Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Gonda gōnˈdə [key], town, Uttar Pradesh state, N India, on the Sarayu River and the Luckno...

(Encyclopedia) Gordon, Charles William, pseud. Ralph Connor, 1860–1937, Canadian clergyman and novelist. His popular stories were based on his experience as a Presbyterian missionary in the lumber and mining camps...

(Encyclopedia) monsters and imaginary beasts. The mythologies and legends of ancient and modern cultures teem with an enormous variety of monsters and imaginary beasts. A great number of these are composites of diff...

(Encyclopedia) Defoe or De Foe, Daniel dĭfōˈ [key], 1660?–1731, English writer, b. London. He was nearly sixty when he turned to writing novels. In 1719 he published his famous Life and Strange Surprising Adv...

(Encyclopedia) Perot, H. Ross (Henry Ross Perot), 1930–2019, American business executive and political leader, b. Texarkana, Tex., as Henry Ray Perot, grad. Annapolis, 1953. In 1957 he resigned his naval commissio...

(Encyclopedia) Carver, Raymond, 1938–88, American short-story writer, b. Clatskanie, Oreg. He was raised in the Pacific Northwest, where he often set his sparely written tales of everyday blue-collar life. His per...

(Encyclopedia) xenon zēˈnŏn [key] [Gr.,=strange], gaseous chemical element; symbol Xe; at. no. 54; at. wt. 131.293; m.p. −111.9℃; b.p. −107.1℃; density 5.86 grams per liter at STP; valence usually 0. Xeno...

(Encyclopedia) actinium ăktĭnˈēəm [key] [Gr.,=like a ray], radioactive chemical element; symbol Ac; at. no. 89; mass number of most stable isotope 227; m.p. about 1,050℃; b.p. 3,200℃±300℃; sp. gr. 10.07;...

(Encyclopedia) Lützelburger, Hans häns lüˈtsəlbo͝orgər [key], d. 1526, German wood engraver, assumed to be the same man as Hans Franck, active from c.1516. He worked in Augsburg and Basel and probably in Main...

(Encyclopedia) Meyrink, Gustav go͝osˈtäf mīˈrĭngk [key], 1868–1932, German author, b. Vienna. His original name was Gustav Meyer. A staff member of Simplicissimus from 1902, he became famous for his sketches...