Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Thanksgiving Day

(Encyclopedia)Thanksgiving Day, national holiday in the United States commemorating the Pilgrims' celebration of the harvest reaped by the Plymouth Colony in 1621, after a winter of great starvation and privation. ...

Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

(Encyclopedia)Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), sometimes called Campbellites, a Protestant religious body founded early in the 19th cent. in the United States. Its primary thesis is that the Bible alone shou...

George, James Zachariah

(Encyclopedia)George, James Zachariah, 1826–97, American jurist and legislator, b. Monroe co., Ga. He moved to Mississippi in 1834 and, after serving in the Mexican War, became a prominent lawyer. He was long a r...

Arciniegas, Germán

(Encyclopedia)Arciniegas, Germán hĕrmänˈ ärsēnyāˈgäs [key], 1900–1999, Colombian historian and diplomat. A leading Latin American intellectual, he gained prominence as a journalist and publisher. A criti...

commonwealth

(Encyclopedia)commonwealth, form of administration signifying government by the common consent of the people. To Locke and Hobbes and other 17th-century writers the term meant an organized political community simil...

Lackawanna, river, United States

(Encyclopedia)Lackawanna, river, 35 mi (56 km) long, rising in NE Pa. and flowing southwest to join the Susquehanna River near Pittston. It crosses the chief anthracite-coal region of the state, passing the cities ...

local government

(Encyclopedia)local government, political administration of the smallest subdivisions of a country's territory and population. The British system of local government, which has been the model for most of that cou...

American Indian Movement

(Encyclopedia)American Indian Movement (AIM), Native American civil-rights activist organization, founded in 1968 to encourage self-determination among Native Americans and to establish international re...

Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna

(Encyclopedia)Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna blətvătˈskē [key], 1831–91, Russian theosophist and occultist. She was the daughter of a German named Hahn who had settled in Russia and who was distantly connected wi...
 

Browse by Subject