Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Layton, Irving, 1912–2006, Canadian poet, b. Romania as Israel Lazarovitch. His family emigrated to Montreal when he was an infant. He attended Macdonald College (B.Sc., 1939) and McGill Univ. (M.A....

(Encyclopedia) O'Hara, Frank 1926–66, American poet, b. Baltimore, grad. Harvard (B.A., 1950), Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor (M.A., 1951). His poetry is spontaneous, vernacular, witty, personal, and very much of it...

(Encyclopedia) Overland Trail, any of several trails of westward migration in the United States. The term is sometimes used to mean all the trails westward from the Missouri to the Pacific and sometimes for the cent...

(Encyclopedia) Matthew of Paris or Matthew Paris, d. 1259, English historian, a monk of St. Albans. He became the historiographer of the convent after the death (c.1236) of Roger of Wendover. The first part of his C...

(Encyclopedia) Piccirilli pēˌchērēlˈlē [key], family of Italian-American marble cutters and sculptors. In 1888, the father and six sons, all sculptors, migrated from Italy and established a highly successful w...

(Encyclopedia) monitorial system, method of elementary education devised by British educators Joseph Lancaster and Andrew Bell during the 19th cent. to furnish schooling to the underprivileged even under conditions ...

(Encyclopedia) shell, in zoology, hard outer covering secreted by an animal for protection. It is also called the test, crust, or carapace. The term usually refers to the calcareous shells of the many species of mol...

(Encyclopedia) Dinesen, Isak ēˈsäk dēˈnəsən [key], pseud. of Baroness Karen Blixen, 1885–1962, Danish author, who wrote primarily in English. In 1914 she married Baron Blixen and went to live in British Eas...

(Encyclopedia) Du Pont, Samuel Francis, 1803–65, American naval officer, b. Bergen Point, N.J.; grandson of Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours. Appointed a midshipman in 1815, he saw his first active duty in the Med...

(Encyclopedia) Butt, Isaac, 1813–79, Irish politician and nationalist leader. A member of both the Irish and the English bar, he was a noted conservative lawyer and scholar and an opponent of Daniel O'Connell. Aft...