Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) independent counsel, in U.S. law, a judicially appointed investigator of charges of misdeeds by high government officials. Originally termed “special prosecutor,” the position was first created by...

(Encyclopedia) Greene, Evarts Boutell ĕvˈərts, bo͞otĕlˈ [key], 1870–1947, American historian, b. Kobe, Japan, where his parents were missionaries, grad. Harvard (B.A., 1890; Ph.D., 1893). He began teaching A...

(Encyclopedia) Dawkins, Richard (Clinton Richard Dawkins), 1941– British evolutionary biologist and ethologist, b. Kenya, Ph.D. Oxford, 1966. He was a research assistant under Nikolaas Tinbergen at Oxford until 19...

(Encyclopedia) Mannheim mänˈhīm [key], city (1994 pop. 318,025), Baden-Württemberg, W central Germany, on the right bank of the Rhine River and at the mouth of the Neckar River. A bridge connects it with Ludwigs...

(Encyclopedia) Frankfurt School, a group of researchers associated with the Institut für Sozialforschung (Institute of Social Research), founded in 1923 as an autonomous division of the Univ. of Frankfurt. The inst...

(Encyclopedia) kindergarten [Ger.,=garden of children], system of preschool education. Friedrich Froebel designed (1837) the kindergarten to provide an educational situation less formal than that of the elementary s...

(Encyclopedia) erbium ûrˈbēəm [key] [from Ytterby, a town in Sweden], metallic chemical element; symbol Er; at. no. 68; at. wt. 167.259; m.p. 1,529℃; b.p. 2,863℃; sp. gr. 9.05 at 25℃; valence +3. Erbium is...

(Encyclopedia) German East Africa, former German colony, c.370,000 sq mi (958,300 sq km), E Africa. Dar es Salaam was the capital. German influence emerged in the area in 1884 when Carl Peters, the German explorer, ...

(Encyclopedia) Monk, Thelonius (Thelonius Sphere Monk), 1917–82, American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger, b. Rocky Mount, N.C. Monk is considered one of the most important, and eccentric, figures in modern j...