Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

263 results found

Pugin, Augustus Charles

(Encyclopedia)Pugin, Augustus Charles pyo͞oˈjĭn [key], 1762–1832, English writer on medieval architecture, b. France. His writings and drawings furnished a mass of working material for the architects of the Go...

Electra

(Encyclopedia)Electra ĭlĕkˈtrə [key], in Greek mythology. 1 Daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. After her mother and Aegisthus murdered Agamemnon, Electra, eager for revenge, longed only for the return of h...

Nepos, Julius

(Encyclopedia)Nepos, Julius, d. 480, Roman emperor of the West (474–80). The military governor of Dalmatia, he was appointed emperor of the West by Leo I, emperor of the East. A year later he was deposed by Orest...

Clytemnestra

(Encyclopedia)Clytemnestra klīˌtəmnĕsˈtrə [key], in Greek mythology, the daughter of Leda and Tyndareus. Homer described her as the noble-minded wife of Agamemnon, persuaded to infidelity by the tyrant Aegist...

Hermione

(Encyclopedia)Hermione hərmīˈənē [key], in Greek mythology, the only daughter of Helen and Menelaus. When Helen eloped with Paris, Hermione was abandoned to the care of Clytemnestra. She later married Neoptole...

Furies

(Encyclopedia)Furies or Erinyes ērĭnˈē-ēz [key], in Greek and Roman religion and mythology, three daughters of Mother Earth, conceived from the blood of Uranus, when Kronos castrated him. They were powerful di...

Agamemnon

(Encyclopedia)Agamemnon ăˌgəmĕmˈnŏn [key], in Greek mythology, leader of the Greek forces in the Trojan War; king of Mycenae (or Argos). He and Menelaus were sons of Atreus and suffered the curse laid upon Pe...

Abel, Sir Frederick Augustus

(Encyclopedia)Abel, Sir Frederick Augustus, 1826–1902, English chemist, an authority on explosives. He was professor of chemistry at the Royal Military Academy (1851–55) and chemist to the War Dept. and governm...

Jaggar,Thomas Augustus, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)Jaggar,Thomas Augustus, Jr., 1871–1953, American geologist and volcanologist, b. Philadelphia, Ph.D. Harvard, 1897. One of the team of U.S. scientists (1902) who surveyed the eruptions in the West I...

Browse by Subject