Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Antarctic Circle

(Encyclopedia)Antarctic Circle, imaginary circle on the surface of the earth at 661⁄2°S lat., i.e., 231⁄2° north of the South Pole. It marks the southernmost point at which the sun can be seen at the winter s...

Hamilton, Andrew Jackson

(Encyclopedia)Hamilton, Andrew Jackson, 1815–75, American politician, b. Huntsville, Ala. Moving to Texas in 1846, he served (1849) as attorney general, was a member of the legislature (1851–53), and in 1859 wa...

simile

(Encyclopedia)simile sĭmˈəlē [key] [Lat.,=likeness], in rhetoric, a figure of speech in which an object is explicitly compared to another object. Robert Burns's poem “A Red Red Rose” contains two straightfo...

Pemberton, John Clifford

(Encyclopedia)Pemberton, John Clifford, 1814–81, Confederate general in the American Civil War, b. Philadelphia. He served in the Seminole and Mexican wars and at various frontier posts. He resigned from the U.S....

scarab beetle

(Encyclopedia)scarab beetle or scarab, name for members of a large family of heavy-bodied, oval beetles (the Scarabaeidae), with about 30,000 species distributed throughout most of the world and over 1,200 in North...

Pétain, Henri Philippe

(Encyclopedia)Pétain, Henri Philippe äNrēˈ fēlēpˈ pātăNˈ [key], 1856–1951, French army officer, head of state of the Vichy government (see under Vichy). In World War I he halted the Germans at Verdun (1...

Marengo, battle of

(Encyclopedia)Marengo, battle of, a major engagement of the French Revolutionary Wars, fought on June 14, 1800, at the village of Marengo in Piedmont, N Italy. Determined to throw the Austrians back from positions ...

Kléber, Jean Baptiste

(Encyclopedia)Kléber, Jean Baptiste zhäN bätēstˈ klābĕrˈ [key], 1753–1800, French general, b. Strasbourg. A trained architect, he attended military school in Munich and served in the Austrian army from 17...

Anderson, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Anderson, Robert, 1805–71, American army officer, defender of Fort Sumter, b. near Louisville, Ky., grad. West Point, 1825. He fought in the Black Hawk, Seminole, and Mexican wars and was promoted t...

Quatre Bras

(Encyclopedia)Quatre Bras käˈtrə bräˈ [key], village, Walloon Brabant prov., central Belgium, just south of Waterloo. There, on June 16, 1815, in a battle of the Waterloo campaign, the British under Arthur Wel...