Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Siepi, Cesare

(Encyclopedia)Siepi, Cesare chāˈzärā sēĕpˈē [key], 1923–2010, Italian opera singer, b. Milan. A classic basso cantante [singing bass], his warm, resonant voice was suited to for Mozart's operas, and the t...

Alcoholics Anonymous

(Encyclopedia)Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), worldwide organization dedicated to the treatment of alcoholics; founded 1935 by two alcoholics, one a New York broker, the other an Ohio physician. They developed a 12-step...

Sankara, Thomas Isidore Noël

(Encyclopedia)Sankara, Thomas 1948–87, president (1983–87) of Burkina Faso. Thomas Sankara, sometimes referred to as the African Che Guevara, was an activist, mil...

Wallace, Henry Agard

(Encyclopedia)Wallace, Henry Agard, 1888–1965, vice president of the United States (1941–45), b. Adair co., Iowa; grad. Iowa State Univ. He was (1910–24) associate editor of Wallaces' Farmer, an influential a...

Communist party, in the United States

(Encyclopedia)Communist party, in the United States, political party that espoused the Marxist-Leninist principles of communism. In 1945, Browder's policy was attacked as being one of the “right deviationism,�...

plastic

(Encyclopedia)plastic, any organic material with the ability to flow into a desired shape when heat and pressure are applied to it and to retain the shape when they are withdrawn. The first important plastic, cel...

Hess, Rudolf

(Encyclopedia)Hess, Rudolf, 1894–1987, German National Socialist leader, b. Alexandria, Egypt; son of a German merchant. In 1920 he became an ardent follower of Adolf Hitler and after the Munich “beer-hall puts...

Mailer, Norman

(Encyclopedia)Mailer, Norman (Norman Kingsley Mailer), 1923–2007, American writer, b. Long Branch, N.J., grad. Harvard, 1943. He grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., served in the army during World War II, and at the age o...

Browse by Subject