Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Ardashir I

(Encyclopedia)Ardashir I ärdäshērˈ [key] [another form of Artaxerxes], d. 240, king of Persia (226?–240). He overthrew the last Parthian king, Artabanus IV, entered Ctesiphon, and reunited Persia out of the c...

Maxentius

(Encyclopedia)Maxentius (Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maxentius) măksĕnˈshəs [key], d. 312, Roman emperor (306–12), son of Maximian. After Diocletian and Maximian had retired, the successor to Maximian, Constanti...

Pazzi conspiracy

(Encyclopedia)Pazzi conspiracy pätˈtsē [key], 1478, plot against Lorenzo de' Medici (Lorenzo il Magnifico) and his brother Giuliano, designed to end the hegemony of the Medici in the Florentine state and to enla...

Three Mile Island

(Encyclopedia)Three Mile Island, site of a nuclear power plant 10 mi (16 km) south of Harrisburg, Pa. On Mar. 28, 1979, failure of the cooling system of the No. 2 nuclear reactor led to overheating and partial melt...

Togo, Heihachiro

(Encyclopedia)Togo, Heihachiro hāˈhächĭrōˈ tōˈgō [key], 1846–1934, Japanese admiral, Japan's greatest naval hero. He studied naval science in England (1871–78), gained international recognition for his...

resistor

(Encyclopedia)resistor, two-terminal electric circuit component that offers opposition to an electric current. Resistors are normally designed and operated so that, with varying levels of current, variations of the...

Abdullah, Abdullah

(Encyclopedia)Abdullah, Abdullah äbdəläˈ äbdəläˈ [key], 1960–, Afghan political leader. An ophthalmologist of Tajik and Pashtun ethnicity, he worked with guerrilla leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, head of the N...

cube

(Encyclopedia)cube, in geometry, regular solid bounded by six equal squares. All adjacent faces of a cube are perpendicular to each other; any one face of a cube may be its base. The dimensions of a cube are the le...

Kagame, Paul

(Encyclopedia)Kagame, Paul kägäˈmə [key], 1957–, Rwandan political leader. Kagame was born into a Tutsi family that fled (1960) ethnic violence in Rwanda. Raised in Uganda, he became a member of Yoweri Museve...

Sorel, Georges

(Encyclopedia)Sorel, Georges sôrĕlˈ [key], 1847–1922, French social philosopher. An engineer before he devoted himself to writing, Sorel found in the political and social life of bourgeois democracy the trium...