardiff, Wales. David came to Australia in 1882 as an assistant geological surveyor. In 1891 he...

boat people

(Encyclopedia)boat people, term used to describe the Indochinese refugees who fled Communist rule after the Vietnam War (1975) in small boats and the many ethnic Chinese who left Vietnam similarly after China's inv...

Great Sandy Desert

(Encyclopedia)Great Sandy Desert, Australia's second-largest desert, c.110,000 sq mi (284,900 sq km), Western Australia and Northern Territory. Lying between the Tanami Desert (NE) and the Gibson Desert (S), it is ...

Anzus Treaty

(Encyclopedia)Anzus Treaty ănˈzəs [key], defense agreement signed in 1951 by Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. The name Anzus is derived from the initials of the three signatory nations. As a result...

Bragg, Sir William Lawrence

(Encyclopedia)Bragg, Sir William Lawrence, 1890–1971, English physicist, b. Adelaide, Australia, educated in Australia and at Trinity College, Cambridge; son of W. H. Bragg. He was professor of physics at Victori...

Bruce, Stanley Melbourne

(Encyclopedia)Bruce, Stanley Melbourne mĕlˈbərn [key], 1883–1967, Australian political leader. Educated at Cambridge, he was called to the bar (1906) in England. After service in World War I, he entered the co...

Cocos Islands

(Encyclopedia)Cocos Islands kōˈkōs [key] or Keeling Islands, officially Territory of Cocos (Keeling) Isl...

Piranesi, Giovanni Battista

(Encyclopedia)Piranesi, Giovanni Battista jōvänˈnē bät-tēˈstä pēränāˈzē [key], 1720–78, Italian etcher and architect. The greater part of his life was spent in Rome, where he made etchings of the bui...

Tsui, Daniel Chee

(Encyclopedia)Tsui, Daniel Chee, 1938–, Chinese-American physicist, b. Henan, China, Ph.D. Univ. of Chicago, 1967. He was a member of the technical staff at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, N.J., from 1968 to 1982, when...

Boyle, Willard Sterling

(Encyclopedia)Boyle, Willard Sterling, 1924–2011, Canadian-American solid-state physicist, b. Amherst, N.S., Canada, Ph.D. McGill Univ., Montreal, 1950. Boyle was a researcher at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill,...