Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Tallemant des Réaux, Gédéon zhādāôNˈ täləmäNˈ dā rāōˈ [key], 1619–92, French writer. His one great work is a series of brief anecdotal portraits of persons prominent in the Paris of h...

(Encyclopedia) acre, measure of land area used in the English units of measurement. The acre was originally the area a yoke of oxen could plow in a day and therefore differed in size from one locality to another. It...

(Encyclopedia) The Dalles Dam, 260 ft (79 m) high and 8,875 ft (2,705 m) long, on the Columbia River between Oregon and Wash., NE of The Dalles, Oreg.; built 1952–57 by the U.S. Corps of Engineers. The dam, a majo...

(Encyclopedia) Sánchez Ferlosio, Rafael räfäĕlˈ sänˈchĕth fārlōˈsyō [key], 1927–, Spanish novelist, b. Rome. He has published two novels. Industrias y andanzas de Alfanhuí [the projects and wanderings...

(Encyclopedia) ember days, in the Western Church, traditionally the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday following the first Sunday in Lent; Whitsunday; Sept. 14 (Exaltation of the Cross); and Dec. 13 (St. Lucy's Day). T...

(Encyclopedia) Eridu āˈrĭdo͞o [key], ancient city of Sumer, Mesopotamia, near the Euphrates, S of Ur (in present-day S Iraq). Excavations conducted from 1946 to 1949 revealed that Eridu was the earliest known se...

(Encyclopedia) Greenaway, Kate, 1846–1901, English illustrator and watercolorist. She is famous for her fanciful, humorous, delicately colored drawings of child life. She influenced children's clothing and the ill...

(Encyclopedia) Andrews, Lorrin, 1795–1868, American missionary to the Hawaiian Islands, b. present-day Vernon, Conn., grad. Princeton Theological Seminary, 1825. He founded (1831) on Maui a training school for tea...

(Encyclopedia) Fallen Timbers, battle fought in 1794 between tribes of the Northwest Territory and the U.S. army commanded by Anthony Wayne; it took place in NW Ohio at the rapids of the Maumee River just southwest ...

(Encyclopedia) David, Saint, d.588?, patron saint of Wales, first abbot of Menevia (present-day Saint David's). He apparently established a strict rule and was a zealous missionary, founding 12 monasteries. His cult...