Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Heinlein, Robert Anson MacDonald

(Encyclopedia)Heinlein, Robert Anson MacDonald hīˈlīn [key], 1907–88, American science-fiction writer, b. Butler, Mo. His best-known novel, Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), concerns a young man who is raised...

Hearst, George

(Encyclopedia)Hearst, George hûrst [key], 1820–91, American mining magnate, U.S. senator (1886–91), b. Franklin co., Mo. He went to California in 1850 and became a mining prospector and geologist. He successfu...

Hamlin, Hannibal

(Encyclopedia)Hamlin, Hannibal, 1809–91, Vice President of the United States (1861–65), b. Paris, Maine. Admitted to the bar in 1833, he practiced at Hampden, Maine. He was a Maine legislator (1836–40, 1847),...

Harvey, William

(Encyclopedia)Harvey, William, 1578–1657, English physician considered by many to have laid the foundation of modern medicine, b. Folkestone, studied at Cambridge, M.D. Univ. of Padua, 1602. Returning to London, ...

Bethune, Mary McLeod

(Encyclopedia)Bethune, Mary McLeod bəthyo͞onˈ [key], 1875–1955, American educator, b. Mayesville, S.C., grad. Moody Bible Institute, Chicago, 1895. The 17th child of former slaves, she taught (1895–1903) in ...

Wheeler, Burton Kendall

(Encyclopedia)Wheeler, Burton Kendall, 1882–1975, U.S. senator (1923–47), b. Hudson, Mass. He practiced law in Butte, Mont. Wheeler was (1911–13) a member of the state legislature and was appointed (1913) fed...

Tugwell, Rexford Guy

(Encyclopedia)Tugwell, Rexford Guy, 1891–1979, American economist and political scientist, b. Chautauqua co., N.Y., grad. Wharton School, Univ. of Pennsylvania (B.S., 1915; Ph.D., 1922). He taught economics at th...

Chandler, Zachariah

(Encyclopedia)Chandler, Zachariah, 1813–79, U.S. Senator from Michigan (1857–75, 1879) and Secretary of the Interior (1875–77), b. Bedford, N.H. He moved to Detroit in 1833 and through merchandising, land spe...

Fort Fisher

(Encyclopedia)Fort Fisher, Confederate earthwork fortification, built by Gen. William Whiting in 1862 to guard the port of Wilmington, N.C.; scene of one of the last large battles of the Civil War. Because Wilmingt...

Bohr, Aage Niels

(Encyclopedia)Bohr, Aage Niels ägə nēls bōr [key], 1922–2009, Danish physicist, Ph.D. Univ. of Copenhagen, 1954. He worked with his father Niels Bohr (who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922) in the 1940s ...
 

Browse by Subject