Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Close, Chuck (Charles Thomas Close), 1940–2021, American painter, b. Monroe, Wash., Univ. of Washington (B.A., 1962), Yale Univ. (B.F.A., 1963; M.F.A...

(Encyclopedia) Adams, Abigail, 1744–1818, wife of President John Adams and mother of President John Quincy Adams, b. Weymouth, Mass., as Abigail Smith. A lively, intelligent woman, she married John Adams in 1764 a...

(Encyclopedia) Beowulf bāˈəwo͝olf [key], oldest English epic, probably composed in the early 8th cent. by an Anglian bard in the vicinity of Northumbria. It survives in only one manuscript, written c.a.d. 1000 b...

(Encyclopedia) World Health Organization (WHO), specialized agency of the United Nations, established in 1948, with its headquarters at Geneva. WHO admits all sovereign states (including those not belonging to the U...

(Encyclopedia) utilitarianism yo͞oˌtĭlĭtrˈēənĭzəm, yo͞otĭˌ– [key], in ethics, the theory that the rightness or wrongness of an action is determined by its usefulness in bringing about the most happines...

(Encyclopedia) Rudolph, Paul Marvin, 1918–97, American modernist architect, b. Elkton, Ky. Rudolph taught at several universities and served as chair of the Yale architecture department from 1958–65. He was one ...

(Encyclopedia) Pompadour, Jeanne Antoinette Poisson Le Normant d'Étioles, marquise de pŏmˈpədôr, Fr. zhän äNtwänĕtˈ pwäsôNˈ lə nôrmäNˈ dātyôlˈ märkēzˈ də pôNpädo͞orˈ [key], 1721–64, mis...

(Encyclopedia) Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 1823–1911, American author, b. Cambridge, Mass. A Unitarian minister, he was a leader in the abolitionist movement and was a member of a group that backed John Brown's a...

(Encyclopedia) Kean, Edmund, 1787?–1833, English actor. Kean's acting expressed the ideal of the romantic temperament. A small man with a wild spirit and a gruff voice, he was lauded for his facial mobility; accor...

(Encyclopedia) Neurath, Otto, 1882–1945, Austrian philosopher, social scientist, and design theorist, b. Vienna. During the 1920s and 30s he was both a Marxist and a member of the Vienna Circle, an exponent of log...