Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Sipilä, Juha Petri

(Encyclopedia)Sipilä, Juha Petri, 1961–, Finnish political leader, prime minister of Finland (2015–19). A business executive and one of Finland's wealthiest persons, he was first elected to the Finnish parliam...

Strafford, Thomas Wentworth, 1st earl of

(Encyclopedia)Strafford, Thomas Wentworth, 1st earl of, 1593–1641, English statesman. Regularly elected to Parliament from 1614 on, he became one of the critics of George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham, and of ...

Bishops' Wars

(Encyclopedia)Bishops' Wars, two brief campaigns (1639 and 1640) of the Scots against Charles I of England. When Charles attempted to strengthen episcopacy in Scotland by imposing (1637) the English Book of Common ...

Praed, Winthrop Mackworth

(Encyclopedia)Praed, Winthrop Mackworth prād [key], 1802–39, English poet and essayist. A Conservative member of Parliament (1830–32, 1834–39) and an accomplished political satirist, he is best remembered fo...

Kopacz, Ewa

(Encyclopedia)Kopacz, Ewa, 1956–, Polish politician. A graduate of the Medical Univ. of Lublin (1981), she worked as a pediatrician and as a health-care administrator. Kopacz was first elected to parliament as a ...

Waller, Edmund

(Encyclopedia)Waller, Edmund, 1606–87, English poet. He studied at Eton and Cambridge and became a prominent speaker in Parliament at a young age. He married twice (1631 and 1644), but his early poems are address...

Beresford, John

(Encyclopedia)Beresford, John bĕrˈĭzfərd, –ĭs– [key], 1738–1805, Anglo-Irish Protestant politician. He entered the Irish Parliament in 1760, became a privy councillor (1768), a commissioner of revenue (1...

Simpson-Miller, Portia

(Encyclopedia)Simpson-Miller, Portia, 1945–, Jamaican political leader, prime minister of Jamaica (2006–7, 2012–16). A member of the People's National party (PNP), she was first elected to parliament in 1976....

Stanishev, Sergei Dmitrievich

(Encyclopedia)Stanishev, Sergei Dmitrievich, 1966–, Bulgarian political leader and political scientist. Born in Ukraine, he studied at Moscow State Univ. (B.A., 1989; Ph.D., 1994), and taught in Moscow (1998) and...

Chiltern Hundreds

(Encyclopedia)Chiltern Hundreds, the obsolete (since the 19th cent.) administrative districts of Stoke, Burnham, and Desborough in Buckinghamshire, S central England. The stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds is an ...