Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) New York City Ballet (NYCB), one of the foremost American dance companies of the 20th and 21st cents. It was founded by Lincoln Kirstein and George Balanchine as the Ballet Society in 1946. In 1948 th...

(Encyclopedia) church [Gr. kuriakon=belonging to the Lord], in architecture, a building for Christian worship. The earliest churches date from the late 3d cent.; before then Christians, because of persecutions, wors...

(Encyclopedia) tower, structure, the greatest dimension of which is its height. Towers have belonged to two general types. The first embodies practical uses such as defense (characteristic of the Middle Ages), to ca...

(Encyclopedia) Seville səvĭlˈ, sĕˈ– [key], Span. Sevilla, city (1990 pop. 678,218), capital of Seville prov. and leading city of Andalusia, SW Spain, on the Guadalquivir River. Connected with the Atlantic by ...

(Encyclopedia) pastoral, literary work in which the shepherd's life is presented in a conventionalized manner. In this convention the purity and simplicity of shepherd life is contrasted with the corruption and arti...

(Encyclopedia) Palladio, Andrea ändrĕˈä päl-läˈdēō [key], 1508–80, Italian architect of the Renaissance. Originally a stonemason, he was trained as an architect in Vicenza, and later in Rome he examined t...

(Encyclopedia) Caribbean Sea kârˌĭbēˈən, kərĭbˈēən [key], tropical sea, c.970,000 sq mi (2,512,950 sq km), arm of the Atlantic Ocean, Central America. It is bordered on the N and E by the West Indies arch...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Air-cushion vehicle: In vehicles modified with a trunk or skirt (A), the rate of leakage is reduced and less power is needed to maintain the cushion. Vehicles designed to travel over deep water...

(Encyclopedia) Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), division of the U.S. Dept. of Justice charged with investigating all violations of federal laws except those assigned to some other federal agency. The FBI has j...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Empire of Timur (1405) Timur tămˈərlān [key], c.1336–1405, Mongol conqueror, b. Kesh, near Samarkand. He is also called Timur Leng [Timur the lame]. He was the son of a tribal leader, an...