Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Westphalia, Peace of, 1648, general settlement ending the Thirty Years War. It marked the end of the Holy Roman Empire as an effective institution and inaugurated the modern European state system. The...

(Encyclopedia) Vienna, Congress of, Sept., 1814–June, 1815, one of the most important international conferences in European history, called to remake Europe after the downfall of Napoleon I. Although the territo...

(Encyclopedia) Snowden, Edward Joseph, 1983–, American computer systems administrator and antigovernment activist, b. Elizabeth City, N.C. Snowden worked for the Central Intelligence Agency from 2007 and then (200...

(Encyclopedia) England, Church of, the established church of England and the mother church of the Anglican Communion. In the first half of the 19th cent., the Catholic and apostolic character of the Church of Engl...

(Encyclopedia) exchange, mutual transfer of goods, money, services, or their equivalents; also the marketplace where such transfer occurs, such as a stock exchange or a commodity exchange (see commodity market). In ...

(Encyclopedia) Mzab əmzäbˈ [key], stony, barren valley, Algeria, in the N Sahara. It was settled c.1000 by members of an austere Muslim sect, the Kharijites. The inhabitants, called Mozabites, dug wells, created ...

(Encyclopedia) Radom räˈdôm [key], city (1993 est. pop. 230,500), Mazowieckie prov., SE Poland. It is a railway junction and an industrial center. The main products are textiles, glassware, chemicals, and process...

(Encyclopedia) Fleming, Sir Alexander, 1881–1955, Scottish bacteriologist, discoverer of penicillin (1928) and lysozyme (1922), an antibacterial substance found in saliva and other body secretions. Educated at St....

(Encyclopedia) Langevin, Sir Hector Louis ĕktôrˈ lwē läNzhəvăNˈ [key], 1826–1906, Canadian legislator, b. Quebec. A lawyer, he served in the Legislative Assembly (1857–67) and its successor, the House of...

(Encyclopedia) Drachmann, Holger Henrik Herholdt hŏlˈgər hănrēkˈ hărˈhŏlt dräkhˈmän [key], 1846–1908, Danish poet and dramatist. His early work was influenced by the political realism of Georg Brandes,...