Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Shostakovich, Dmitri dyĭmēˈtrē shŏstŏkôˈvĭch [key], 1906–75, Russian composer, b. St. Petersburg. Shostakovich studied at the Leningrad Conservatory (1919–25). The early success of his Fi...

(Encyclopedia) Danish language, member of the North Germanic, or Scandinavian, group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. The official language of Denmark, it is spoken by over 5 milli...

(Encyclopedia) Rutherford, Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron, 1871–1937, British physicist, b. New Zealand. Rutherford left New Zealand in 1895, having earned three degrees from the Univ. of New Zealand but having fail...

(Encyclopedia) MacLeish, Archibald məklēshˈ [key], 1892–1982, American poet and public official, b. Glencoe, Ill., grad. Yale, 1915, LL.B Harvard, 1919. He practiced law for only three years and during the 1920...

(Encyclopedia) Frankenthaler, Helen frăngkˈənthŏlər [key], 1928–2011, American painter, b. New York City. The youngest of the women who formed part of abstract expressionism's second generation, Frankenthaler...

(Encyclopedia) Wollstonecraft, Mary wo͝olˈstənkräft, –krăft [key], 1759–97, English author and feminist, b. London. She was an early proponent of educational equality between men and women, expressing this ...

(Encyclopedia) Title IX, clause of the Educational Amendments of 1972 that reads: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be sub...

(Encyclopedia) Benton, Thomas Hart, 1889–1975, American regionalist painter, b. Neosho, Mo.; grandnephew of Sen. Thomas Hart Benton and son of Rep. Maecenas E. Benton. In 1906 and 1907 he attended the Art Institut...

(Encyclopedia) space-time, central concept in the theory of relativity that replaces the earlier concepts of space and time as separate absolute entities. In relativity one cannot uniquely distinguish space and time...

(Encyclopedia) Third World, the technologically less advanced, or developing, nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, generally characterized as poor, having economies distorted by their dependence on the export...