Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Day, Doris, 1922–2019, American film actress, b. Cincinnati as Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff. Day is best known for her wholesome, girl-next-door roles. She began her career as a 1940s band singer, and ...

(Encyclopedia) Chomsky, Noam nōm chŏmˈskē [key], 1928–, educator and linguist, b. Philadelphia. Chomsky, who has taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1955, developed a theory of transforma...

(Encyclopedia) Beard, Charles Austin, 1874–1948, American historian, b. near Knightstown, Ind. A year at Oxford as a graduate student gave him an interest in English local government, and after further study at Co...

(Encyclopedia) Eliot, George, pseud. of Mary Ann or Marian Evans, 1819–80, English novelist, b. Arbury, Warwickshire. One of the great English novelists, she was reared in a strict atmosphere of evangelical Protes...

(Encyclopedia) Guise gēz, gwēz [key], influential ducal family of France. Henri's brother Louis de Lorraine, Cardinal de Guise, 1555–88, was killed at the same time as Henri. After their deaths the leadersh...

(Encyclopedia) Lynch, Jack (John Mary Lynch), 1917–99, Irish statesman. Before he embarked on his political career, he gained nationwide fame as an athlete, captaining several winning hurling teams in the 1930s an...

(Encyclopedia) Napolitano, Janet Ann,, 1957 - , American politican and university administrator, b. New York, N.Y., Santa Clara (Ca.) Univ. (B.A., 1979); ...

(Encyclopedia) Paul, Les, 1915–2009, American guitarist and inventor, b. Waukesha, Wis., as Lester William Polsfuss (later Polfuss). He began playing country music a...

(Encyclopedia) Laban, Rudolf von fôn läbˈän [key], 1879–1958, Slovakian dancer, choreographer, and dance theorist. After studying in Paris and performing in N Africa, Germany, and Austria, he founded (1910) a ...

(Encyclopedia) Merv myĕrf [key], ancient city, in Turkmenistan, in a large oasis of the Kara Kum desert, on the Murgab River. The city, known in antiquity as Margiana, or Antiochia Margiana, was founded in the 3d c...