Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Marlborough, John Churchill, 1st duke of märlˈbərə, môlˈ– [key], 1650–1722, English general and statesman, one of the greatest military commanders of history. A great strategist and a shrewd...

(Encyclopedia) Vico, Giovanni Battista jōvänˈnē bät-tēˈstä vēˈkō [key], 1668–1744, Italian philosopher and historian, also known as Giambattista Vico, b. Naples. In 1699, Vico became professor of rhetor...

(Encyclopedia) William of Occam or Ockham both: ŏkˈəm [key], c.1285–c.1349, English scholastic philosopher. A Franciscan, Occam studied and taught at Oxford from c.1310 until 1324, when he was summoned to the p...

(Encyclopedia) St. John, Henry, Viscount Bolingbroke sĭn jŭn, bŏlˈĭngbro͝ok [key], 1678–1751, English statesman. He retired from politics in 1735 and spent most his remaining years on his estates in France...

(Encyclopedia) natural rights, political theory that maintains that an individual enters into society with certain basic rights and that no government can deny these rights. The modern idea of natural rights grew ou...

(Encyclopedia) Montgomery, Bernard Law, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein məntgŭmˈərē, ăləmānˈ [key], 1887–1976, British field marshal. Educated at Sandhurst, he entered the army in 1908 and served in Wo...

(Encyclopedia) torpedo, in naval warfare, a self-propelled submarine projectile loaded with explosives, used for the destruction of enemy ships. Although there were attempts at subsurface warfare in the 16th and 17t...

(Encyclopedia) Calhoun, John Caldwell kălˌho͞onˈ [key], 1782–1850, American statesman and political philosopher, b. near Abbeville, S.C., grad. Yale, 1804. He was an intellectual giant of political life in his...

(Encyclopedia) Sinn Féin shĭn fān [key] [Irish,=we, ourselves], Irish nationalist movement. It had its roots in the Irish cultural revival at the end of the 19th cent. and the growing nationalist disenchantment w...

(Encyclopedia) ring, in astronomy, relatively thin band of rocks and dust and ice particles that orbit around a planet in the planet's equatorial plane. All four of the giant planets in the solar system—Jupiter, S...