Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Upshur, Abel Parker ŭpˈshər [key], 1790–1844, American cabinet officer, b. Northampton co., Va. Admitted (1810) to the bar, he practiced law in Richmond, Va., and held state offices. When most of...

(Encyclopedia) Tuke, William, 1732–1822, English merchant and philanthropist. He succeeded at an early age to the family business at York in wholesale tea and coffee. He is remembered as the chief founder of the Y...

(Encyclopedia) Ulitskaya, Lyudmila Evgenyevna, 1943–, Russian writer and Soviet-era dissident, grad. Moscow State Univ. She worked as a geneticist at the USSR Academy of Sciences (1968–70), was fired for reprint...

(Encyclopedia) Tara târˈə [key], village, Co. Meath, E Republic of Ireland. The Hill of Tara (507 ft/155 m high) was the seat of the high kings of Ireland from ancient times until the 6th cent. and may have been ...

(Encyclopedia) MF DOOM, 1971-2020, African-American rap artist, b. London, England, as Daniel Dumile. Although born in London, Dumile was raised on Long Island. He for...

(Encyclopedia) Laughlin, Robert Betts, 1950–, American physicist, b. Visalia, Calif., Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1979. Laughlin was a researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory from 198...

(Encyclopedia) Cumberland Gap, natural passage through the Cumberland Mts., near the point where Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee meet. The gap was formed by the erosive action of a stream that once flowed there. I...

(Encyclopedia) World's Columbian Exposition, held at Chicago, May–Nov., 1893, in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. Authorized (1890) by Congress, it was pl...

(Encyclopedia) Washington, Martha, 1731–1802, wife of George Washington, b. New Kent co., Va. The daughter of John Dandridge and Frances Jones Dandridge, she first married (1749) Daniel Parke Custis. She bore him ...

(Encyclopedia) Gist, Christopher gĭst [key], c.1706–1759, American frontiersman, b. Maryland. Commissioned by the Ohio Company to explore their western lands. In 1750 he descended the Ohio River, explored E Kentu...