Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

300 results found

Moscow State University

(Encyclopedia)Moscow State University, at Moscow, Russia, officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State Univ.; founded 1755 as Moscow Univ. by the Russian scientist M. V. Lomonosov, renamed Moscow State Univ. after the R...

National Defense Education Act

(Encyclopedia)National Defense Education Act (NDEA), federal legislation passed in 1958 providing aid to education in the United States at all levels, public and private. NDEA was instituted primarily to stimulate ...

Abbot, George

(Encyclopedia)Abbot, George, 1562–1633, archbishop of Canterbury. He was one of the collaborators (from the Univ. of Oxford) on the Authorized Version of the Bible and was an authority on geography. He became arc...

Barrow, Sir John

(Encyclopedia)Barrow, Sir John, 1764–1848, British geographer, promoter of arctic exploration. His early travels as secretary to Earl Macartney (who was ambassador to China and governor of the Cape of Good Hope c...

Simpson, George Gaylord

(Encyclopedia)Simpson, George Gaylord, 1902–84, American paleontologist and zoologist, b. Chicago, Ph.D. Yale, 1926. He became assistant curator of vertebrate paleontology at the American Museum of Natural Histor...

Eratosthenes

(Encyclopedia)Eratosthenes ĕrətŏsˈthənēz [key], c.275–c.195 b.c., Greek scholar, b. Cyrene. A pupil of Callimachus in Athens, he became (c.240 b.c.) head of the library at Alexandria. Known for his versatil...

Reclus, Jean Jacques Élisée

(Encyclopedia)Reclus, Jean Jacques Élisée zhäN zhäk ālēzāˈ rəklüˈ [key], 1830–1905, French geographer, b. Gironde, educated mainly in Germany, where he studied under Karl Ritter. Several times he was f...

Hurley, Patrick Jay

(Encyclopedia)Hurley, Patrick Jay, 1883–1963, U.S. cabinet officer, b. Choctaw Territory (now in Oklahoma). Hurley practiced law in Tulsa, Okla., was (1912–17) national attorney for the Choctaw Nation, and foug...

Oto

(Encyclopedia)Oto ōˈtō [key], Native North Americans, also called the Otoe, whose language belongs to the Siouan branch of the Hokan-Siouan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). The Oto had a Plains ...

Ozarks, the

(Encyclopedia)Ozarks, the, or Ozark Plateau, upland region, actually a dissected plateau, c.50,000 sq mi (129,500 sq km), chiefly in S Mo. and N Ark., but partly in Oklahoma and Kansas, between the Arkansas and Mis...

Browse by Subject