Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Montreal môNrāälˈ [key], city (1991 pop. 1,017,666), S Que., Canada, on Montreal island, surrounded by St. Lawrence River and Rivière des Prairies. Montreal is the second largest metropolitan are...

(Encyclopedia) Australian literature, the literature of Australia. Because the vast majority of early Australian settlers were transported prisoners, the beginnings of Australian literature were oral rather than wri...

(Encyclopedia) Peloponnesian War pĕlˈəpənēˈzhən [key], 431–404 b.c., decisive struggle in ancient Greece between Athens and Sparta. It ruined Athens, at least for a time. The rivalry between Athens' maritim...

(Encyclopedia) boxing, sport of fighting with fists, also called pugilism and prizefighting. Amateur boxing, while not free from debate, has in recent decades taken steps to ensure safety and objective judging. Th...

(Encyclopedia) Booth, John Wilkes wĭlks [key], 1838–65, American actor, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln, b. near Bel Air, Md.; son of Junius Brutus Booth and brother of Edwin Booth. He made his stage debut at the...

(Encyclopedia) surrealism sərēˈəlĭzəm [key], literary and art movement influenced by Freudianism and dedicated to the expression of imagination as revealed in dreams, free of the conscious control of reason an...

(Encyclopedia) Weld, Theodore Dwight, 1803–95, American abolitionist, b. Hampton, Conn. In 1825 his family moved to upstate New York, and he entered Hamilton College. While in college he became a disciple of the e...

(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) Gustavus II (Gustavus Adolphus), 1594–1632, king of Sweden (1611–32), son and successor of Charles IX. In military organization and strategy, Gustavus was ahead of his time. While most powers re...

(Encyclopedia) Anthropocene Epoch, an unofficial term used by scientists to describe a period of time—up to the present—in which humanity has impacted the planet on a global scale. The phrase was fir...