Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Comanche kəmănˈchē [key], Native North Americans belonging to the Shoshonean group of the Uto-Aztecan branch of the Aztec-Tanoan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). They originated f...

(Encyclopedia) Cook, David J., 1840–1907, American law enforcement officer, b. near La Porte, Ind. He moved (1855) with his family to Kansas, went (1859) to the Colorado gold fields, and returned to enlist (1861) ...

(Encyclopedia) Know-Nothing movement, in U.S. history. The increasing rate of immigration in the 1840s encouraged nativism. In Eastern cities where Roman Catholic immigrants especially had concentrated and were welc...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 CE5 United Nations (UN), international organization established immediately after World War II. It replaced the League of Nations. In 1945, when the UN was founded, there were 51 members; 193...

(Encyclopedia) New York State Barge Canal: see New York State Canal System. ...

(Encyclopedia) Singleton, Benjamin, c. 1809–c. 1900, African-American leader of post–Civil War black resettlement in the West, b. Davidson co. (now coextensive with Nashville), Tenn. He escaped slavery in 1846, ...

(Encyclopedia) Geary, John White gērˈē [key], 1819–73, American politician and Union general in the Civil War, b. Mt. Pleasant, Pa. In San Francisco from 1849 to 1852, Geary was the first U.S. postmaster, the l...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Constitution of the United States, document embodying the fundamental principles upon which the American republic is conducted. Drawn up at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787...

(Encyclopedia) Thomson, Virgil, 1896–1989, American composer, critic, and organist, b. Kansas City, Mo. Thomson studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. Until about 1926 he wrote in a dissonant, neoclassic style, bu...

(Encyclopedia) Inge, William ĭnj [key], 1913–73, American playwright, b. Independence, Kans., grad. Univ. of Kansas, 1935. He was a teacher and newspaper critic before he won recognition as a dramatist. Inge's pl...