Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Kok, Wim (Willem Kok), 1936–2018, Dutch political leader. He worked for the National Association of Trade Unions (later the Federation of Dutch Trade Unions), and served as its chairman from 1973 to...

(Encyclopedia) National Institute of Standards and Technology, governmental agency within the U.S. Dept. of Commerce with the mission of “working with industry to develop and apply technology, measurements, and st...

(Encyclopedia) Paris, Treaty of, any of several important treaties, signed at or near Paris, France. For the Treaty of Paris of 1856, see Paris, Congress of. For the Treaty of Paris of 1898, see Spanish-Americ...

(Encyclopedia) African National Congress (ANC), the oldest black (now multiracial) political organization in South Africa; founded in 1912. Prominent in its opposition to apartheid, the organization began as a nonvi...

(Encyclopedia) federal government or federation, government of a union of states in which sovereignty is divided between a central authority and component state authorities. A federation differs from a confederation...

(Encyclopedia) Walter of Henley or Walter de Henley, fl. 13th cent., English writer on agriculture. His treatise Husbandry, written in Norman French in the mid-13th cent., was the great medieval authority in England...

(Encyclopedia) New Deal, in U.S. history, term for the domestic reform program of the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt; it was first used by Roosevelt in his speech accepting the Democratic party nominati...

(Encyclopedia) Williams, William, 1731–1811, political leader in the American Revolution, signer of the Declaration of Independence, b. Lebanon, Conn. He served in the French and Indian War and held many public of...

(Encyclopedia) Meir, Golda māērˈ [key], 1898–1978, Israeli political leader, b. Kiev, Russia, originally named Golda Mabovitch. Her family emigrated to the United States in 1906, settling in Milwaukee. She beca...

(Encyclopedia) American Fur Company, chartered by John Jacob Astor (1763–1848) in 1808 to compete with the great fur-trading companies in Canada—the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company. Astor's most ...