Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Le Duan

(Encyclopedia)Le Duan lā dwän [key], 1908–86, Vietnamese Communist party leader. Imprisoned by the French colonial regime, he organized Communist forces in the South after the French withdrawal from Vietnam in ...

Beechey, Frederick William

(Encyclopedia)Beechey, Frederick William, 1796–1856, British admiral and Arctic explorer. He accompanied an expedition N of Spitsbergen in 1818 and wrote an account of it in his Voyage of Discovery towards the No...

Conway, Henry Seymour

(Encyclopedia)Conway, Henry Seymour, 1721–95, English soldier and politician; nephew of Robert Walpole. Early in his life he entered upon concurrent and distinguished military and parliamentary careers. He fell i...

Crossfield, Scott

(Encyclopedia)Crossfield, Scott (Albert Scott Crossfield), 1921–2006, American aviator, b. Berkeley, Calif. A fighter pilot and flight instructor in the navy (1942–46) during World War II, he studied aeronautic...

Gligorov, Kiro

(Encyclopedia)Gligorov, Kiro kērˈō glēgōˈrôf [key], 1917–2012, North Macedonian political leader, grad. Univ. of Belgrade Law School (1938). He fought with Yugoslavia's communist partisans during World War...

Eulenspiegel, Till

(Encyclopedia)Eulenspiegel, Till tĭl oiˈlən-shpēˌgəl [key] [Ger.,=owl-mirror, hence English Owlglass], a north German peasant clown of the 14th cent. who was immortalized in chapbooks describing his practical...

Grand Manan

(Encyclopedia)Grand Manan mənănˈ [key], island c.16 mi (26 km) long and c.7 mi (11.3 km) wide, S N.B. Canada, in the Bay of Fundy. On the north and west sides are bold cliffs, rising from 200 ft to 400 ft (61–...

Prespa, Lake

(Encyclopedia)Prespa, Lake prĕsˈpä [key], Albanian Prespës, Macedonian Prespansko, 112 sq mi (290 sq km), SW North Macedonia, NW Greece, and E Albania; highest lake (alt. 2,798 ft/853 m) of the Balkans. It is c...

junco

(Encyclopedia)junco or snowbird, small seed-eating bird of North America closely related to the sparrows. Juncos have white underparts and gray (sometimes also brown) backs. They travel in flocks. The dark-eyed jun...

Peary, Robert Edwin

(Encyclopedia)Peary, Robert Edwin pērˈē [key], 1856–1920, American arctic explorer, b. Cresson, Pa. In 1881 he entered the U.S. navy as a civil engineer and for several years served in Nicaragua, where he was ...

Browse by Subject