Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Fort Niagara, post on the southern shore of Lake Ontario, at the mouth of the Niagara River, NW N.Y. It was strategically located on the water route to the fur lands. French explorer Robert LaSalle er...

(Encyclopedia) Sickles, Daniel Edgar, 1819–1914, American politician, Union general in the Civil War, b. New York City. A lawyer, he became active in Democratic politics, serving in the New York legislature. He wa...

(Encyclopedia) Wirtz, William Willard, 1912–2010, U.S. secretary of labor (1962–69), b. DeKalb, Ill. A professor of law at Northwestern Univ. (1939–42), he served (1943–45) with the War Labor Board and was (...

(Encyclopedia) Wain, John, 1925–94, English novelist and critic, b. Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, grad. Oxford (B.A., 1946; M.A., 1950). Originally lumped with England's angry young men after the publication of H...

(Encyclopedia) White, William Allen, 1868–1944, American author, b. Emporia, Kans., studied (1886–90) at Kansas State Univ. As owner and editor of the Emporia Gazette from 1895 until his death, he represented gr...

(Encyclopedia) Ruef, Abraham (Abe Ruef) ro͞of [key], 1864–1936, American political boss, b. San Francisco. He practiced law in San Francisco after 1886 and became a familiar figure in San Francisco ward politics....

(Encyclopedia) Taylor, Edward, c.1642–1729, American poet and clergyman, b. England, considered America's foremost colonial poet. He immigrated to America in 1668 and graduated from Harvard in 1671. From then unti...

(Encyclopedia) Terman, Lewis Madison tûrˈmən [key], 1877–1956, American psychologist, b. Johnson co., Ind., grad. Indiana Univ., 1902, Ph.D. Clark Univ., 1905. He joined the faculty of Stanford in 1910 and was ...

(Encyclopedia) Leskov, Nikolai Semyonovich nyĭkəlīˈ sĭmyôˈnəvĭch lyĭskôfˈ [key], 1831–95, Russian short-story writer and novelist. Leskov was first a civil servant, then an agent for his uncle's busine...

(Encyclopedia) Launcelot, Sir lănˈsəlŏtˌ, lŏnˈ–, lônˈ– [key], in Arthurian legend, bravest and most celebrated knight at the court of King Arthur. He was kidnapped as an infant by the mysterious Lady of...