Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Li Tsung-jên lē dzo͞ong-jŭn [key], 1890–1969, Chinese Nationalist general and political leader. For 25 years (1925–49) he was a leader of the military clique that ruled Guangxi prov. The Guang...

(Encyclopedia) Arrokoth, trans-Neptunian object in the Kuiper Belt (see comet). First observed by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2014 and later nicknamed Ultima Thule (until its official naming in late 2019), it beca...

(Encyclopedia) Parthenopean Republic pärˌthənōpēˈən [key] [from Parthenope, an ancient name of Naples], state set up in Naples in Jan., 1799, by the French Revolutionary army under General Championnet and by ...

(Encyclopedia) Neutrality Act, law passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Aug., 1935. It was designed to keep the United States out of a possible European war by banning shi...

(Encyclopedia) autogiro jīˈrəplān [key], type of aircraft supported in the air by a horizontally mounted airfoil similar to that of a helicopter but unpowered. Invented by the Spaniard Juan de la Cierva, it was ...

(Encyclopedia) Mosby, John Singleton môzˈbē [key], 1833–1916, Confederate partisan leader in the American Civil War, b. Edgemont, Va. He was practicing law in Bristol, Va., when the Civil War broke out. Mosby s...

(Encyclopedia) Allawi, Ayad ĕyädˈ äläˈwē [key], 1946–, Iraqi political leader. A doctor and prominent secular Shiite, he was a Ba'ath party member but went into exile in 1971. After a 1978 assassination att...

(Encyclopedia) Campin, Robert kämˈpĭn [key], 1378–1444, Flemish painter who with the van Eycks ranks as a founder of the Netherlandish school. He has been identified as the Master of Flémalle on the basis of t...

(Encyclopedia) Hue hwā [key], city (1989 pop. 260,489), former capital of the historic region of Annam, Vietnam, in a rich farming area on the Hue River near the South China Sea. Probably founded in the 3d cent. a....

(Encyclopedia) Fonseka, Sarath säˈrät fänsĕkˈä [key], 1950–, Sri Lankan general and politician. He joined the army in 1970 and rose through the officer corps. From the early 1980s he led Sri Lankan troops i...