Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Tubman, William Vacanarat Shadrach, 1895–1971, president of Liberia (1944–71). As a young man he was a lawyer, a collector of internal revenue, a teacher, and an officer of the Liberian militia. H...

(Encyclopedia) Barnard's star, star with the largest observed proper motion (rate of motion across the sky with respect to other stars); located in the constellation Ophiuchus. The star's large proper motion, 10.28�...

(Encyclopedia) Rank, Otto ôtˈō rängk [key], 1884–1937, Austrian psychoanalyst; one of Sigmund Freud's first and most valued pupils. He early employed Freudian techniques to clarify the underlying significance ...

(Encyclopedia) sanitary science, principles of health preservation, embracing hygiene, on an individual level, and public health, on a communal level. Those who specialize in sanitary science are sanitary engineers....

(Encyclopedia) Lispector, Clarice klârˈĭs lēspĕkˈtər [key], 1920–77, Brazilian author, b. i...

(Encyclopedia) MacMillan, Donald Baxter, 1874–1970, American arctic explorer, b. Provincetown, Mass., grad. Bowdoin College, 1898, and studied at Harvard. After a decade of teaching, he went on the expedition (190...

(Encyclopedia) Pessoa, Fernando (Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa) pĕsˈwä [key], 1888–1935, Portuguese poet, b. Lisbon. He moved to Durban, South Africa, as a child, becoming bilingual (Portuguese, English); i...

(Encyclopedia) Westminster Abbey, originally the abbey church of a Benedictine monastery (closed in 1539) in London. One of England's most important Gothic structures, it is also a national shrine. The first church ...

(Encyclopedia) Comanche kəmănˈchē [key], Native North Americans belonging to the Shoshonean group of the Uto-Aztecan branch of the Aztec-Tanoan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). They originated f...

(Encyclopedia) Wilder, Laura Elizabeth Ingalls, 1867–1957, American author of the classic Little House series of children's books, b. Pepin, Wis. She and her pioneer family traveled (1869–79) throughout the Midw...