Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Poland, partitions of. The basic causes leading to the three successive partitions (1772, 1793, 1795) that eliminated Poland from the map were the decay and the internal disunity of Poland and the eme...

(Encyclopedia) New York City Ballet (NYCB), one of the foremost American dance companies of the 20th and 21st cents. It was founded by Lincoln Kirstein and George Balanchine as the Ballet Society in 1946. In 1948 th...

(Encyclopedia) Wettin vĕtˈĭn [key], German dynasty, which ruled in Saxony, Thuringia, Poland, Great Britain, Belgium, and Bulgaria. It takes its name from a castle on the Saale near Halle. The family gained promi...

(Encyclopedia) Boccaccio, Giovanni jōvänˈnē [key], 1313–75, Italian poet and storyteller, author of the Decameron. Born in Paris, the illegitimate son of a Tuscan merchant and a French woman, he was educated a...

(Encyclopedia) shopping center, a concentration of retail, service, and entertainment enterprises designed to serve the surrounding region. The modern shopping center differs from its antecedents—bazaars and marke...

(Encyclopedia) sociology, scientific study of human social behavior. As the study of humans in their collective aspect, sociology is concerned with all group activities—economic, social, political, and religious. ...

(Encyclopedia) Columbus, Christopher, Ital. Cristoforo Colombo krēstōˈbäl kōlōnˈ [key], 1451–1506, European explorer, b. Genoa, Italy. Columbus was not the first European mariner to sail to the New World�...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 The five classical positions in ballet ballet bălˈā, bălāˈ [key] [Ital. ballare=to dance], classic, formalized solo or ensemble dancing of a highly controlled, dramatic nature performed ...

(Encyclopedia) Perón, Juan Domingo hwän dōmēngˈgō pĕrōnˈ [key], 1895–1974, president of Argentina (1946–55; 1973–74). In 1971, President Lanusse, convinced that political order could not be achieve...

(Encyclopedia) Cologne kəlōnˈ [key], Ger. Köln, city (2021 est. metro area pop. 1,129,000), North Rhine�...