Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Wright, Harry

(Encyclopedia)Wright, Harry (Wiliam Henry Wright), 1835–95, English-American baseball player and manager, b. Sheffield, England. His father, a professional cricket player, moved the family to New York to join the...

White, Richard Grant

(Encyclopedia)White, Richard Grant, 1821–85, American journalist, writer, and Shakespearean scholar, b. New York City. He had a varied career and was at different times music critic and coeditor (1851–59) of th...

Bigot, François

(Encyclopedia)Bigot, François fräNswäˈ bēgōˈ [key], 1703–77?, intendant of New France (1748–59), b. Bordeaux, France. At Louisburg, where he served (1739–45) as commissary, it has been said that he ind...

Billy the Kid

(Encyclopedia)Billy the Kid, 1859–81, American outlaw, b. New York City. His real name was probably Henry McCarty; he was known as William H. Bonney. His family moved to Kansas and then to New Mexico when he was ...

Bradstreet, Simon

(Encyclopedia)Bradstreet, Simon, 1603–97, colonial governor of Massachusetts, b. Lincolnshire, England. He emigrated to New England in 1630 and was assistant in the Massachusetts Bay Company for 49 years (1630–...

Rockaway

(Encyclopedia)Rockaway, narrow peninsula, c.10 mi (16 km) long, SW Long Island, SE N.Y., in Queens borough of New York City. Separating Jamaica Bay from the Atlantic Ocean and isolated from the rest of New York Cit...

Gaynor, William Jay

(Encyclopedia)Gaynor, William Jay, 1849–1913, U.S. political leader, mayor of New York City, b. Oneida co., N.Y. He rose to prominence as a civic reformer in Brooklyn and, as justice of the New York supreme court...

Hailar

(Encyclopedia)Hailar hīˈlärˈ [key], city (1994 est. pop. 192,400), Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region., China, on the Hailar (Argun) River. It is an agricultural production center on the Chinese Eastern RR. Form...

Canfield, Richard Albert

(Encyclopedia)Canfield, Richard Albert, 1855–1914, American gambler, b. New Bedford, Mass. A well-known gambling operator in Providence, R.I., Canfield went in the 1880s to New York, where his gambling establishm...

Black, Hugh

(Encyclopedia)Black, Hugh, 1868–1953, Scottish-American theologian and author. After serving as a pastor in Paisley and Edinburgh, he emigrated to the United States in 1906 to begin a professorship of practical t...

Browse by Subject