Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Brown, Joseph Emerson

(Encyclopedia)Brown, Joseph Emerson, 1821–94, U.S. public official, b. Pickens District, S.C. As governor of Georgia during the Civil War, Brown quarreled with Jefferson Davis over conscription and the suspension...

Mercia

(Encyclopedia)Mercia mûrˈshə [key], one of the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England, consisting generally of the region of the Midlands. It was settled by Angles c.500, probably first along the Trent valley. Its hist...

Krupp

(Encyclopedia)Krupp kro͝op [key], family of German armament manufacturers. The family settled in Essen in the 16th cent. The core of the great Krupp industrial empire was started by Friedrich Krupp, 1787–1826, w...

Chaney, Lon

(Encyclopedia)Chaney, Lon chāˈnē [key], 1883–1930, American film actor, b. Colorado Springs, Colo. Chaney was the son of deaf-mute parents. He made more than 150 silent films. A master of the use of grotesque,...

Cronkite, Walter

(Encyclopedia)Cronkite, Walter (Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr.) krŏngˈkīt, krŏnˈ– [key], 1916–2009, American news broadcaster, b. St. Joseph, Mo. He left (1935) the Univ. of Texas to write for the Houston Pre...

Chambord, Henri Charles Ferdinand Marie Dieudonné, comte de

(Encyclopedia)Chambord, Henri Charles Ferdinand Marie Dieudonné, comte de äNrēˈ shärl fĕrdēnäNˈ märēˈ dyödônāˈ kôNt də shäNbôrˈ [key], 1820–83, Bourbon claimant to the French throne, posthumo...

Cloisters, the

(Encyclopedia)Cloisters, the, museum of medieval European art, in Fort Tryon Park, New York City, overlooking the Hudson River. A branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was opened to the public in May, 1938. ...

Micheaux, Oscar Devereaux

(Encyclopedia)Micheaux, Oscar Devereaux, 1884–1951, American filmmaker and author, b. Metropolis, Ill. The son of former slaves, Micheaux first worked as a Pullman porter, then was a homesteader in South Dakota. ...

Brownson, Orestes Augustus

(Encyclopedia)Brownson, Orestes Augustus ôrĕsˈtēz, brounˈsən [key], 1803–76, American author and clergyman, b. Stockbridge, Vt. Largely self-taught, he became a vigorous and influential writer on social and...

Brown, James

(Encyclopedia)Brown, James, 1933–2006, African-American rhythm-and-blues singer known as the “godfather of soul,” b. Barnwell, S.C., as James Joe Brown, Jr. Abandoned by his parents, he left school in the sev...