Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Roanoke, city, United States

(Encyclopedia)Roanoke rōˈənōk [key], city (1990 pop. 96,397), independent and in no co., SW Va., on the Roanoke River; settled c.1740, inc. 1882, as a city, 1884. It is situated between the Blue Ridge and Alleg...

Semple, Ellen Churchill

(Encyclopedia)Semple, Ellen Churchill, 1863–1932, American geographer, b. Louisville, Ky., grad. Vassar, 1882, and studied at the Univ. of Leipzig. A follower of the German geographer Friedrich Ratzel, she helped...

Vickrey, William Spencer

(Encyclopedia)Vickrey, William Spencer, 1914–96, Canadian economist, b. Victoria, B.C., Ph.D. Columbia, 1947. He was on the faculty of Columbia from 1946 until his death. In 1996 he and James Mirrlees shared the ...

Vincent, George Edgar

(Encyclopedia)Vincent, George Edgar, 1864–1941, American educator, organizer, and sociologist, b. Rockford, Ill., grad. Yale, 1885, Ph.D. Univ. of Chicago, 1896; son of Bishop John Heyl Vincent. He was associated...

Virginia Military Institute

(Encyclopedia)Virginia Military Institute (VMI), at Lexington; state supported; chartered and opened 1839 as the first state military college in the United States. Although one of the leading U.S. military institut...

Clark, Helen

(Encyclopedia)Clark, Helen, 1950–, New Zealand politician, prime minister (1999–2008), b. Hamilton, N.Z. A graduate of the Univ. of Auckland (B.A., 1971; M.A., 1974), she taught political science there (1973–...

Cohnheim, Julius

(Encyclopedia)Cohnheim, Julius yo͞oˈlyo͝os kōnˈhīm [key], 1839–84, German experimental histologist and pathologist. In a relatively brief life Cohnheim made a series of remarkable contributions to the rapid...

demography

(Encyclopedia)demography dĭmŏgˈrəfē [key], science of human population. Demography represents a fundamental approach to the understanding of human society. Its primary tasks are to ascertain the number of peop...

Varenius, Bernhardus

(Encyclopedia)Varenius, Bernhardus bĕrnˈhärt fäˈrən [key], 1622–50, Dutch geographer. He studied to be a physician, but instead focused on geography. His first work was a geography and history of Japan, Des...

Quetelet, Adolphe

(Encyclopedia)Quetelet, Adolphe ädôlfˈ kĕtəlāˈ [key], 1796–1874, Belgian statistician and astronomer. He was the first director (1828) of the Royal Observatory at Brussels. As supervisor of statistics for ...