Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

trade union

(Encyclopedia)trade union: see union, labor.

International Labor Organization

(Encyclopedia)International Labor Organization (ILO), specialized agency of the United Nations, with headquarters in Geneva. It was created in 1919 by the Versailles Treaty and affiliated with the League of Nations...

trade winds

(Encyclopedia)trade winds, movement of air toward the equator, from the NE in the Northern Hemisphere and from the SE in the Southern Hemisphere. The trade winds originate on the equatorial sides of the horse latit...

World Food Program

(Encyclopedia)World Food Program (WFP), United Nations humanitarian organization devoted to combating hunger and establishing food security globally. Relying solely on donations, the WFP provides emergency food ass...

Food and Agriculture Organization

(Encyclopedia)Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), specialized agency of the United Nations, established in 1945. Its headquarters is in Rome, and it has a number of regional, subregional, and liaison offices a...

World Council of Churches

(Encyclopedia)World Council of Churches, an international, interdenominational organization of most major Protestant, Anglican, and Eastern Orthodox Christian churches; founded in Amsterdam in 1948, its headquarter...

World Heritage Site

(Encyclopedia)World Heritage Site, a place of cultural or natural importance listed on the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage List. The sites, some natural, so...

Warsaw Treaty Organization

(Encyclopedia)Warsaw Treaty Organization or Warsaw Pact, alliance set up under a mutual defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, in 1955 by Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania,...

world soul

(Encyclopedia)world soul, Lat. anima mundi, in philosophy, term denoting a universal spirit or soul that functions as an organizing principle. While many early Greek philosophers saw the world as of one principle, ...

Third World

(Encyclopedia)Third World, the technologically less advanced, or developing, nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, generally characterized as poor, having economies distorted by their dependence on the export...