Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) cockle, common name applied to the heart-shaped, jumping or leaping marine bivalve mollusks, belonging to the order Eulamellibranchia. The brittle shells are of uniform size, are obliquely spherical, ...

(Encyclopedia) Spencer, George John Spencer, 2d Earl, 1758–1834, British public official. He was elected to the House of Commons in 1780 but in 1783 inherited the earldom. In 1794, William Pitt appointed him first...

(Encyclopedia) Lucas, George W., Jr., 1944–, American film director, producer, and writer, b. Modesto, Calif. Although Lucas's first film, THX-1138 (1970), was not successful, his next two, American Graffiti (1973...

(Encyclopedia) Scott, Sir George Gilbert, 1811–78, English architect. Prominent in the Gothic revival, he designed many public structures. He also directed a vast amount of Gothic restoration work, beginning with ...

(Encyclopedia) Midwest City, city (1990 pop. 52,267), Oklahoma co., central Okla., a residential suburb of Oklahoma City; founded 1942 with the activation of adjoining Tinker Air Force Base, a logistics center. The ...

(Encyclopedia) Kearney, Denis kärˈnē [key], 1847–1907, American political agitator, b. Co. Cork, Ireland. He was a sailor and then a San Francisco drayman. When California suffered a depression in 1877, Kearney...

(Encyclopedia) Abe, Kobo kōˈbō äˈbā [key], pseud. of Kimifusa Abe, 1924–93, Japanese novelist and dramatist. Although Abe trained as a doctor, he never practiced medi...

(Encyclopedia) Rub al Khali ro͞ob äl khäˈlē [key] [Arab.,=empty quarter], great desert of the Arabian peninsula, c.225,000 sq mi (582,750 sq km); one of the largest sand deserts in the world. The desert occupie...

(Encyclopedia) Bush, George Herbert Walker, 1924–2018, 41st President of the United States (1989–93), b. Milton, Mass., B.A., Yale Univ., 1948. Bush's handling of domestic affairs was less successful. The savi...

(Encyclopedia) Mitchell, George John, 1933–, U.S. public official, b. Waterville, Maine. An attorney in private and government practice in the 1960s and 1970s, he was a protege of Senator Edmund Muskie. Generally ...