Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Troyat, Henri ŏ–rēˈ trôtäˈ [key], 1911–2007, French novelist and biographer, b. Moscow as Lev Aslanovich Tarassov. He and his family fled the Russian Revolution and settled (1911) in Paris. ...

(Encyclopedia) Astrakhan ăsˈtrəkăn, Rus. äˈstrəkhənyə [key], city (2020 pop. 535,000), capital of Astrakhan region, SE European Russia. A Caspian Sea port on the Volga R...

(Encyclopedia) William, count of Holland, 1227?–1256, German king (1254–56), previously rival king (1247–54) to Conrad IV. William was chosen by Pope Innocent IV to succeed Henry Raspe (d. 1247) as antiking to...

(Encyclopedia) Warbeck, Perkin, 1474?–1499, pretender to the English throne, b. Tournai. He lived in Flanders and later in Portugal and arrived in Ireland in the employ of a silk merchant in 1491. There adherents ...

(Encyclopedia) Manfred mănˈfrəd, Ger. mänˈfrāt [key], c.1232–1266, king of Sicily (1258–66), the last Hohenstaufen on that throne. An illegitimate son of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, Manfred was regent...

(Encyclopedia) Marañón, Gregorio grāgōˈrēō märänyōnˈ [key], 1887–1960, Spanish essayist, b. Madrid. A physician and professor of endocrinology, he used his scientific knowledge and approach to analyze l...

(Encyclopedia) Diane de France dyän də fräNs [key], 1538–1619, duchess of Angoulême; illegitimate daughter of King Henry II of France. She was legitimized in 1547. She was married to François, eldest son of C...

(Encyclopedia) James II, 1315–49, king of Majorca (1324–49), count of Roussillon and Cerdagne, lord of Montpellier; grandson of James I, nephew and successor of Sancho IV. In 1329 he declared himself a vassal of...

(Encyclopedia) Taiho, 1940–2013, Japanese sumo wrestler. The son of a Japanese mother and a Ukrainian father, he was born on Sakhalin Island as Ivan Boryshko; his Japanese name Koki Naya. At the end of World War I...

(Encyclopedia) Galaţi or Galatz both: gälätsˈ [key], city , E Romania, on the lower Danube. It is a ...