Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Morgan

(Encyclopedia)Morgan, American family of financiers and philanthropists. Junius Spencer Morgan, 1813–90, b. West Springfield, Mass., prospered at investment banking. As a boy he became a dry-goods clerk in Boston...

antique collecting

(Encyclopedia)antique collecting, the assembling of items of aesthetic, historical, and often monetary value from earlier eras. The term antique initially referred only to the preclassical and classical cultures of...

Monrovia, city, Liberia

(Encyclopedia)Monrovia mənrōˈvēə [key], city (1986 est. pop. 465,000), capital of the Republic of Liberia, NW Liberia, a port on the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of the St. Paul River. Monrovia is Liberia's lar...

Snodgrass, W. D.

(Encyclopedia)Snodgrass, W. D. (William DeWitt Snodgrass), 1926–2009, American poet and translator, b. Wilkinsburg, Pa., grad. Univ. of Iowa, 1959. He is particularly known for his debut book, Heart's Needle (195...

Berkeley, Sir William

(Encyclopedia)Berkeley, Sir William, 1606–77, colonial governor of Virginia. Appointed governor in 1641, he arrived in Virginia in 1642. Berkeley defeated the Native Americans and the Dutch, extended explorations...

Aegina, island, Greece

(Encyclopedia)Aegina or Aíyina āˈyēnä [key], island, 32 sq mi (83 sq km), off SE Greece, in the Saronic Gulf (or Gulf of Aegina), near Athens. Sponge fishing and farming (fi...

penicillin

(Encyclopedia)penicillin, any of a group of chemically similar substances obtained from molds of the genus Penicillium that were the first antibiotic agents to be used successfully in the treatment of bacterial inf...

Kony, Joseph Rao

(Encyclopedia)Kony, Joseph Rao, 1964?–, Ugandan rebel and war criminal. His cousin, Alice Lakwena, led the Holy Spirit Movement against (1986–87) Uganda's President Museveni, and when she was defeated, Kony for...

Frankfurt School

(Encyclopedia)Frankfurt School, a group of researchers associated with the Institut für Sozialforschung (Institute of Social Research), founded in 1923 as an autonomous division of the Univ. of Frankfurt. The inst...

Pará, state, Brazil

(Encyclopedia)Pará pəräˈ [key], state (1996 pop. 5,552,783), 474,896 sq mi (1,229,981 sq km), N Brazil, in the lower Amazon River basin bordering on the Guianas and the Atlantic Ocean. Belém is the capital. Mo...