Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) epigram, a short, polished, pithy saying, usually in verse, often with a satiric or paradoxical twist at the end. The term was originally applied by the Greeks to the inscriptions on stones. The epigr...

(Encyclopedia) Greenock grēnˈək, grĭnˈ–, grĕnˈ– [key], city, Inverclyde, W Scotland, on t...

(Encyclopedia) Leachman, Cloris, 1926-2021, American actress, b. Des Moines, Ia. Leachman began acting in children’s theater when she was seven, and studied drama a...

(Encyclopedia) Lehn, Jean-Marie zhäNˈ-märēˈ lĕN [key], 1939–, French chemist, Ph.D. Univ. of Strasbourg, 1963. A professor at Louis Pasteur Univ. (1970–78) and the Collège de France (1979–), Lehn did gr...

(Encyclopedia) Pacific scandal, 1873, a major event in Canadian political history. Charges were made in Parliament that the Conservative administration of Sir John A. Macdonald had accepted campaign funds from Sir H...

(Encyclopedia) Philby, Kim (Harold Adrian Russell Philby), 1912–88, British double agent, son of Harry St. John Bridger Philby, studied Trinity College, Cambridge. A longtime high-ranking member of Britain's MI6 i...

(Encyclopedia) Kavanaugh, Brett Michael, 1965–, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (2018–), b. Washington, D.C., grad. Yale (B.A. 1987, J.D. 1990). He clerked for Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy a...

(Encyclopedia) War Production Board (WPB), former U.S. government agency, established (Jan., 1942) by executive order to direct war production and the procurement of materials in World War II. The chairman (Donald M...

(Encyclopedia) Van Rompuy, Herman Achille, 1947–, Belgian statesman, b. Etterbeek. A Flemish Christian Democrat, he was president of the party from 1988 to 1993 and was a member of Belgium's parliament, serving in...