Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Victoria, Lake, or Victoria Nyanza nēănˈzə, nī– [key], largest lake of Africa and the world's second largest freshwater lake, c.26,830 sq mi (69,490 sq km), E central Africa, on the Uganda-Tanz...

(Encyclopedia) Lyons, Joseph Aloysius līˈənz [key], 1879–1939, Australian statesman, b. Tasmania. He left schoolteaching in 1909 to enter political life, was a Labour member of the Tasmanian House of Assembly u...

(Encyclopedia) Shays, Daniel shāz [key], c.1747–1825, American soldier and insurrectionist, b. probably in Hopkinton, Mass. A farmer from W Massachusetts, he fought the British in the American Revolution and was ...

(Encyclopedia) killdeer, common North American shorebird related to the plover and the sandpiper. It is about 10 in. (25 cm) in length and its plumage is grayish brown with a double black band across a white breast....

(Encyclopedia) Chapala chäpäˈlä [key], lake, c.50 mi (80 km) long and 8 mi (12.8 km) wide, W Mexico, in Jalisco and Michoacán states. It is the largest lake in Mexico. Set in a depression on the central plateau...

(Encyclopedia) Bergman, Hjalmar yälˈmär bĕrˈyəmän [key], 1883–1931, Swedish novelist, dramatist, and short-story writer. A popular and prolific writer, Bergman wrote from the background of an unhappy childh...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Morse code [for S. F. B. Morse], the arbitrary set of signals used on the telegraph (see code). It may also be used with a flash lamp for visible signaling. The international (or continental) M...

(Encyclopedia) seasonal affective disorder (SAD), recurrent fall or winter depression characterized by excessive sleeping, social withdrawal, depression, overeating, and pronounced weight gain. SAD effects an estima...

(Encyclopedia) Raoult's law räo͞olzˈ [key] [for F. M. Raoult, a French physicist and chemist] states that the addition of solute to a liquid lessens the tendency for the liquid to become a solid or a gas, i.e., r...

(Encyclopedia) Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, 132.4 sq mi (343 sq km), in the San Luis Valley of S Colorado; est. as a national monument 1932, designated a national park 2004. Lying in an area of high ...