Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Tambora

(Encyclopedia)Tambora tämˈbərə [key], active volcano, N Sumbawa, Nusa Tenggara Barat prov., Indonesia, rising to 9,255 ft (2,821 m). The volcano's 1815 eruption was one of the most destructive in historical tim...

Williamsport

(Encyclopedia)Williamsport, city (1990 pop. 31,933), seat of Lycoming co., central Pa., on the Susquehanna River; settled 1772, inc. as a borough 1806, as a city 1866. Williamsport grew with the development of the ...

Valle, Pietro della

(Encyclopedia)Valle, Pietro della pyĕˈtrō dĕlˈlä välˈlā [key], 1586–1652, Italian traveler in Asia. He sailed (1614) from Venice; spent a year in Constantinople, where he studied Turkish and Arabic; then...

Watanabe, Junya

(Encyclopedia)Watanabe, Junya, 1961–, Japanese fashion designer, b. Fukushima. He apprenticed at Rei Kawakubo's Comme des Garçons (1984), where he became a knitwear and menswear designer. Watanabe introduced his...

Weyprecht, Karl

(Encyclopedia)Weyprecht, Karl kärl vīˈprĕkht [key], 1838–81, German arctic explorer. With Julius von Payer he made a voyage to Novaya Zemlya in 1871. Weyprecht and Payer were leaders of an Austrian expedition...

Russell, James Earl

(Encyclopedia)Russell, James Earl, 1864–1945, American educator, b. Hamden, N.Y., grad. Cornell, 1887, Ph.D. Leipzig, 1894. From 1895 to 1897 he was professor of philosophy and pedagogy at the Univ. of Colorado. ...

Sacheverell, Henry

(Encyclopedia)Sacheverell, Henry səshĕˈvərəl [key], 1674?–1724, English clergyman, the center of a religio-political incident in the reign of Queen Anne. In two sermons (1709) Dr. Sacheverell attacked the Wh...

Turkana, Lake

(Encyclopedia)Turkana, Lake, c.2,500 sq mi (6,475 sq km), NW Kenya and SW Ethiopia, E Africa, in the Great Rift Valley; alt. 1,230 ft (375 m). Surrounded by desolate, volcanic mountains, the 170-mi-long (274-km) al...

Wisconsin v. Yoder

(Encyclopedia)Wisconsin v. Yoder, case decided in 1972 by the U.S. Supreme Court, which held that Amish children could be exempted from compulsory school-attendance beyond the 8th grade; the Amish (see under Mennon...

Yellowknife

(Encyclopedia)Yellowknife, city (1991 pop. 15,179), capital of the Northwest Territories, Canada, on the north shore of Great Slave Lake, at the mouth of the Yellowknife River. It is the largest city in the Northwe...