Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Day, Clarence Shepard, 1874–1935, American essayist, b. New York City, grad. Yale, 1896. His biographical sketches of his parents, God and My Father (1932), Life with Father (1935), and Life with Mo...

(Encyclopedia) bluestocking, derisive term originally applied to certain 18th-century women with pronounced literary interests. During the 1750s, Elizabeth Vesey held evening parties, at which the entertainment cons...

(Encyclopedia) Robertson, Sir William Robert, 1860–1933, British field marshal. He enlisted in the army in 1877 and became an officer in 1888. He was in the intelligence department in India (1892–96) and served ...

(Encyclopedia) Anderson, John Bayard, 1922–2017, U.S. politician, b. Rockford, Ill., grad. Univ. of Illinois (B.A. 1939, J.D. 1946), Harvard law school (LL.M. 1949). After serving in the army (1943–45) and pract...

(Encyclopedia) Dodge, Mary Mapes, 1831–1905, American writer of children's stories, b. New York City. During her lifetime she was the acknowledged leader in the field of juvenile fiction. Her story Hans Brinker; o...

(Encyclopedia) Harris, Abram Lincoln, 1899–1963, American economist, b. Richmond, Va. He headed the economics department at Howard Univ. (1936–45) and taught at the Univ. of Chicago (1946–63). Starting from a ...

(Encyclopedia) Evert, Christine Marie ĕvˈərt [key], 1954–, American tennis player, b. Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Noted for her poise on the court, her strong, two-handed backhand, and her nearly flawless baseline ga...

(Encyclopedia) Iran hostage crisis, in U.S. history, events following the seizure of the American embassy in Tehran by Iranian students on Nov. 4, 1979. The overthrow of Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi of Iran by an Isla...

(Encyclopedia) Westmorland, Charles Neville, 6th earl of nĕvˈĭl, wĕstˈmərlənd [key], 1543–1601, English nobleman. A Roman Catholic by birth and connected with the powerful Howard family by marriage, he join...

(Encyclopedia) Holm, Jeanne Marjorie, 1921–2010, U.S. military officer, the first female general in the U.S. air force, b. Portland, Oreg. Enlisting in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps in 1942, she soon joined (19...