Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Chandler, Zachariah, 1813–79, U.S. Senator from Michigan (1857–75, 1879) and Secretary of the Interior (1875–77), b. Bedford, N.H. He moved to Detroit in 1833 and through merchandising, land spe...

(Encyclopedia) Bohr, Aage Niels ägə nēls bōr [key], 1922–2009, Danish physicist, Ph.D. Univ. of Copenhagen, 1954. He worked with his father Niels Bohr (who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922) in the 1940s ...

(Encyclopedia) Bonneville Salt Flats bŏnˈəvĭl, bŏˈnēvĭl, bŏnˈvĭl [key], desert area in Tooele co., NW Utah, c.14 mi (22.5 km) long and 7 mi (11.2 km) wide. The smooth salt surface of the Flats is ideal fo...

(Encyclopedia) Cambridge Platonists, group of English philosophers, centered at Cambridge in the latter half of the 17th cent. In reaction to the mechanical philosophy of Thomas Hobbes this school revived certain Pl...

(Encyclopedia) Fort Fisher, Confederate earthwork fortification, built by Gen. William Whiting in 1862 to guard the port of Wilmington, N.C.; scene of one of the last large battles of the Civil War. Because Wilmingt...

(Encyclopedia) National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), organization composed mainly of American blacks, but with many white members, whose goal is the end of racial discrimination and seg...

(Encyclopedia) Lynch, John Roy, 1847–1939, African-American politician, b. near Vidala, La. Born a slave, he became active in the Republican party after the Civil War in Natchez, Miss., and served (1869–73) in t...

(Encyclopedia) Pasco păsˈkō [key], city (1990 pop. 20,337), seat of Franklin co., SE Wash., on the Columbia River near its confluence with the Snake and Yakima rivers. It is a trade and shipping center for the Co...

(Encyclopedia) Hillman, Sidney, 1887–1946, American labor leader, b. Lithuania. He emigrated to the United States in 1907. Beginning as a garment worker, he became a union leader after his key participation in a s...

(Encyclopedia) Moscow Conferences, meetings held between 1941 and 1947 at Moscow, USSR. At a conference in Sept.–Oct., 1941, American and British representatives laid the basis for lend-lease aid to the USSR in Wo...