Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

346 results found

Nureyev, Rudolf

(Encyclopedia)Nureyev, Rudolf no͝orĕˈyĕf [key], 1938–93, Russian ballet dancer, b. near Irkutsk, Siberian USSR (now Russia). Nureyev studied in Ufa and Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), and in 1958 he became a ...

art history

(Encyclopedia)art history, the study of works of art and architecture. In the mid-19th cent., art history was raised to the status of an academic discipline by the Swiss Jacob Burckhardt, who related art to its cul...

Louis, Joe

(Encyclopedia)Louis, Joe (Joseph Louis Barrow) lo͞oˈĭs [key], 1914–81, American boxer, b. Lafayette, Ala. His father, a sharecropper, died when Louis was four years old, and in 1926 his stepfather took the fam...

multimedia

(Encyclopedia)multimedia, in personal computing, software and applications that combine text, high-quality sound, two- and three-dimensional graphics, animation, photo images, and full-motion video. In order to wor...

Naoroji, Dadabhai

(Encyclopedia)Naoroji, Dadabhai däˈdəbəhī närōˈjē [key], 1825–1917, Indian nationalist leader. The son of a Parsi priest, at 27 he became professor of mathematics at Elphinstone Institution, Bombay (now ...

leafhopper

(Encyclopedia)leafhopper, common name for small, wedge-shaped leaping insects, cosmopolitan in distribution, belonging to the family Cicadellidae, which comprises some 5,500 species of insects. Some are brightly co...

Koolhaas, Rem

(Encyclopedia)Koolhaas, Rem (Remmet Lucas Koolhaas), 1944–, Dutch architect, b. Rotterdam. He began his career as a journalist and screenwriter, moving to London in the late 1960s to study architecture. Koolhaas ...

Santiago de Cuba

(Encyclopedia)Santiago de Cuba ᵺā ko͞oˈbä [key], city (1994 est. pop. 385,800), capital of Santiago de Cuba prov., SE Cuba. Cuba's second largest city, Santiago is situated on a cliff overlooking a bay. The c...

Albee, Edward

(Encyclopedia)Albee, Edward ălˈbē [key], 1928–2016, American playwright, one of the leading dramatists of his generation, b. Washington, D.C., as Edward Harvey. His most characteristic work constitutes an absu...

Glen Canyon Dam

(Encyclopedia)Glen Canyon Dam, 710 ft (216 m) high, 1,560 ft (475 m) long, NE Ariz., on the Colorado River. The key unit of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's Colorado River storage project, it is one of the world's ...