Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

246 results found

quasicrystal

(Encyclopedia)quasicrystal kwāˈzīkrĭsˌtəl, kwäzˈē– [key] or quasiperiodic solid, solid body that exhibits such crystalline features as symmetry and repeating patterns of unit cells (regular arrangements ...

Dred Scott Case

(Encyclopedia)Dred Scott Case, argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1856–57. It involved the then bitterly contested issue of the status of slavery in the federal territories. In 1834, Dred Scott, a black slav...

Stephen

(Encyclopedia)Stephen, 1097?–1154, king of England (1135–54). The son of Stephen, count of Blois and Chartres, and Adela, daughter of William I of England, he was brought up by his uncle, Henry I of England, wh...

Straus

(Encyclopedia)Straus strous [key], family of American merchants, public officials, and philanthropists. Isidor Straus, 1845–1912, b. Rhenish Bavaria, emigrated (1854) with his brothers to the United States in ord...

Massachusetts Bay Company

(Encyclopedia)Massachusetts Bay Company, English chartered company that established the Massachusetts Bay colony in New England. Organized (1628) as the New England Company, it took over the Dorchester Company, whi...

Grosseteste, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Grosseteste, Robert grōsˈtĕst [key], c.1175–1253, English prelate. Educated at Oxford and probably also at Paris, he became one of the most learned men of his time. He taught at Oxford and later,...

Bristol, cities, United States

(Encyclopedia)Bristol. 1 Industrial city (2020 pop. 60,833), Hartford co., central Conn., on the Pequabuck River; settled 1727, inc. 1785. Its clock-making ...

Chase, Salmon Portland

(Encyclopedia)Chase, Salmon Portland, 1808–73, American public official and jurist, 6th chief justice of the United States (1864–73), b. Cornish, N.H. Admitted to the bar in 1829, he defended runaway blacks so ...

Hartford Convention

(Encyclopedia)Hartford Convention, Dec. 15, 1814–Jan. 4, 1815, meeting to consider the problems of New England in the War of 1812; held at Hartford, Conn. Prior to the war, New England Federalists (see Federalist...

Woolf, Virginia

(Encyclopedia)Woolf, Virginia, 1882–1941, English novelist and essayist, b. Adeline Virgina Stephen; daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen. A successful innovator in the form of the novel, she is considered a significan...