Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Great Sandy Desert, Australia's second-largest desert, c.110,000 sq mi (284,900 sq km), Western Australia and Northern Territory. Lying between the Tanami Desert (NE) and the Gibson Desert (S), it is ...

(Encyclopedia) Donner, Richard, 1930-2021, American film director, b. Bronx, N.Y., as Richard Donald Schwartzberg. Donner came from a Russian, Jewish immigrant family....

(Encyclopedia) Boece or Boethius, Hector bōēsˈ, bois, bōēˈthēəs [key], 1465?–1536?, Scottish historian. He studied at the Univ. of Paris, where he knew Erasmus, and in 1498 he went to Aberdeen as the first...

(Encyclopedia) McPherson, James Birdseye, 1828–64, Union general in the American Civil War, b. Sandusky co., Ohio. After teaching (1853–54) at West Point, he worked on various engineering projects. In the Civil ...

(Encyclopedia) Johnson, Judy (William Julius Johnson), 1899–1989, American baseball player, b. Snow Hill, Md. His father, a boxing coach, wanted him to be a prizefighter, but he started playing semipro baseball in...

(Encyclopedia) McClernand, John Alexander, 1812–1900, Union general in the American Civil War, b. Breckinridge co., Ky. He was admitted (1832) to the Illinois bar and sat as a Democrat in the U.S. House of Represe...

(Encyclopedia) Chickasaw chĭkˈəsô [key], Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Muskogean branch of the Hokan-Siouan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). They occupied N Mississippi an...

(Encyclopedia) Bell, Cool Papa (James Thomas Bell), 1903–91, African-American baseball player, b. Starkville, Miss. A centerfielder and switch hitter as well as one of the fastest baserunners in history, he played...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Rose mallow, Hibiscus moscheutos mallow, common name for members of the Malvaceae, a family of herbs and shrubs distributed over most of the world and especially abundant in the American tropi...

(Encyclopedia) Paul, Les, 1915–2009, American guitarist and inventor, b. Waukesha, Wis., as Lester William Polsfuss (later Polfuss). He began playing country music a...