Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Hale Observatories

(Encyclopedia)Hale Observatories: see Mount Wilson Observatory; Palomar Mountain. ...

oratory

(Encyclopedia)oratory, the art of swaying an audience by eloquent speech. In ancient Greece and Rome oratory was included under the term rhetoric, which meant the art of composing as well as delivering a speech. Or...

Mackintosh, Sir James

(Encyclopedia)Mackintosh, Sir James, 1765–1832, British writer and public servant, b. Scotland. He was trained as a physician, but after settling (1788) in London he became a writer and lawyer. His Vindiciae Gall...

Jocelin de Brakelond

(Encyclopedia)Jocelin de Brakelond jŏsˈlĭn də brākˈlŏnd [key], fl. 1200, English chronicler, a monk of Bury St. Edmunds. His chronicle of St. Edmund's Abbey, covering the years 1173–1202, is written in a s...

Sierra Madre, city, United States

(Encyclopedia)Sierra Madre sēĕrˈə mäˈdrā [key], residential city (1990 pop. 10,762), Los Angeles co., S Calif., at the foot of Mt. Wilson; inc. 1907. There is some light manufacturing. ...

Corcoran, William Wilson

(Encyclopedia)Corcoran, William Wilson kôrˈkərən [key], 1798–1888, American financier, philanthropist, and art collector, b. Georgetown, D.C. After becoming a successful banker, he retired in 1854 and devoted...

Nye, Edgar Wilson

(Encyclopedia)Nye, Edgar Wilson nī [key], known as Bill Nye, 1850–96, American humorist and journalist, b. Shirley Mills, Maine. He lived in Wisconsin from 1852 to 1876, when he went to Wyoming. There he was adm...

Benn, Anthony Wedgwood

(Encyclopedia)Benn, Anthony Wedgwood (Tony Benn), 1925–2014, British politician, b. London, grad. New College, Oxford. After working for the British Broadcasting Corporation (1949–50), he was elected a Labour m...

Leach, Edmund Ronald

(Encyclopedia)Leach, Edmund Ronald, 1910–89, British anthropologist, grad. Cambridge (B.A., 1932; M.A., 1938) and Univ. of London (Ph.D., 1947). He was (1957–72) university reader in social anthropology at Camb...

epithalamium

(Encyclopedia)epithalamium ĕpˌĭthəlāˈmēəm [key], song or poem written to celebrate a marriage. An elaborate form of pastoral, the epithalamium usually tells of the happenings of the wedding day. Nymphs, she...
 

Browse by Subject