Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Cheney, Dick

(Encyclopedia)Cheney, Dick (Richard Bruce Cheney) chēˈnē, chāˈ– [key], 1941–, Vice President of the United States (2001–9), b. Lincoln, Nebr. His family moved to Casper, Wyo., when he was 13, and he atte...

Green, Julian

(Encyclopedia)Green, Julian or Julien, 1900–1998, French writer, b. Paris, of American parentage. Except for the years from 1918 to 1922 and from 1940 to 1945, Green lived in France. His 18 novels, written in Fre...

Jackson, Ketanji Onyika Brown

(Encyclopedia)Jackson, Ketanji Onyika Brown, American lawyer, jurist, and Supreme Court Justice, b. Washington, D.C., 1970; grad. Harvard-Radcliff (B.A., cum laud...

Roethke, Theodore

(Encyclopedia)Roethke, Theodore rĕtˈkə [key], 1908–63, American poet, b. Saginaw, Mich., educated at the Univ. of Michigan and Harvard. A poet of the Midwest, Roethke combined a love of the land with his visio...

Watson, Thomas John

(Encyclopedia)Watson, Thomas John, 1874–1956, American industrialist and philanthropist, b. Campbell, N.Y. After rising from clerk to sales executive in the National Cash Register Co. (1898–1913), he became (19...

Vermeer, Jan

(Encyclopedia)Vermeer, Jan or Johannes vərmērˈ, Dutch yän vərmārˈ, yōhänˈəs [key], 1632–75, Dutch genre and landscape painter. He was born in Delft, where he spent his entire life. He was also known as...

Marie Louise

(Encyclopedia)Marie Louise, 1791–1847, empress of the French (1810–15) as consort of Napoleon I and duchess of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla (1816–47), daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Francis II (later Empero...

Millar, John

(Encyclopedia)Millar, John, 1735–1801, Scottish philosopher and historian. Millar studied at Glasgow, where he became the chief disciple of Adam Smith. In 1761 Millar became professor of civil law at Glasgow, and...

trouvères

(Encyclopedia)trouvères tro͞ovĕrˈ [key], medieval poet-musicians of central and N France, fl. during the later 12th and the 13th cent. The trouvères imitated the troubadours of the south. Written in the dialec...

Say, Jean Baptiste

(Encyclopedia)Say, Jean Baptiste zhäN bätēstˈ sā [key], 1767–1832, French economist. In A Treatise on Political Economy (1803, tr. from the 4th ed. 1821) he effectively reorganized and popularized the theori...