Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Shevchenko, Taras, 1814–1861, Ukrainian poet, writer, and artist, b. Ukraine, studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Art. The premier Ukrainian poet...

(Encyclopedia) pragmatism prăgˈmətĭzəm [key], method of philosophy in which the truth of a proposition is measured by its correspondence with experimental results and by its practical outcome. Thought is consid...

(Encyclopedia) Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de sərvănˈtēz, Span. mēgĕlˈ dā thĕrvänˈtās säˌävāᵺrä [key], 1547–1616, Spanish novelist, dramatist, and poet, author of Don Quixote de la Mancha, b. Alc...

(Encyclopedia) Homo erectus hōˈmō ērĕkˈtəs [key], extinct hominin living between 1.6 million and 250,000 years ago, possibly as late as c.110,000 years ago. Homo erectus is thought to have evolved in Africa f...

(Encyclopedia) cosmic rays, charged particles moving at nearly the speed of light reaching the earth from outer space. Primary cosmic rays consist mostly of protons (nuclei of hydrogen atoms), some alpha particles (...

(Encyclopedia) Jonson, Ben, 1572–1637, English dramatist and poet, b. Westminster, London. The high-spirited buoyancy of Jonson's plays and the brilliance of his language have earned him a reputation as one of the...

(Encyclopedia) Vikings, Scandinavian warriors who raided the coasts of Europe and the British Isles from the 9th cent. to the 11th cent. In their language, the word “viking” originally meant a journey, as for tr...

(Encyclopedia) Rodin, Auguste ōgüstˈ rōdăNˈ [key], 1840–1917, French sculptor, b. Paris. He began his art study at 14 in the Petite École and in the school of Antoine Barye, earning his living by working fo...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Romance languages, group of languages belonging to the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Italic languages). Also called Romanic, they are spoken by about 670 millio...

(Encyclopedia) Royal Society, oldest scientific organization in Great Britain and one of the oldest in Europe. It was founded in 1660 by a group of learned men in London who met to promote scientific discussion, par...