Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia)  Reiner, Carl, 1922-2020, American comedian, television producer, actor, and film director, b. Bronx, N.Y. The son of a watchmaker, Reiner initially wo...

(Encyclopedia) societies, learned and literary, associations of individuals with a common professional interest, intended to promote learning. Many societies publish the proceedings of their meetings as well as jour...

(Encyclopedia) Bibliothèque nationale bēblēōtĕkˈ näsyônälˈ [key], national library of France, in Paris, a government archive, and one of the foremost libraries of the world. It originated with the collecti...

(Encyclopedia) Cole, Timothy, 1852–1931, American wood engraver, b. London. He came to the United States as a child. Cole learned his trade in Chicago and later moved to New York, where in 1873 he began his 40-yea...

(Encyclopedia) Ames, Ezra, 1768–1836, American painter, b. Framingham, Mass. Early in his life he worked as a carriage painter, miniaturist, engraver, and decorator, first in Worcester, Mass., and later in Albany,...

(Encyclopedia) Johnson, Jimmie Kenneth, 1975–, American auto racer, b. El Cajon, Calif. Johnson began racing at five on motorcycles, progressed to off-road buggies and trucks as a teenager, and then to stock cars ...

(Encyclopedia) Burbidge, Margaret, 1925–2020, Anglo-American astronomer, b. England as Eleanor Margaret Peachey. Burbidge; her husband, Geoffrey Burbidge; William Fowler; and Sir Fred Hoyle showed (1956) how heavi...

(Encyclopedia) American Ballet Theatre (ABT), one of the foremost international dance companies of the 20th and 21st cents. It was founded in 1937 as the Mordkin Ballet and reorganized as the Ballet Theatre in 1940 ...

(Encyclopedia) Blatch, Harriet Stanton (Harriet Eaton Stanton Blatch), 1856–1940, American labor reformer and woman suffrage leader, b. Seneca Falls, N.Y. A daughter of suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton and abolit...

(Encyclopedia) fluoridation flo͝orˌĭdāˈshən [key], process of adding a fluoride to the water supply of a community to preserve the teeth of the inhabitants. Tooth enamel ordinarily contains small amounts of fl...