Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Nijmegen nīˈmāˌgən [key], city (1994 pop. 147,018), Gelderland prov., E Netherlands, on the Waal River, near the German border. It is a rail and water transportation point and an industrial cente...

(Encyclopedia) North Pole, northern end of the earth's axis, by convention at lat. 90°N. Because the earth's rotational axis wobbles slightly over time, the location where the northern end of the axis intersects th...

(Encyclopedia) Pappenheim, Gottfried Heinrich, Graf zu gôtˈfrēt hīnˈrĭkh gräf tso͞o päˈpənhīm [key], 1594–1632, German military leader, imperial field marshal in the Thirty Years War. A convert to Roma...

(Encyclopedia) billiards, any one of a number of games played with a tapered, leather-tipped stick called a cue and various numbers of balls on a rectangular, cloth-covered slate table with raised and cushioned edge...

(Encyclopedia) Earhart, Amelia ârˈhärt [key], 1897–1937, American aviator, b. Atchison, Kans. She was the first woman to cross the Atlantic by airplane (1928) and the first woman to make a solo flight across th...

(Encyclopedia) Brahe, Tycho tīˈkō brä [key], 1546–1601, Danish astronomer. The most prominent astronomer of the late 16th cent., he paved the way for future discoveries by improving instruments and by his prec...

(Encyclopedia) Chicago Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1891 when businessman Charles Norman Fay invited the German-born conductor Theodore Thomas to establish and lead a new city orchestra; he conducted it until his ...

(Encyclopedia) Christian socialism, term used in Great Britain and the United States for a kind of socialism growing out of the clash between Christian ideals and the effects of competitive business. In Europe, it u...

(Encyclopedia) Cranach or Kranach, Lucas both: lo͞oˈkäs kräˈnäkh [key], the Elder, 1472–1553, German painter and engraver. The son of a painter, he settled in Wittenberg c.1504 and was court painter successi...

(Encyclopedia) Alexander III, d. 1181, pope (1159–81), a Sienese named Rolandus [Bandinelli?], successor of Adrian IV. He was a canonist who had studied law under Gratian and had taught at Bologna. He came to Rome...