Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Woodville, Richard Caton

(Encyclopedia)Woodville, Richard Caton, 1825–55, American genre painter, b. Baltimore. He turned from medical studies to painting and in 1845 studied in Düsseldorf. He spent most of his brief working life in Eur...

Portales

(Encyclopedia)Portales pôrtălˈĭs [key], city (1990 pop. 10,690), seat of Roosevelt co., E N.Mex., near the Tex. line; inc. 1910. It is the trade and processing center of an agricultural area. There is food proc...

National Radio Astronomy Observatory

(Encyclopedia)National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), federal observatory for radio astronomy, founded in 1956 and operated under contract with the National Science Foundation by Associated Universities, Inc.,...

Robinson, James Harvey

(Encyclopedia)Robinson, James Harvey, 1863–1936, American historian, b. Bloomington, Ill. He taught history at the Univ. of Pennsylvania (1891–95) and Columbia (1895–1919), becoming a full professor in 1895. ...

Woodson, Carter Godwin

(Encyclopedia)Woodson, Carter Godwin, 1875–1950, African-American educator, b. New Canton, Va., Ph.D. Harvard (1912). He taught at Howard Univ. and helped organize (1915) the Association for the Study of Negro Li...

Geronimo

(Encyclopedia)Geronimo jərŏnˈəmōˌ [key], c.1829–1909, leader of a Chiricahua group of the Apaches, b. Arizona. From his youth he participated in the forays of Cochise, Victorio, and other Apache leaders. Wh...

Louisiana Purchase

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Louisiana Purchase (1803) Louisiana Purchase, 1803, American acquisition from France of the formerly Spanish region of Louisiana. Jefferson instructed Livingston to attempt to purchase the ...

El Paso

(Encyclopedia)El Paso ĕl păˈsō [key], city (2020 pop. 678,815), seat of El Paso co., extreme W Tex., on ...

coral snake

(Encyclopedia)coral snake, name for poisonous New World snakes of the same family as the Old World cobras. About 30 species inhabit Mexico, Central America, and N South America; two are found in the United States. ...

Kearny, Stephen Watts

(Encyclopedia)Kearny, Stephen Watts kärˈnē [key], 1794–1848, American general in the Mexican War, b. Newark, N.J. At the beginning of the Mexican War he was made commander of the Army of the West with the rank...

Browse by Subject