Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Sterne, Laurence stûrn [key], 1713–68, English author, b. Ireland. Educated at Cambridge, he entered the Anglican church and was given the living of Sutton-in-the-Forest, Yorkshire, in 1738, where ...

(Encyclopedia)  Corman, Roger William, 1926-, American film director, screenwriter, and producer, b. Detroit, Mi., Stanford Univ. (B.S., 1947). Corman studied industr...

(Encyclopedia) biography, reconstruction in print or on film, of the lives of real men and women. Together with autobiography—an individual's interpretation of his own life—it shares a venerable tradition, meeti...

(Encyclopedia) Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, in central Manhattan, New York City, between 62d and 66th streets W of Broadway. Lincoln Center is both a complex of buildings and the arts organizations that r...

(Encyclopedia) Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 1723–92, English portrait painter, b. Devonshire. Long considered historically the most important of England's painters, by his learned example he raised the artist to a positi...

(Encyclopedia) Butler, Benjamin Franklin, 1818–93, American politician and Union general in the Civil War, b. Deerfield, N.H. He moved to Lowell, Mass., as a youth and later practiced law there and in Boston. He w...

(Encyclopedia) anti–Vietnam War movement, domestic and international reaction (1965–73) in opposition to U.S. policy during the Vietnam War. During the four years following passage of the Tonkin Gulf resolution ...

(Encyclopedia) helicopter, type of aircraft in which lift is obtained by means of one or more power-driven horizontal propellers called rotors. When the rotor of a helicopter turns it produces reaction torque which ...

(Encyclopedia) sorghum, tall, coarse annual (Sorghum bicolor) of the family Poaceae (grass family), somewhat similar in appearance to corn (but having the grain in a panicle rather than an ear) and used for much the...

(Encyclopedia) Stephen, Sir Leslie, 1832–1904, English author and critic. The first serious critic of the novel, he was also editor of the great Dictionary of National Biography from its beginning in 1882 until 18...