Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Latin American Integration Association

(Encyclopedia)Latin American Integration Association (LAIA), organization formed in 1980 by Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela, taking over the duti...

Healy, Timothy Michael

(Encyclopedia)Healy, Timothy Michael, 1855–1931, Irish statesman, first governor-general of the Irish Free State (1922–27). Elected to Parliament in 1880, he worked closely with Charles Stewart Parnell until th...

astringent

(Encyclopedia)astringent əstrĭnˈjənt [key], substance that shrinks body tissues. Astringent medicines cause shrinkage of mucous membranes or exposed tissues and are often used internally to check discharge of s...

mint, in finance

(Encyclopedia)mint, place where legal coinage is manufactured. The name is derived from the temple of Juno Moneta, Rome, where silver coins were made as early as 269 b.c. Mints existed earlier elsewhere, as in Lydi...

Lewis, Carl

(Encyclopedia)Lewis, Carl (Frederick Carlton Lewis), 1961–, American sprinter and jumper, b. Birmingham, Ala. A star in high school and at the Univ. of Houston, he became possibly the greatest track athlete of al...

arsenopyrite

(Encyclopedia)arsenopyrite mĭsˈpĭkəl [key], silver-white to steel-gray mineral with the metallic luster characteristic of a pyrite. It is a sulfarsenide of iron, FeAsS, crystallizing in the orthorhombic system ...

Manitowoc

(Encyclopedia)Manitowoc mănˌĭtəwŏkˈ [key], industrial city (1990 pop. 32,520), seat of Manitowoc co., E Wis., a port of entry on Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Manitowoc River; inc. 1870. Its shipbuilding ...

Murcia, city, Spain

(Encyclopedia)Murcia, city (1990 pop. 322,911), capital of the autonomous community and coextensive prov. of Murcia, SE Spain, on the Segura River. The city lies in one of the finest irrigated garden regions in Spa...

Harz

(Encyclopedia)Harz härts [key], mountain range, northern Germany, extending c.60 mi (100 km) between the Elbe and Leine rivers. The rugged mountains were once densely forested. They culminate in Brocken peak (3,74...

Golgi, Camillo

(Encyclopedia)Golgi, Camillo kämēlˈlō gôlˈjē [key], 1844–1926, Italian physician, noted as a neurologist and histologist. He shared with Ramón y Cajal the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for wo...