Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Mobutu, Joseph Désiré: see Mobutu Sese Seko. ...

(Encyclopedia) Safra, Joseph Yacoub: see under Safra, family. ...

(Encyclopedia) Picard, Jean, 1620–82, French astronomer, noted for having made the first accurate measurement of a degree of the earth's meridian. The figures he established were of great value to Newton in his ca...

(Encyclopedia) Castex, Jean, 1965–, French government official and political leader. A member of the center-right Republicans (and its predecessor, the Union for a Popular Movement), Castex has held a variety of c...

(Encyclopedia) Billaud-Varenne, Jean Nicolas zhäk nēkōläˈ bēyōˈ-värĕnˈ [key], 1756–1819, French revolutionary. A violent antimonarchist in the Convention, the revolutionary national assembly, he and Jea...

(Encyclopedia) Buchan, John, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir bŭkˈən, twēdzˈmyo͞or [key], 1875–1940, Scottish author and statesman. Included among his works are a history (4 vol., 1921–22) of World War I; biographies ...

(Encyclopedia) McCormick, Joseph Medill: see under McCormick, Robert Sanderson. ...

(Encyclopedia) Burleigh, William Cecil, 1st Baron: see Burghley. ...

(Encyclopedia) Hume, Joseph, 1777–1855, English politician and reformer. Although a Tory in early life, he sat in Parliament from 1818 to 1855 (with only one interruption) as an indefatigable Radical. Hume was a l...

(Encyclopedia) Reclus, Jean Jacques Élisée zhäN zhäk ālēzāˈ rəklüˈ [key], 1830–1905, French geographer, b. Gironde, educated mainly in Germany, where he studied under Karl Ritter. Several times he was f...