Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Marengo märĕngˈgō [key], village, Piedmont, NW Italy, near Alessandria. It was the site of a famous battle (June 14, 1800) between the French under Napoleon Bonaparte and the Austrians under Melas...

(Encyclopedia) Marston Moor, battlefield, West Riding of Yorkshire, N England, near York. The battle fought there on July 2, 1644, between the royalists, under Prince Rupert and the duke of Newcastle, and the parlia...

(Encyclopedia) Massachusetts Bay, inlet of the Atlantic Ocean. The bay, with its arms (Boston, Cape Cod, and Plymouth bays), extends 65 mi (105 km) from Cape Ann on the north to Cape Cod on the south. Its coastline ...

(Encyclopedia) Pheidippides fīdĭpˈĭdēz [key], fl. 490 b.c., semilegendary Athenian courier sent to Sparta to request help when the Persians landed at Marathon. He ran 150 miles in two days. At the conclusion of...

(Encyclopedia) Philippi fĭlĭpˈī [key], ancient city of Macedon and Macedonia, now in Greece, in E Macedonia. Inhabited by Thracians and then Thasians, it was renamed (probably 356 b.c.) by Philip II of Macedon, ...

(Encyclopedia) Pichincha pēchēnˈchä [key], active volcano, 15,918 ft (4,852 m) high, N Ecuador, near Quito. Its most serious recent eruption was in 1998–2001. On its lower slopes, in the decisive battle of Pic...

(Encyclopedia) Mobile Bay, arm of the Gulf of Mexico, SW Ala., from 8 to 18 mi (12.9–29 km) wide, extending c.35 mi (56 km) from the Gulf to the mouth of the Mobile River. A ship channel connects Mobile Bay with t...

(Encyclopedia) Mortimer's Cross, battlefield, Herefordshire, W England, near Leominster. It was the scene of a battle (Feb. 2, 1461) in the Wars of the Roses (see Roses, Wars of the), which ended with a decisive vic...

(Encyclopedia) Casca (Publius Servilius Casca Longus) kăsˈkə [key], d. c.42 b.c., Roman politician, one of the assassins of Julius Caesar. Casca was the first to stab Caesar. He died (presumably by suicide) soon ...

(Encyclopedia) Abd ar-Rahman äbˌdär-rämänˈ [key], d. 732, Muslim governor of Spain (721–32). Invading Aquitaine in 732, he won a victory over the Franks at Toulouse but was defeated in the battle of Tours by...