Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Cappadocia kăpədōˈshə [key], ancient region of Asia Minor, watered by the Halys River (the modern Kizil Irmak), in present E central Turkey. The name was applied at different times to territories...

(Encyclopedia) projective geometry, branch of geometry concerned with those properties of geometric figures that remain invariant under projection. The basic elements are points, lines, and planes, and the following...

(Encyclopedia) Amis, Sir Kingsley āˈmĭs [key], 1922–95, English novelist. He attended St. John's College, Oxford (B.A., 1949) and for some 20 years taught at Oxford, Swansea, and Cambridge and in the United Sta...

(Encyclopedia) minimalism, schools of contemporary art and music, with their origins in the 1960s, that have emphasized simplicity and objectivity. In music, the minimalist movement was, like minimal art, a react...

(Encyclopedia) African National Congress (ANC), the oldest black (now multiracial) political organization in South Africa; founded in 1912. Prominent in its opposition to apartheid, the organization began as a nonvi...

(Encyclopedia) circus [Lat.,=ring, circle], historically, the arena associated with the horse and chariot races and athletic contests known in ancient Rome as the Circensian games. The Roman circus was a round or ov...

(Encyclopedia) Franche-Comté fräNsh-kôNtāˈ [key] or Free County of Burgundy, former province and former administrative region, E France. It is coextensive with Haute-Saône, Doubs, and Jura depts. Dôle was the...

(Encyclopedia) water, desalination of, process of removing soluble salts from water to render it suitable for drinking, irrigation, or industrial uses. The principal methods used for desalination include distillatio...

(Encyclopedia) Saint Peter's Church, Vatican City, principal and one of the largest churches of the Christian world. The present structure was built mainly between 1506 and 1626 on the original site of the Vatican c...

(Encyclopedia) Scipio sĭpˈēō [key], ancient Roman family of the Cornelian gens. They were patricians. During the 3d and 2d cent. b.c. they were distinguished by their love of Greek culture and learning. Their we...