Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

British Imperial System of weights and measures

(Encyclopedia)British Imperial System of weights and measures: see English units of measurement. ...

U.S. Customary System of weights and measures

(Encyclopedia)U.S. Customary System of weights and measures: see English units of measurement. ...

Dreyer, Johan Ludwig Emil

(Encyclopedia)Dreyer, Johan Ludwig Emil yōˈhän lo͝otˈvĭkh āˈmēl [key], 1852–1926, Danish astronomer, b. Copenhagen, who worked in Great Britain. He was assistant astronomer at the earl of Rosse's observa...

Connaught, Arthur William Patrick Albert, duke of

(Encyclopedia)Connaught, Arthur William Patrick Albert, duke of kŏnˈôt [key], 1850–1942, English prince; son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, brother of Edward VII. Trained for a military career, he served...

Yarra

(Encyclopedia)Yarra, river, 115 mi (185 km) long, rising in the Great Dividing Range, S Victoria, Australia, and flowing generally westward through Melbourne to Port Phillip Bay. It is important to the water supply...

European Free Trade Association

(Encyclopedia)European Free Trade Association (EFTA), customs union and trading bloc; its current members are Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland. EFTA was established in 1960 by Austria, Denmark, Great...

Tom Thumb

(Encyclopedia)Tom Thumb, 1838–83, American entertainer, whose original name was Charles Sherwood Stratton, b. Bridgeport, Conn. His career as General Tom Thumb began in 1842, when the showman P. T. Barnum gave hi...

Wettin

(Encyclopedia)Wettin vĕtˈĭn [key], German dynasty, which ruled in Saxony, Thuringia, Poland, Great Britain, Belgium, and Bulgaria. It takes its name from a castle on the Saale near Halle. The family gained promi...

Catholic Emancipation

(Encyclopedia)Catholic Emancipation, term applied to the process by which Roman Catholics in the British Isles were relieved in the late 18th and early 19th cent. of civil disabilities. They had been under oppressi...

Clare Island

(Encyclopedia)Clare Island, c.6 sq mi (15 sq km), Co. Mayo, W Republic of Ireland, at the entrance to Clew Bay. There are ruins of a 13th-century Carmelite abbey and of the 16th-century castle of Grania or Grace O'...