Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Houdini, Harry ho͞odēˈnē [key], 1874–1926, American magician and writer, b. Budapest, Hungary, as Erik Weisz, later modified to Ehrich Weiss; his stage name honors the French magician Houdin. By...

(Encyclopedia) Smith, Sydney, 1771–1845, English clergyman, writer, and wit, ordained in the Church of England in 1794. In 1798 he went as a tutor to Edinburgh, where he studied medicine, occasionally preached, an...

(Encyclopedia) Assemblies of God, a large group of churches comprising the second largest Pentecostal organization in the United States, founded at Hot Springs, Ark., in Apr., 1914. In doctrine the Assemblies of God...

(Encyclopedia) Castiglione, Baldassare, Conte bäldäs-säˈrā kōnˈtā kästēlyōˈnā [key], 1478–1529, Italian soldier, author, and statesman attached to the court of the duke of Milan and later in the servi...

(Encyclopedia) Alito, Samuel Anthony, Jr. əlēˈtō [key], 1950–, U.S. government official and judge, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (2006–), b. Trenton, N.J., grad. Pr...

(Encyclopedia) Bragg, Sir William Henry, 1862–1942, English physicist, educated at King William's College, Isle of Man, and Trinity College, Cambridge. He served on the faculties of the Univ. of Adelaide in Austra...

(Encyclopedia) Hoppner, John, 1758–1810, English portrait painter. He was a protégé of George III, whose illegitimate son he was rumored to be. He imitated, without total success, the style of Sir Joshua Reynold...

(Encyclopedia) Wise, Stephen Samuel, 1874–1949, American Reform rabbi and Zionist leader, b. Budapest, grad. College of the City of New York, 1891, Ph.D. Columbia, 1901. He served as a rabbi in New York City (1893...

(Encyclopedia) Younger, Cole (Thomas Coleman Younger), 1844–1916, American outlaw, b. Jackson co., Mo. After the Civil War he joined the outlaw band of Jesse James, with whom he had served as a Confederate guerril...

(Encyclopedia) Schrödinger, Erwin ĕrˈvĭn shröˈdĭng-ər [key], 1887–1961, Austrian theoretical physicist. He was educated at Vienna, taught at Breslau and Zürich, and was professor at the Univ. of Berlin (1...