Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Stritch, Elaine, 1925–2014, American actress and singer, b. Detroit. Forthright and witty, with a commanding stage presence and a raspy singing voice, she had a long career in show business, and num...

(Encyclopedia) Sturges, Preston stûrˈjĭs [key], 1898–1959, American film director, screenwriter, and producer, b. Chicago as Edmond Preston Biden. Educated in the United States and Europe, he turned to playwrit...

(Encyclopedia) Berle, Adolf Augustus, Jr. bûrˈlē [key], 1895–1971, American lawyer and public official, b. Boston. Admitted to the bar in 1916, he served in World War I and was a member of the American delegati...

(Encyclopedia) Masters and Johnson, pioneering research team in the field of human sexuality, consisting of the gynecologist William Howell Masters, 1915–2001, b. Cleveland, and the psychologist Virginia Eshelman ...

(Encyclopedia) consols, contraction of consolidated annuities, a bond issue designed to consolidate two or more outstanding issues, used in reference to British government stock. Public borrowing began in England wi...

(Encyclopedia) Simon, William Edward, 1927–2000, U.S. secretary of the treasury (1974–77), b. Paterson, N.J. He served (1946–48) in the U.S. army in Japan, graduated from Lafayette College (1952), and became a...

(Encyclopedia) Winton, Tim (Timothy John Winton), 1960–, Australian writer, generally regarded as the preeminent Australian novelist of his generation. Most of his books have been set in his coastal Western Austra...

(Encyclopedia) Dow Jones Average, indicators used to measure and report value changes in representative stock groupings on the New York stock exchange. There are four different averages—industrial stocks, transpor...

(Encyclopedia) commodity market, organized traders' exchange in which standardized, graded products are bought and sold. Worldwide, there are more than 20 major commodity exchanges and many smaller ones that trade c...

(Encyclopedia) amino group, in chemistry, functional group that consists of a nitrogen atom attached by single bonds to hydrogen atoms, alkyl groups, aryl groups, or a combination of these three. An organic compound...