Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Bardsey Island bärdˈsē [key], Welsh Ynys Enlli, 0.7 sq mi (1.8 sq km), Gwynedd, Wales, off the SW tip of the Lleyn Peninsula. The small island, which rises to 548 ft (167 m), is separated from the ...

(Encyclopedia) Schreiner, Olive shrīˈnər [key], pseud. Ralph Iron, 1855–1920, South African author and feminist, b. Wittebergen Reserve, Cape Colony. After several years as a governess, she went to England in 1...

(Encyclopedia) Esper, Mark Thomas, 1964–, U.S. army officer and government official, b. Uniontown, Pa., B.S West Point, 1986; M.P.A. Harvard, 1995, Ph.D. George Washington Univ., 2008. Rising to the rank of lieute...

(Encyclopedia) Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC), in U.S. history, government-owned company formed in 1989 to liquidate the assets of insolvent savings and loan associations (S&Ls). Essentially a huge property-...

(Encyclopedia) San Francisco săn frănsĭsˈkō [key], city (2020 pop. 873,965), coextensive with San Francisco co., W ...

(Encyclopedia) War Department, United States, federal executive department organized (1789) to administer the military establishment. It was reconstituted (1947) as the Dept. of the Army when the military administra...

(Encyclopedia) National Archives, official depository for records of the U.S. federal government, established in 1934 by an act of Congress. Although displeasure concerning the method of keeping national records was...

(Encyclopedia) safety movement, widespread effort to prevent accidents that followed the increasing number of casualties in industry, traffic and transportation, and homes arising out of the Industrial Revolution an...

(Encyclopedia) Dred Scott Case, argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1856–57. It involved the then bitterly contested issue of the status of slavery in the federal territories. In 1834, Dred Scott, a black slav...

(Encyclopedia) fugitive slave laws, in U.S. history, the federal acts of 1793 and 1850 providing for the return between states of escaped black slaves. Similar laws existing in both North and South in colonial days ...