Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Alesius, Ales, or Aless, Alexander əlēˈshəs, əlĕsˈ [key], 1500–1565, Scottish Protestant theologian. As canon of the collegiate church at St. Andrews he tried to reclaim Patrick Hamilton from...

(Encyclopedia) George I, 1845–1913, king of the Hellenes (1863–1913), second son of Christian IX of Denmark. After the deposition (1862) of Otto I, he was elected to succeed on the throne of Greece. Much more ef...

(Encyclopedia) Aachen bät äˈkhən [key], city, North Rhine–Westphalia, W Germany, near the Belgian and Dutch borders. One of the great historic cities of Europe, it is now chiefly i...

(Encyclopedia) Mahmud II, 1784–1839, Ottoman sultan (1808–39), younger son of Abd al-Hamid I. He was raised to the throne of the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) upon the deposition of his brother, Mustafa IV, and contin...

(Encyclopedia) Demetrius II, d. 229 b.c., king of Macedon (239–229 b.c.), son of Antigonus II. His reign was a confusion of wars and invasions, mostly concerned with possession of Epirus. The Aetolian League and t...

(Encyclopedia) Biron or Biren, Ernst Johann von ĕrnst yōhänˈ fən bēˈrôn, bēˈrən [key], 1690–1772, duke of Courland (1737–43, 1763–69), favorite of Czarina Anna of Russia. A Baltic nobleman, he rose ...

(Encyclopedia) Neman nyĕˈmən [key], Ger. Memel, Lithuanian Nemanos, Pol. Niemen, river, c.580 mi (930 km) long, rising in central Belarus, SW of Minsk. It flows generally W to Grodno, then N and W through S Lithu...

(Encyclopedia) Wilson, Alexander, 1766–1813, American ornithologist, b. Scotland. He came to the United States c.1794, taught in rural New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and became a citizen in 1804. Encouraged by Willi...

(Encyclopedia) nihilism nīˈəlĭzəm [key], theory of revolution popular among Russian extremists until the fall of the czarist government (1917); the theory was given its name by Ivan Turgenev in his novel Father...

(Encyclopedia) Francis II, 1544–60, king of France (1559–60), son of King Henry II and Catherine de' Medici. He married (1558) Mary Queen of Scots (Mary Stuart), and during his brief reign the government was in ...