Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Constantine I or Constantine the Great kŏnˈstəntēn, –tīn [key], 288?–337, Roman emperor, b. Naissus (present-day Niš, Serbia). He was the son of Constantius I and Helena and was named in ful...

(Encyclopedia) levitation lĕvĭtāˈshən [key], the raising of a human or other body in the air without mechanical aid. The idea is ancient; holy men, both pagan and Christian, were reputed to have had the power o...

(Encyclopedia) Arnold, Sir Edwin, 1832–1904, English author. After serving as principal of the government college in Pune, India, he joined (1861) the staff of the London Daily Telegraph. He won fame for his blank...

(Encyclopedia) Lynn, city (1990 pop. 81,245), Essex co., E Mass.; inc. as a town 1631, as a city 1850. Lynn is an old industrial center. The first ironworks (1643) and the first fire engine (1654) in the country wer...

(Encyclopedia) Nola nôˈlä [key], town (1991 pop. 32,613), in Campania, S Italy. It is an agricultural center with food-processing industries. An Etruscan stronghold as early as 500 b.c., Nola flourished after pas...

(Encyclopedia) Badagri bädäˈgrē [key], town, SW Nigeria, on a lagoon off the Gulf of Guinea. Badagri was founded c.1730 and became an important shipping point for slaves. In the 1840s it became a center for Brit...

(Encyclopedia) Modica môˈdēkä [key], city (1991 pop. 50,529), SE Sicily, Italy. It is the center of an agricultural region where livestock is raised. Known in ancient times as Motyca, it was a feudal county in t...

(Encyclopedia) Alexander of Hales, d. 1245, English scholastic philosopher, called the Unanswerable Doctor by his fellow scholastics. He was a Franciscan and a lecturer at the Univ. of Paris. His Summa universae the...

(Encyclopedia) Ebionites ēˈbēənītsˌ, ĕbˈē– [key] [Aramaic,=poor], Jewish-Christian sect of rural ancient Palestine, of the first centuries after Jesus. There were two groups, according to Origen. The Juda...

(Encyclopedia) Castro, Américo ämāˈrēkō käsˈtrō [key], 1885–1972, Spanish philologist and literary critic, b. Brazil. After the Spanish Civil War, Castro's studies focused on how modern Spanish history wa...