Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Baptists, denomination of Protestant Christians holding a distinctive belief with regard to the ordinance of baptism. Since 1644 the name has been applied to those who maintain that baptism should be ...

(Encyclopedia) rock music, type of music originating in the United States in the mid-1950s and increasingly popular throughout much of the world. A turning point in rock music occurred in the mid-1970s in the ...

(Encyclopedia) Shelley, Percy Bysshe bĭsh [key], 1792–1822, English poet, b. Horsham, Sussex. He is ranked as one of the great English poets of the romantic period. Most of Shelley's poetry reveals his philos...

(Encyclopedia) surveying, method of determining accurately points and lines of direction (bearings) on the earth's surface and preparing from them maps or plans. Boundaries, areas, elevations, construction lines, an...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Virginia, state of the S Middle-Atlantic United States. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean (E), North Carolina and Tennessee (S), Kentucky and West Virginia (W), and Maryland and the District...

(Encyclopedia) Jackson, Stonewall (Thomas Jonathan Jackson), 1824–63, Confederate general, b. Clarksburg, Va. (now W.Va.), grad. West Point, 1846. With the diversion in the Shenandoah Valley a complete success...

(Encyclopedia) explosive, substance that undergoes decomposition or combustion with great rapidity, evolving much heat and producing a large volume of gas. The reaction products fill a much greater volume than that ...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Mississippi mĭsˌəsĭpˈē [key], one of the Deep South states of the United States. It is bordered by Alabama (E), the Gulf of Mexico (S), Arkansas and Louisiana, with most of that border fo...

(Encyclopedia) Presidents of the United States

(Encyclopedia) Melville, Herman, 1819–91, American author, b. New York City, considered one of the great American writers and a major figure in world literature. Like Moby-Dick, Pierre; or, The Ambiguities (18...