Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Cassini käs-sēˈnē [key], name of a family of Italian-French astronomers, four generations of whom were directors of the Paris Observatory. Gian Domenico Cassini, 1625–1712, was born in Italy and...

(Encyclopedia) Illinois ĭlˌənoiˈ, –noizˈ [key], confederation of Native North Americans, comprising the Cahokia, the Kaskaskia, the Michigamea, the Moingwena, the Peoria, and the Tamaroa tribes. They belong t...

(Encyclopedia) Girondists zhērôNdăNˈ [key], political group of moderate republicans in the French Revolution, so called because the central members were deputies of the Gironde dept. Girondist leaders advocated ...

(Encyclopedia) Bemba Gombo, Jean-Pierre, 1962–, Congolese politician. Born to wealthy parents, he was educated in Brussels and built a business empire in what was then Zaïre. In the early 1990s he was personal as...

(Encyclopedia) democracy [Gr.,=rule of the people], term originating in ancient Greece to designate a government where the people share in directing the activities of the state, as distinct from governments controll...

(Encyclopedia) progressive education, movement in American education. Confined to a period between the late 19th and mid-20th cent., the term “progressive education” is generally used to refer only to those educ...

(Encyclopedia) Senancour, Étienne Pivert de ātyĕnˈ pēvĕrˈ də sənäNco͞orˈ [key], 1770–1846, French writer. He is known principally for his autobiographical epistolary novel Obermann (1804, tr. 1903). Th...

(Encyclopedia) Frontenac, Louis de Buade, comte de Palluau et de frŏnˈtĭnăk, Fr. lwē də büädˈ koNt də pälüōˈ ā də frôNtənäkˈ [key], 1620–98, French governor of New France. His early military ca...

(Encyclopedia) Urfé, Honoré d' ōnōrāˈ dürfāˈ [key], 1567–1625, French novelist. He was the author of L'Astrée (5 vol., 1607–10), the principal French pastoral novel. It portrays shepherds and shepherde...