Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Tchernaiev, Mikhail Grigoryevich

(Encyclopedia)Tchernaiev or Chernyaiev, Mikhail Grigoryevich mēkhəyēlˈ grĭgôrˈyəvĭch chĭrnyīˈəf [key], 1828–98, Russian general and Pan-Slavist. Sent on a minor mission to central Asia in 1864, he ex...

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Office of the

(Encyclopedia)United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Office of the (UNHCR), established Dec. 14, 1950, by the General Assembly. It superseded the International Refugee Organization. It seeks permanent solut...

Cyme

(Encyclopedia)Cyme sīˈmē [key], ancient Greek city of W Asia Minor, on the Ionian Sea and N of the present Smyrna in W Asian Turkey. It was the largest and most important of the 12 cities of Aeolis. In the late ...

São Tomé and Principe

(Encyclopedia)CE5 São Tomé and Principe prēnˈsēpə [key], officially Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Principe, republic (2015 est. pop. 196,000), 372 sq mi (964 sq km), W Africa, in the Gulf of Guinea...

French and Indian Wars

(Encyclopedia)French and Indian Wars, 1689–1763, the name given by American historians to the North American colonial wars between Great Britain and France in the late 17th and the 18th cent. They were really cam...

Zaharoff, Sir Basil

(Encyclopedia)Zaharoff, Sir Basil (Basileios Zacharias) zăˈhərŏfˌ [key], 1850–1936, international financier and munitions manufacturer, b. Anatolia, Turkey, probably of Greek-Russian parents, educated in Eng...

El Dorado, legendary country of South America

(Encyclopedia)El Dorado ĕlˈdəräˈdō, –rāˈ– [key] [Span.,=the gilded man], legendary country of the Golden Man sought by adventurers in South America. The legend supposedly originated in a custom of the C...

Özal, Turgut

(Encyclopedia)Özal, Turgut, 1927–93, Turkish political leader, president of Turkey (1989–93). Trained as an electrical engineer, he worked for the Turkish state planning office in the 1950s and 60s, as an econ...

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, island nation (2015 est. pop. 109,000), 150 sq mi (388 sq km), West Indies, in the Windward Islands. It comprises the island of Saint Vincent (140 sq mi/363 sq...

Ararat

(Encyclopedia)Ararat ărˈərăt [key], Turkish Ağri Daği, name of two mountains, Little Ararat (12,877 ft/3,925 m) and Great Ararat (16,945 ft/5,165 m), E Turkey, near the Iranian and Armenian borders. The tradi...