Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Delambre, Jean Baptiste Joseph zhäN bätēstˈ zhôzĕfˈ dəläNˈbrə [key], 1749–1822, French astronomer and mathematician. He was a member of the bureau of longitudes from 1795 and professor at...

(Encyclopedia) Carroll, Paul Vincent, 1900–1968, Irish playwright. His plays, vigorous commentaries on the conflicts of village life in Ireland, include Shadow and Substance (1937), The White Steed (1939), The Wis...

(Encyclopedia) Picard, Jean, 1620–82, French astronomer, noted for having made the first accurate measurement of a degree of the earth's meridian. The figures he established were of great value to Newton in his ca...

(Encyclopedia) Castex, Jean, 1965–, French government official and political leader. A member of the center-right Republicans (and its predecessor, the Union for a Popular Movement), Castex has held a variety of c...

(Encyclopedia) Billaud-Varenne, Jean Nicolas zhäk nēkōläˈ bēyōˈ-värĕnˈ [key], 1756–1819, French revolutionary. A violent antimonarchist in the Convention, the revolutionary national assembly, he and Jea...

(Encyclopedia) Spaak, Paul Henri pôl äNrēˈ späk [key], 1899–1972, Belgian statesman and Socialist leader. He held various cabinet posts after 1935 and served almost continually as foreign minister from 1938 t...

(Encyclopedia) Farage, Nigel Paul fârˈäj [key], 1964–, British political leader. A commodities trader and long a Euroskeptic, he was a member of the Conservative party until 1992, when Prime Minister John Major...

(Encyclopedia) Boisbaudran, Paul Émile Lecoq de pôl āmēlˈ ləkôkˈ də bwäbōdräNˈ [key], 1838–1912, French discoverer of the elements gallium, samarium, and dysprosium. He also made contributions in the ...

(Encyclopedia) Reclus, Jean Jacques Élisée zhäN zhäk ālēzāˈ rəklüˈ [key], 1830–1905, French geographer, b. Gironde, educated mainly in Germany, where he studied under Karl Ritter. Several times he was f...

(Encyclopedia) Karrer, Paul, 1889–1971, Swiss organic chemist, Ph.D. Univ. of Zürich, 1911. From 1912 to 1918, Karrer was a chemist at the Georg Speyer Haus, Frankfurt-am-Main. He left in 1919 to become professor...