Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) slavery, historicially, an institution based on a relationship of dominance and submission, whereby one person owns another and can exact from that person labor or other services. Slavery has been fou...

(Encyclopedia) Gladwin, Henry, 1729–91, British army officer in colonial America, b. Derbyshire, England. He served in the disastrous campaign of Edward Braddock and in other actions in the French and Indian War b...

(Encyclopedia) Bennett, Alan, 1934–, British playwright and actor, b. Leeds, England, grad. Exeter College, Oxford (1957). Bennett became a fixture of the British cultural scene as part of the satirical revue Beyo...

(Encyclopedia) blue whale, a baleen whale, Balaenoptera musculus. Also called the sulphur-bottom whale and Sibbald's rorqual, it is the largest animal that has ever lived. Blue whales have been known to reach a leng...

(Encyclopedia) Burns, Otway, c.1775–1850, American privateer, b. Onslow co., N.C. At the outbreak of the War of 1812, he outfitted the Baltimore clipper Snap-Dragon as a privateer and began one of the most spectac...

(Encyclopedia) Dutch Wars, series of conflicts between the English and Dutch during the mid to late 17th cent. The wars had their roots in the Anglo-Dutch commercial rivalry, although the last of the three wars was ...

(Encyclopedia) Penutian pəno͞oˈshən [key], linguistic family, or stock, of Native Americans of North and Central America. See Native American languages. ...

(Encyclopedia) applejack, brandy made by distilling hard cider or fermented apple pomace. Another method of making applejack, now rarely used, is to let fermented cider freeze and then to remove the ice. It was one ...

(Encyclopedia) Saint Martin-in-the-Fields, church in London, England, on Trafalgar Square; built 1721–26 by James Gibbs. It has a Corinthian portico and elaborate spire. It is the prototype for many colonial churc...

(Encyclopedia) Carolina campaign, 1780–81, of the American Revolution. After Sir Henry Clinton had captured Charleston, he returned to New York, leaving a British force under Cornwallis to subordinate the Carolina...