Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) French and Indian Wars, 1689–1763, the name given by American historians to the North American colonial wars between Great Britain and France in the late 17th and the 18th cent. They were really cam...

(Encyclopedia) John VI, 1769–1826, king of Portugal (1816–26), son of Maria I and Peter III. When his mother became insane, John assumed the reins of government (1792), although he did not formally become regent...

(Encyclopedia) French West Africa, former federation of eight French overseas territories. The constituent territories were Dahomey (now Benin), French Guinea (now Guinea), French Sudan (now Mali), Côte d'Ivoire, M...

(Encyclopedia) Guelphs gwĕlfs [key], European dynasty tracing its descent from the Swabian count Guelph or Welf (9th cent.), whose daughter Judith married the Frankish emperor Louis I. Guelph III (d. 1055) was made...

(Encyclopedia) Louis XVIII, 1755–1824, king of France (1814–24), brother of King Louis XVI. Known as the comte de Provence, he fled (1791) to Koblenz from the French Revolution and intrigued to bring about forei...

(Encyclopedia) French literature, writings in medieval French dialects and standard modern French. Writings in Provençal and Breton are considered separately, as are works in French produced abroad (as at Canadian ...

(Encyclopedia) French Revolutionary Wars, wars occurring in the era of the French Revolution and the beginning of the Napoleonic era, the decade of 1792–1802. The wars began as an effort to defend the Revolution a...

(Encyclopedia) Francis II, 1544–60, king of France (1559–60), son of King Henry II and Catherine de' Medici. He married (1558) Mary Queen of Scots (Mary Stuart), and during his brief reign the government was in ...

(Encyclopedia) Henry III, 1207–72, king of England (1216–72), son and successor of King John. Henry III has suffered at the hands of many historians, in part, because of the hostility of contemporary chronicl...

(Encyclopedia) Family Compact, several alliances between France and Spain in the form of agreements between the French and Spanish branches of the Bourbon family. The first of the three compacts, the Treaty of the E...