Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Tochigi tōˈchĭgē [key], prefecture (1990 pop. 1,935,186), central Honshu, Japan. Utsunomiya (the capital), Ashikaga, Oyama, Kanuma, and Sano are the chief cities. Its many fertile river plains yie...

(Encyclopedia) Alpheus älfēôsˈ [key], river, c.70 mi (110 km) long, rising in the Taygetus Mts., S Greece. The longest river in the Peloponnesus, it flows northwest through gorges, past Olympia, and onto the Oly...

(Encyclopedia) George I (George Louis), 1660–1727, king of Great Britain and Ireland (1714–27); son of Sophia, electress of Hanover, and great-grandson of James I. He became (1698) elector of Hanover, fought in ...

(Encyclopedia) Elizabeth, 1900–2002, queen consort of George VI of Great Britain, mother of Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret, b. London. She was Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon until her marriage (1923). During the Bl...

(Encyclopedia) Murray, James, 1721?–94, British general, first civil governor of Canada, b. Scotland. He went to Canada as an army officer in 1757 and was prominent at the siege of Louisburg (1758) and in the cruc...

(Encyclopedia) Matanzas mätänˈsäs [key], province (1990 pop. 601,500), W central Cuba. Matanzas is the capital. The northern coast is lined with ports and bays and contains one of the world's finest beaches, at ...

(Encyclopedia) coup ko͞o [key] [Fr.,=blow], among Native North Americans of the Plains culture, a war honor, awarded for striking an enemy in such a way that it was considered an extreme act of bravery. Generally, ...

(Encyclopedia) floodplain, level land along the course of a river formed by the deposition of sediment during periodic floods. Floodplains contain such features as levees, backswamps, delta plains, and oxbow lakes. ...

(Encyclopedia) sod house, house with walls made of strips of sod laid horizontally in courses like bricks. Sod houses were common in the frontier days on the western plains of the United States, where wood and stone...

(Encyclopedia) Scott, Hugh Lenox, 1853–1934, U.S. army officer, b. Danville, Ky., grad. West Point, 1876. He was assigned (1876) to military service in the West and took part in the Sioux, Nez Percé, and Cheyenne...