Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Byzantine art and architecture, works of art and structures works produced in the city of Byzantium after Constantine made it the capital of the Roman Empire (a.d. 330) and the work done under Byzanti...

(Encyclopedia)  CEE French language, member of the Romance group of the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Romance languages). It is spoken as a first language by more than 70 million p...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 California kălˌĭfôrˈnyə [key], most populous state in the United States, located in the Far West; bordered by Oregon (N), Nevada and, across the Colorado River, Arizona (E), Mexico (S), a...

(Encyclopedia) numeral, symbol denoting anumber. The symbol is a member of a family of marks, such as letters, figures, or words, which alone or in a group represent the members of a numeration system. The earliest ...

(Encyclopedia) Icelandic literature, the literature of Iceland. For the earliest literature of Iceland, see Old Norse literature. The 20th cent. saw the rise of a more introspective writing, influenced by Nietzsch...

(Encyclopedia) Pluto, in astronomy, a dwarf planet and the first Kuiper belt, or transneptunian, object (see comet) to be discovered (1930) by astronomers. Pluto has an elliptical orbit usually lying beyond that of ...

(Encyclopedia) poet laureate lôˈrēĭt [key], title conferred in Britain by the monarch on a poet whose duty it is to write commemorative odes and verse. It is an outgrowth of the medieval English custom of having...

(Encyclopedia) Red Cross, international organization concerned with the alleviation of human suffering and the promotion of public health; the world-recognized symbols of mercy and absolute neutrality are the Red Cr...

(Encyclopedia) Freemasonry, teachings and practices of the secret fraternal order officially known as the Free and Accepted Masons, or Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. Because of its identification with 19th-cent...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Montenegro mŏnˌtənēˈgrō [key], Serbo-Croatian Crna Gora, officially Republic of Montenegro, republic (2015 est. pop. 628,000), 5,332 sq mi (13,810 sq km), W Balkan Peninsula. It is border...