Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

track and field athletics

(Encyclopedia)track and field athletics or athletics, sports of foot racing, hurdling, jumping, vaulting, and throwing varied weights and objects. They are usually separated into two categories: track, the running ...

Passion cycle

(Encyclopedia)Passion cycle, in art, the depiction of the last events in the life of Jesus. The Passion was a favorite subject of medieval and Renaissance artists and was considered the most ambitious of projects. ...

skiing

(Encyclopedia)skiing, sport of sliding over snow on skis—long, narrow, flexible runners. Water skiing is a warm-weather sport in which a motor-propelled craft tows a skier through the water. Although its orig...

chronicle plays

(Encyclopedia)chronicle plays, dramas based upon 16th-century chronicles in English, particularly those of Edward Hall and Raphael Holinshed. These plays became very popular late in the reign of Elizabeth I, when, ...

Currier & Ives

(Encyclopedia)Currier & Ives, American lithographers and print publishers, who produced highly popular hand-colored prints of contemporary scenes and events in American life. Nathaniel Currier, 1813–88, b. Ro...

teleology

(Encyclopedia)teleology tĕlˌēŏlˈəjē, tēˌlē– [key], in philosophy, term applied to any system attempting to explain a series of events in terms of ends, goals, or purposes. It is opposed to mechanism, th...

spark chamber

(Encyclopedia)spark chamber, in physics, device for recording the passage of elementary particles produced by reactions in a particle accelerator. Particles pass through a stack of metal plates or wire grids that a...

Mary, the mother of Jesus

(Encyclopedia)Mary, in the Bible, mother of Jesus. Christian tradition reckons her the principal saint, naming her variously the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady, and Mother of God (Gr., theotokos). Her name is the He...

Nicholas II, czar of Russia

(Encyclopedia)Nicholas II, 1868–1918, last czar of Russia (1894–1917), son of Alexander III and Maria Feodorovna. Discontent at home grew, the army tired of war, the food situation deteriorated, the governme...

Simoïs

(Encyclopedia)Simoïs sĭmˈōĭs [key], small river, NW Turkey, a tributary of the Scamander. It was the scene of many legendary events of Asia Minor, particularly during the siege of Troy. ...