Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Tasman, Abel Janszoon äˈbəl yänˈsōn täˈsmän [key], 1603?–1659, Dutch navigator. In the service of the Dutch East India Company from c.1632 to 1653, he made several trading and exploring voy...

(Encyclopedia) Seghers or Segers, Hercules Pietersz hĕrˈküləs pēˈtərs sāˈgərs [key], c.1589–c.1638, Dutch landscape painter and etcher, b. Haarlem. Seghers's work greatly influenced early 17th-century Du...

(Encyclopedia) Reichstag rīkhsˈtäk [key] [Ger.,=imperial parliament], name for the diet of the Holy Roman Empire, for the lower chamber of the federal parliament of the North German Confederation, and for the low...

(Encyclopedia) gas laws, physical laws describing the behavior of a gas under various conditions of pressure, volume, and temperature. Experimental results indicate that all real gases behave in approximately the sa...

(Encyclopedia) Weed, Thurlow thûrˈlō [key], 1797–1882, American journalist and political leader, b. Cairo, N.Y. After working on various newspapers in W New York, Weed joined the Rochester Telegraph and was inf...

(Encyclopedia) still life, a pictorial representation of inanimate objects. The term derives from the 17th-century Dutch still-leven, meaning a motionless natural object or objects. In East Asia still-life subj...

(Encyclopedia) de Mille, Agnes (Agnes George de Mille) də mĭl [key], 1905–93, American choreographer and dancer, b. New York City; granddaughter of Henry George, daughter of playwright director W. C. de Mille, a...

(Encyclopedia) Dumas, Alexandre pĕr [key], 1802–70, French novelist and dramatist. His father, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, was a general in the Revolution. Dumas delighted many generations of readers with his highly ...

(Encyclopedia) Brando, Marlon, 1924–2004, American film actor, often described as the greatest of his generation, b. Omaha, Nebr. Regarded as the foremost practitioner of “method” acting as taught by American ...

(Encyclopedia) Oldenburg, Claes klăs [key], 1929–, Swedish-American artist, b. Stockholm, raised Chicago, studied at Yale, moved to New York 1956. Usually considered part of the pop art movement, Oldenburg explor...