Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Nicholas II, 1868–1918, last czar of Russia (1894–1917), son of Alexander III and Maria Feodorovna. Discontent at home grew, the army tired of war, the food situation deteriorated, the governme...

(Encyclopedia) book collecting, or bibliophily, the acquiring of books that are, or are expected to become, rare and that possess permanent interest in addition to their texts. Collecting has traditionally concentra...

(Encyclopedia) William II, 1859–1941, emperor of Germany and king of Prussia (1888–1918), son and successor of Frederick III and grandson of William I of Germany and of Queen Victoria of England. After the out...

(Encyclopedia) organized crime, criminal activities organized and coordinated on a national scale, often with international connections. The American tradition of daring desperadoes like Jesse James and John Dilling...

(Encyclopedia) civil rights, rights that a nation's inhabitants enjoy by law. The term is broader than “political rights,” which refer only to rights devolving from the franchise and are held usually only by a c...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Minnesota mĭnˌĭsōˈtə [key], upper midwestern state of the United States. It is bordered by Lake Superior and Wisconsin (E), Iowa (S), South Dakota and North Dakota (W), and the Canadian p...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Georgia jôrˈjə [key], state in the SE United States, the last of the Thirteen Colonies to be founded. It is bordered by Florida (S), Alabama (W), Tennessee and North Carolina (N), and South ...

(Encyclopedia) Declaration of Independence, full and formal declaration adopted July 4, 1776, by representatives of the Thirteen Colonies in North America announcing the separation of those colonies from Great Brita...

(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) comic strip, combination of cartoon with a story line, laid out in a series of pictorial panels across a page and concerning a continuous character or set of characters, whose thoughts and dialogues a...