Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Kiwanis International kĭwäˈnĭs [key], community service organization of active and retired business and professional people, founded in 1915 at Detroit, Mich. Local Kiwanis clubs now exist in more...

(Encyclopedia) Cathay kăthāˈ [key], name for North China used by medieval Europeans, derived from the Khitan (or Khitai), a Manchurian people who conquered S Manchuria and N China and founded the Liao dynasty (93...

(Encyclopedia) democracy [Gr.,=rule of the people], term originating in ancient Greece to designate a government where the people share in directing the activities of the state, as distinct from governments controll...

(Encyclopedia) Las Casas, Bartolomé de bärtōlōmāˈ dā läs käˈsäs [key], 1474–1566, Spanish missionary and historian, called the apostle of the Indies. He went to Hispaniola with his father in 1502, and e...

(Encyclopedia) Vianney, Saint Jean-Baptiste zhäN-bätēstˈ vyänāˈ [key], 1786–1859, French parish priest, popularly known as the Curé d'Ars, b. Dardilly, near Lyons. He came of poor, peasant stock and receiv...

(Encyclopedia) United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), agency of the United Nations, with headquarters in Amman, Jordan and Gaza City, Gaza Strip. Established in 1949,...

(Encyclopedia) Arguedas, Alcides älsēˈᵺās ärgāˈᵺäs [key], 1879–1946, Bolivian writer and diplomat. His essays and novels, which have social and moralizing tendencies, are a reaction against the romanti...

(Encyclopedia) Media mēˈdēə [key], ancient country of W Asia whose actual boundaries cannot be defined, occupying generally what is now W Iran and S Azerbaijan. It extended from the Caspian Sea to the Zagros Mts...

(Encyclopedia) Howe, Edgar Watson, 1853–1937, American editor and author, b. Treaty, near Wabash, Ind. From 1877 to 1911 he was editor and proprietor of the Atchison, Kans., Daily Globe, and in 1911 he established...

(Encyclopedia) Victorio, d. 1880, chief of the Ojo Caliente [warm spring] Apache, at one time a lieutenant of Mangas Coloradas. When his people were removed from their ancestral home to the desolate reservation at S...