Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Conti kôNtēˈ [key], cadet branch of the French royal house of Bourbon. Although the title of prince of Conti was created in the 16th cent., the founder of the continuous line was Armand de Bourbon,...

(Encyclopedia) Brutus bro͞oˈtəs [key], in ancient Rome, a surname of the Junian gens. Lucius Junius Brutus, fl. 510 b.c., was the founder of the Roman republic. He feigned idiocy to escape death at the hands of L...

(Encyclopedia) Hanover, Ger. Hannover, city, capital of Lower Saxony, N Germany, on the Leine River and the Midland Canal. It is a major industrial, commercial, ...

(Encyclopedia) tanning, process by which skins and hides are converted into leather. Vegetable tanning, a method requiring more than a month even with modern machinery and tanning liquors, employs tannin; its use is...

(Encyclopedia) Tarragona tär-rəgōˈnə [key], city (1990 pop. 112,360), capital of Tarragona prov., NE Spain, in Catalonia, on the Mediterranean Sea at the mouth of the Francolí River. A port and commercial cent...

(Encyclopedia) Brunswick brounˈshfīk [key], former state, central Germany, surrounded by the former Prussian provinces of Saxony, Hanover, and Westphalia. The region of Braunschweig is situated on the North German...

(Encyclopedia) emperor [Lat. imperator=one holding supreme power, especially applied to generals], the sovereign head of an empire. In the Roman republic the term imperator referred to the chief military commander a...

(Encyclopedia) Philip II or Philip Augustus, 1165–1223, king of France (1180–1223), son of Louis VII. During his reign the royal domains were more than doubled, and the royal power was consolidated at the expens...

(Encyclopedia) Cleopatra klēəpăˈtrə, –pāˈ–, –päˈ– [key], 69 b.c.–30 b.c., queen of Egypt, one of the great romantic heroines of all time. Her name was widely used in the Ptolemaic family; she was ...

(Encyclopedia) Arminius ärmĭnˈēəs [key], d. a.d. 21, leader of the Germans, called Hermann in modern German. He was a chief of the Cherusci (in an area of present-day Hanover) when the Romans were pushing east ...