Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Benedetti, Mario

(Encyclopedia)Benedetti, Mario, 1920–2009, Uruguayan writer, one of Latin America's most popular, influential, and prolific authors. The son of Italian immigrants, he grew up and was educated in Montevideo. Bened...

Tracy, Spencer

(Encyclopedia)Tracy, Spencer, 1900–1967, American film actor, b. Milwaukee, Wis. He began his career as an actor in summer stock and went into film work in 1930. His fine character portrayals won him Academy Awar...

Beaumont, Francis

(Encyclopedia)Beaumont, Francis bōˈmŏnt [key], 1584?–1616, English dramatist. Born of a distinguished family, he studied at Oxford and the Inner Temple. His literary reputation is linked with that of John Flet...

Biles, Simone Arianne

(Encyclopedia)Biles, Simone Arianne, 1997–, American gymnast, b. Columbus, Ohio. Known for her consistency and the high degree of difficulty of her routines, she was the first gymnast to win three consecutive wor...

Yourcenar, Marguerite

(Encyclopedia)Yourcenar, Marguerite märgərētˈ yo͞orsənärˈ [key], 1903–87, French writer, b. Belgium as Marguerite de Crayencour. The first woman elected (1980) to the prestigious French Academy, Yourcenar...

Bridgman, Laura

(Encyclopedia)Bridgman, Laura, 1829–89, the first blind and deaf person to be successfully educated, b. Hanover, N.H. Under the guidance of Dr. S. G. Howe, of the Perkins School for the Blind, she learned to read...

Schneiderman, Rose

(Encyclopedia)Schneiderman, Rose shnīˈdərmən [key], 1884–1972, American labor leader, b. Poland. She emigrated to the United States in 1890. After working as a lining stitcher in a cap factory, she was instru...

Richards, Ellen Henrietta Swallow

(Encyclopedia)Richards, Ellen Henrietta Swallow, 1842–1911, American chemist, educator, and organizer of the home economics movement, b. Dunstable, Mass., grad. Vassar, 1870. In 1870 she began the study of chemis...

Bryan, William Jennings

(Encyclopedia)Bryan, William Jennings brīˈən [key], 1860–1925, American political leader, b. Salem, Ill. Although the nation consistently rejected him for the presidency, it eventually adopted many of the refo...

Dorr, Thomas Wilson

(Encyclopedia)Dorr, Thomas Wilson, 1805–54, leader of Dorr's Rebellion (1842) in Rhode Island, b. Providence. After studying law under Chancellor Kent in New York he practiced in Providence. Although born of a we...