Columbia Encyclopedia
Search results
500 results found
Federal Bureau of Investigation
(Encyclopedia)Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), division of the U.S. Dept. of Justice charged with investigating all violations of federal laws except those assigned to some other federal agency. The FBI has j...Cooper, James Fenimore
(Encyclopedia)Cooper, James Fenimore, 1789–1851, American novelist, b. Burlington, N.J., as James Cooper. He was the first important American writer to draw on the subjects and landscape of his native land in ord...Great Depression
(Encyclopedia)Great Depression, in U.S. history, the severe economic crisis generally considered to have been precipitated by the U.S. stock-market crash of 1929. Although it shared the basic characteristics of oth...Vanderbilt, Cornelius
(Encyclopedia)Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 1794–1877, American railroad magnate, b. Staten Island, N.Y. As a boy he ferried freight and passengers from Staten Island to Manhattan, and he soon gained control of most of ...Wilde, Oscar
(Encyclopedia)Wilde, Oscar (Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde), 1854–1900, Irish author and wit, b. Dublin. He is most famous for his sophisticated, brilliantly witty plays, which were the first since the come...Washington, Booker Taliaferro
(Encyclopedia)Washington, Booker Taliaferro, 1856–1915, American educator, b. Franklin co., Va. Washington was born into slavery; his mother was a mulatto slave on a plantation, his father a white man whom he nev...logical positivism
(Encyclopedia)logical positivism, also known as logical or scientific empiricism, modern school of philosophy that attempted to introduce the methodology and precision of mathematics and the natural sciences into t...Dada
(Encyclopedia)Dada däˈdäĭzəm [key], international nihilistic movement among European artists and writers that lasted from 1916 to 1922. Born of the widespread disillusionment engendered by World War I, it orig...Newhouse, Samuel Irving
(Encyclopedia)Newhouse, Samuel Irving, 1895–1979, American newspaper and magazine publisher, b. New York City as Solomon Neuhaus, known generally as Sam. From 1922 to the 1970s, his Advance Publications acquired ...Lead B
(Encyclopedia)Lead Belly, nickname of Huddie William Ledbetter, 1885–1949, American singer, b. Mooringsport, La. While wandering through Louisiana and Texas, he...Browse by Subject
- Earth and the Environment +-
- History +-
- Literature and the Arts +-
- Medicine +-
- People +-
- Philosophy and Religion +-
-
Places
+-
- Africa
- Asia
- Australia and Oceania
- Britain, Ireland, France, and the Low Countries
- Commonwealth of Independent States and the Baltic Nations
- Germany, Scandinavia, and Central Europe
- Latin America and the Caribbean
- Oceans, Continents, and Polar Regions
- Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and the Balkans
- United States, Canada, and Greenland
- Plants and Animals +-
- Science and Technology +-
- Social Sciences and the Law +-
- Sports and Everyday Life +-