Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

468 results found

Turks and Caicos Islands

(Encyclopedia)Turks and Caicos Islands kīˈkōs [key], dependency of Great Britain (2015 est. pop. 34,000), 166 sq mi (430 sq km), West Indies. There are more than 30 cays and islands, of which eight are inhabited...

Prodi, Romano

(Encyclopedia)Prodi, Romano rōmäˈnō prōˈdē [key], 1939–, Italian politician, premier of Italy (1996–98, 2006–8), b. Scandiano. Educated at the Catholic Univ. of Milan (grad. 1961), he. He is a trained ...

Oliveros, Pauline

(Encyclopedia)Oliveros, Pauline, 1932–2016, American composer and musician, b. Houston, Tex., studied Univ. of Houston, San Francisco State College (B.A., 1957). She began playing the accordion as a child, and it...

Palin, Sarah Heath

(Encyclopedia)Palin, Sarah Heath pāˈlĭn [key], 1964–, U.S. politician, b. Sandpoint, Idaho, as Sarah Louise Heath, grad. Univ. of Idaho (B.S. 1987). Her family moved to Alaska not long after she was born. In 1...

Fulbright, James William

(Encyclopedia)Fulbright, James William, 1905–95, U.S. Senator from Arkansas (1945–75), b. Sumner, Mo. A Rhodes scholar, he was admitted (1934) to the bar and served (1934–35) in the antitrust division of the ...

Humphrey, Hubert Horatio

(Encyclopedia)Humphrey, Hubert Horatio, 1911–78, U.S. Vice President (1965–69), b. Wallace, S.Dak. After practicing pharmacy for several years, Humphrey taught political science and became involved in state pol...

Irish language

(Encyclopedia)Irish language, also called Irish Gaelic and Erse, member of the Goidelic group of the Celtic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Celtic languages). The history of Irish as a liter...

family, in sociology

(Encyclopedia)family, a basic unit of social structure, the exact definition of which can vary greatly from time to time and from culture to culture. How a society defines family as a primary group, and the functio...

grammar

(Encyclopedia)grammar, description of the structure of a language, consisting of the sounds (see phonology); the meaningful combinations of these sounds into words or parts of words, called morphemes; and the arran...

Nichols, Mike

(Encyclopedia)Nichols, Mike, 1931–2014, American actor and director, b. Berlin, Germany, as Mikhail Igor Peschkowsky. His family immigrated to the United States in ...

Browse by Subject