Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) community college, public institution of higher education. Community colleges are characterized by a two-year curriculum that leads to either the associate degree or transfer to a four-year college. T...

(Encyclopedia) Borden, Lizzie Andrew, 1860–1927, American woman accused of killing her father and her step-mother, b. Fall River, Mass. The elder Bordens were hacked to death with an ax on Aug. 4, 1892. Although L...

(Encyclopedia) Clapham Sect, group of English social reformers, active c.1790–1830, so named because their activities centered on the home in Clapham, London, of Henry Thornton and William Wilberforce. Most of the...

(Encyclopedia) Clements, Frederic Edward, 1874–1945, American plant ecologist and pioneer in the study of succession (see ecology), b. Lincoln, Nebr., grad. Univ. of Nebraska, 1894. From 1917 to 1941 he was in cha...

(Encyclopedia) Hopkins, Esek, 1718–1802, American Revolutionary naval hero, b. Scituate, R.I.; brother of Stephen Hopkins. He commanded a privateer in the French and Indian War, and in Dec., 1775, he was appointed...

(Encyclopedia) Crapsey, Adelaide krăpˈsē [key], 1878–1914, American poet, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., grad. Vassar, 1901; daughter of Algernon Sidney Crapsey. After teaching in girls' schools she became an instructor at...

(Encyclopedia) Henson, Matthew Alexander, 1866–1965, African-American arctic explorer, b. Charles County, Md. He accompanied Robert E. Peary as personal assistant, dog driver, and interpreter on numerous expeditio...

(Encyclopedia) Slocum massacre, July 29–30, 1910, killing of an unknown number of African Americans by armed mobs of white men in the town of Slocum, Texas. The killings may have been precipitated by rumors that b...

(Encyclopedia) Benz, Karl bĕnts [key], 1844–1929, German engineer, credited with building the first automobile powered by an internal-combustion engine. The car, driven in Mannheim in 1885 and patented in 1886, h...

(Encyclopedia) Beechey, Frederick William, 1796–1856, British admiral and Arctic explorer. He accompanied an expedition N of Spitsbergen in 1818 and wrote an account of it in his Voyage of Discovery towards the No...