Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Sisyphus sĭsˈĭfəs [key], in Greek mythology, son of Aeolus and founder and king of Corinth. Renowned for his cunning, he was said to have outwitted even Death. For his disrespect to Zeus, he was c...

(Encyclopedia) Democratic party, American political party; the oldest continuous political party in the United States. In 1960, John F. Kennedy narrowly defeated the Republican candidate, Richard M. Nixon, in the ...

(Encyclopedia) Leopold III, 1901–83, king of the Belgians (1934–51), son and successor of Albert I. In 1936, Leopold announced a fundamental change in foreign policy; Belgium abandoned its military alliance with...

(Encyclopedia) Close, Glenn, 1947–, American actress, b. Greenwich, Conn. She began her career in the theater, debuting on Broadway in Love for Love (1974), winning an Obie for the off-Broadway The Singular Life o...

(Encyclopedia) Edward VII (Albert Edward), 1841–1910, king of Great Britain and Ireland (1901–10). The eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, he was created prince of Wales almost immediately after his ...

(Encyclopedia) einsteinium īnˈstīˌnēəm, īnstīˈ– [key] [for Albert Einstein], artificially produced radioactive chemical element; symbol Es; at. no. 99; mass no. of most stable isotope 252; m.p. about 860�...

(Encyclopedia) Montgomery, Richard, 1738?–1775, American Revolutionary general, b. Swords, Co. Dublin, Ireland. After entering the British army, he was sent (1757) to Canada in the French and Indian Wars and saw a...

(Encyclopedia) Cedar Rapids, city (2020 pop. 137,710), seat of Linn co., E central Iowa, on the Cedar River; inc. as a city 1856. The second largest city in Iowa, it i...

(Encyclopedia) Winter, Sir Gregory Paul, 1951–, British biochemist, Ph.D. Cambridge, 1976. He has spent most of his career as a researcher at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, where since ...

(Encyclopedia) Woonsocket wo͞onsŏkˈĭt, wo͝on– [key], city (1990 pop. 43,877), Providence co., N R.I., on both sides of the Blackstone River; settled c.1666, set off from Cumberland 1867, inc. as a city 1888. ...