Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Updike, John, 1932–2009, American author, one of the nation's most distinguished 20th-century men of letters, b. Shillington, Pa., grad. Harvard, 1954. In his many novels and stories, written in a w...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Wild balsam apple, Echinocystis Jobata, a member of the gourd family gourd gôrd, go͝ord [key], common name for some members of the Cucurbitaceae, a family of plants whose range includes all ...

(Encyclopedia) Breyer, Stephen Gerald brīˈər [key], 1938–, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court ...

(Encyclopedia) Alamo, the ălˈəmōˌ [key] [Span.,=cottonwood], building in San Antonio, Tex., “the cradle of Texas liberty.” Built as a chapel after 1744, it is all that remains of the mission of San Antonio ...

(Encyclopedia) Fourteenth Amendment, addition to the U.S. Constitution, adopted 1868. The amendment comprises five sections. Section 2 provides for apportionment of membership in the House of Representatives on th...

(Encyclopedia) Magna Carta or Magna Charta [Lat., = great charter], the most famous document of British constitutional history, issued by King John at Runnymede under compulsion from the barons and the church in...

(Encyclopedia) Hudson, river, c.315 mi (510 km) long, rising in Lake Tear of the Clouds, on Mt. Marcy in the Adirondack Mts., NE N.Y., and flowing generally S to Upper New York Bay at New York City; the Mohawk River...

(Encyclopedia) Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850–94, Scottish novelist, poet, and essayist, b. Edinburgh. Handicapped from youth by delicate health, he struggled all his life against tuberculosis. He studied law and w...

(Encyclopedia) Pedro I (Dom Pedro de Alcântara) pāˈdrō [key], 1798–1834, first emperor of Brazil (1822–31); son of John VI of Portugal. Dom Pedro was a child when the Portuguese royal family, fleeing from Na...

(Encyclopedia) Demosthenes dĭmŏsˈthənēz [key], 384?–322 b.c., Greek orator, generally considered the greatest of the Greek orators. He was a pupil of Isaeus, and—although the story of his putting pebbles in...