Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Louis, Joe (Joseph Louis Barrow) lo͞oˈĭs [key], 1914–81, American boxer, b. Lafayette, Ala. His father, a sharecropper, died when Louis was four years old, and in 1926 his stepfather took the fam...

(Encyclopedia) Malcolm X, 1925–65, militant black leader in the United States, also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, b. Malcolm Little in Omaha, Neb. A petty crimi...

(Encyclopedia) TulsThunberga race massacre, Greenwood, Okla., May 31 to June 1, 1921. On the evening of May 31, 1921, a white lynch mob gathered outside the ...

(Encyclopedia) Correa Delgado, Rafael Vicente räfäālˈ vēsānˈtā kōrāˈä delgäˈᵺō [key], 1963–, Ecuadorian economist and political leader, president of Ecuador (2007–2017), b. Guayaquil. A leftist ...

(Encyclopedia) protoplasm, term once used for the fundamental material of which all living things were thought to be composed. It was studied by a number of early scientists, especially by Félix Dujardin, J. E. Pur...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Evening primrose, Oenothera biennis evening primrose, common name for the Onagraceae, a family of plants of worldwide distribution, most species of which grow as herbs in the temperate New Wor...

(Encyclopedia) Waubeshiek wôˈbəshēk [key], c.1794–c.1841, Native North American prophet, also known as White Cloud. He was a friend and adviser of Black Hawk and by prophesying victory was chiefly responsible ...

(Encyclopedia) Hawking, Stephen William, 1942–2018, British theoretical physicist, b. Oxford, England, grad. University College, Oxford, 1962, Ph.D. Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 1966. In 1962 Hawking was diagnosed as ...

(Encyclopedia) Collins, Patricia Hill, 1948–, American sociologist and social theorist, b. Philadelphia, Ph.D. Brandeis University, 1984. A noted ...

(Encyclopedia) plague, any contagious, malignant, epidemic disease, in particular the bubonic plague and the black plague (or Black Death), both forms of the same infection. These acute febrile diseases are caused b...