Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Dos Passos, John Roderigo, 1896–1970, American novelist, b. Chicago, grad. Harvard, 1916. He subsequently studied in Spain and served as a World War I ambulance driver in France and Italy. In his fi...

(Encyclopedia) International Geophysical Year (IGY), 18-month period from July, 1957, through Dec., 1958, during a period of maximum sunspot activity, designated for cooperative study of the solar-terrestrial enviro...

(Encyclopedia) Helena. 1 City (2020 pop. 20,633), Jefferson and Shelby cos., central Ala.; inc. 1877. White settlers began to occupy the area after the War of ...

(Encyclopedia) psychosomatic medicine sīˌkōsōmătˈĭk [key], study and treatment of those emotional disturbances that are manifested as physical disorders. The term psychosomatic emphasizes essential unity of t...

(Encyclopedia) Baldwin, Robert, 1804–58, Canadian statesman, leader of the movement for representative government in Canada, b. York (now Toronto), Ont. His father, William Warren Baldwin (1775–1844), was a lead...

(Encyclopedia) Zola, Émile āmēlˈ zôläˈ [key], 1840–1902, French novelist, b. Paris. He was a professional writer, earning his living through journalism and his novels. About 1870 he became the apologist for...

(Encyclopedia) reading, process of mentally interpreting written symbols. Facility in reading is an essential factor in educational progress, and instruction in this basic skill is a primary purpose of elementary ed...

(Encyclopedia) Gell-Mann, Murray gĕlˈ-män [key], 1929–2019, American theoretical physicist, b. New York City, grad. Yale 1948, Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1951. He was associated with the Univ....

(Encyclopedia) daylight saving time (DST), time observed when clocks and other timepieces are set ahead so that the sun will rise and set later in the day as measured by civil time. The amount of daylight on a given...

(Encyclopedia) conservatism, in politics, the desire to maintain, or conserve, the existing order. Conservatives value the wisdom of the past and are generally opposed to widespread reform. Modern political conserva...