Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

103 results found

siege

(Encyclopedia)siege, assault against a city or fortress with the purpose of capturing it. The history of siegecraft parallels the development of fortification and, later, artillery. In early times battering rams an...

Trollope, Anthony

(Encyclopedia)Trollope, Anthony trŏlˈəp [key], 1815–82, one of the great English novelists. After spending seven unhappy years in London as a clerk in the general post office, he transferred (1841) to Ireland ...

Lübeck

(Encyclopedia)Lübeck lüˈbĕk [key], city (1994 pop. 217,270), Schleswig-Holstein, central Germany, on the Trave River near its mouth on the Baltic Sea. It is a major port and a commercial and industrial center; ...

Johnson, Philip Cortelyou

(Encyclopedia)Johnson, Philip Cortelyou, 1906–2005, American architect, museum curator, and historian, b. Cleveland, grad. Harvard Univ. (B.A., 1927). One of the first Americans to study modern European architect...

Bakı

(Encyclopedia)Bakı bəko͞oˈ [key], city (2021 est. pop. 2,371,000), capital of Azerbaijan, on the Caspia...

Khmer Empire

(Encyclopedia)Khmer Empire kəmĕrˈ [key], ancient kingdom of SE Asia. In the 6th cent. the Cambodians, or Khmers, established an empire roughly corresponding to modern Cambodia and Laos. Divided during the 8th ce...

Constantinople

(Encyclopedia)Constantinople kŏnˌstănˌtĭnōˈpəl [key], former capital of the Byzantine Empire and of the Ottoman Empire, since 1930 officially called İstanbul (for location and description, see İstanbul). ...

skyscraper

(Encyclopedia)skyscraper, modern building of great height, constructed on a steel skeleton. The form originated in the United States. By convention, a skyscraper is a building that is used primarily for human h...

Carolingian architecture and art

(Encyclopedia)Carolingian architecture and art, art forms and structures created by the Carolingians. Toward the beginning of the Carolingian Period, in the 8th cent., a gradual change appeared in Western culture a...

Gothic architecture and art

(Encyclopedia)Gothic architecture and art, structures (largely cathedrals and churches) and works of art first created in France in the 12th cent. that spread throughout Western Europe through the 15th cent., and i...