Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Las Casas, Bartolomé de bärtōlōmāˈ dā läs käˈsäs [key], 1474–1566, Spanish missionary and historian, called the apostle of the Indies. He went to Hispaniola with his father in 1502, and e...

(Encyclopedia) Las Cases, Emmanuel, comte de ĕmänüĕlˈ kôNt də läs käz [key], 1766–1842, French historian. He accompanied Napoleon into exile to St. Helena, where the emperor dictated a part of his memoirs...

(Encyclopedia) Gold Butte National Monument, 296,937 acres (90,506 hectares), SE Utah, est. 2016 and managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Named for a mining ghost town, the monument embraces a rugged desert lan...

(Encyclopedia) Presley, Elvis (Elvis Aaron Presley), 1935–77, American popular singer, b. Tupelo, Miss. Exposed to gospel music from childhoo...

(Encyclopedia) Area 51, name for a U.S. military site, S Nev., c.80 mi (130 km) NNW of Las Vegas. Shrouded in secrecy since the mid-20th cent., it is located within the U.S. Air Force's enormous Nevada Test and Trai...

(Encyclopedia) Muldoon, Paul, 1951–, Irish poet, b. Co. Armagh, Northern Ireland, B.A. Queen's Univ., Belfast, 1973. Muldoon worked as an arts producer for the BBC (1973–86), then taught at the Univ. of East Ang...

(Encyclopedia) Cirque du Soleil, [Fr.,=circus of the sun], innovative Canadian circus, est. 1984, with headquarters in Montreal. The best-known exemplar of cirque nouveau, Cirque du Soleil is a mixture of spectacle,...

(Encyclopedia) Kramer, Jack (John Albert Kramer), 1921–2009, American tennis player, b. Las Vegas, Nev. He excelled at tennis while still in high school. Kramer and Frederick (Ted) Schroeder won the U.S. national ...

(Encyclopedia) Scherbo, Vitaly, 1972–, Belarussian gymnast. Often considered to be the best male gymnast of all time, he had won at least one world title on each apparatus by the time he retired in 1997. He won hi...

(Encyclopedia)  Brooks, Garth , 1962- , American country singer/songwriter, b. Luba, OK, Oklahoma State Univ. (B.A., 1984). Brooks's mother was a country singer who pe...