Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

434 results found

War of 1812

(Encyclopedia)War of 1812, armed conflict between the United States and Great Britain, 1812–15. It followed a period of great stress between the two nations as a result of the treatment of neutral countries by bo...

Supreme Court Justices (table)

(Encyclopedia)Supreme Court Justices(including dates on bench) Chief Justices Associate Justices ...

comedy

(Encyclopedia)comedy, literary work that aims primarily to provoke laughter. Unlike tragedy, which seeks to engage profound emotions and sympathies, comedy strives to entertain chiefly through criticism and ridicul...

West Virginia

(Encyclopedia)CE5 West Virginia, E central state of the United States. It is bordered by Pennsylvania and Maryland (N, NE), Virginia (E and S), Kentucky (W) and, across the Ohio River, Ohio (NW). Economic cond...

horror

(Encyclopedia)horror or horror story, literary genre in which an eerie, tense, often suspenseful atmosphere typically builds to the discovery of something repugnant, such as cannibalism, incest, or the killing of c...

abortion

(Encyclopedia)abortion, expulsion of the products of conception before the embryo or fetus is viable. Any interruption of human pregnancy prior to the 28th week is known as abortion. The term spontaneous abortion, ...

Marshall, John

(Encyclopedia)Marshall, John, 1755–1835, American jurist, 4th chief justice of the United States (1801–35), b. Virginia. Marshall in his arguments drew much from his colleagues, especially his devoted adhe...

Spanish civil war

(Encyclopedia)Spanish civil war, 1936–39, conflict in which the conservative and traditionalist forces in Spain rose against and finally overthrew the second Spanish republic. For Germany and Italy the Span...

Democratic party

(Encyclopedia)Democratic party, American political party; the oldest continuous political party in the United States. In 1960, John F. Kennedy narrowly defeated the Republican candidate, Richard M. Nixon, in the ...

war crimes

(Encyclopedia)war crimes, in international law, violations of the laws of war (see war, laws of). Those accused have been tried by their own military and civilian courts, by those of their enemy, and by expressly e...