Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Zefat zĕfˈät [key], town (1994 pop. 21,600), NE Israel. One of Israel's four holy cities, it has a thriving artists' colony and many museums and ancient synagogues. Ceramics, diamonds, and handicra...

(Encyclopedia) Watkins, Carleton Eugene, 1829–1916, America's premier 19th-century landscape photographer, b. Oneonta, N.Y. Watkins created images that helped define the American West for his contemporaries and th...

(Encyclopedia) Rudolf II, 1552–1612, Holy Roman emperor (1576–1612), king of Bohemia (1575–1611) and of Hungary (1572–1608), son and successor of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II. Acceding to the Hapsburg la...

(Encyclopedia) Ashendene Press ăshˌəndēnˈ [key], founded in 1895 at Ashendene, Hertfordshire, England, by Sir C. H. St. John Hornby and moved in 1899 to Chelsea, London. It was a leader (with the Kelmscott Pres...

(Encyclopedia) optical character recognition (OCR), method for the machine-reading of typeset, typed, and, in some cases, hand-printed letters, numbers, and symbols using optical sensing and a computer. The light re...

(Encyclopedia) Mazarin Bible măzˈərĭn [key], considered to be the first important work printed by Gutenberg and the earliest book printed from movable types. The Bible, printed at Mainz, probably required severa...

(Encyclopedia) discus throwing, gymnastic exercise of the ancient Greeks, revived in modern times, especially as part of the Olympic games (in which it is an event of the decathlon) and as an event of most other tra...

(Encyclopedia) fence [short for defense], humanly erected barrier between two divisions of land, used to mark a legal or other boundary, to keep animals or people in or out, and sometimes as an ornament. In newly se...

(Encyclopedia) handkerchief. In classical Greece pieces of fine perfumed cotton, known as mouth or perspiration cloths, were often used by the wealthy. From the 1st cent. b.c., Roman men of rank used an oblong cloth...

(Encyclopedia) Taaffe, Eduard, Graf von āˈdo͞oärt gräf fən täˈfə [key], 1833–95, Austrian premier (1868–70, 1879–93), of Irish descent. A childhood friend of Emperor Francis Joseph, he was twice premi...