Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) O'Neill, Tip (Thomas Philip O'Neill, Jr.), 1912–94, American political leader, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (1977–87), b. Cambridge, Mass. A Democrat and unwavering New Deal libera...

(Encyclopedia) Maxim măkˈsĭm [key], name of a family of inventors and munition makers. Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim, 1840–1916, was born near Sangerville, Maine. After launching on a career of inventing, he moved to...

(Encyclopedia) Wheelwright, John, c.1592–1679, American Puritan clergyman, founder of Exeter, N.H., b. Lincolnshire, England. He studied at Cambridge and was vicar (1623–33) of Bilsby. Suspended by Archbishop La...

(Encyclopedia) Diamond, Peter Arthur, 1940–, American economist, b. New York City, Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1963. Diamond was a professor at the Univ. of California, Berkeley, from 1963 to 1966...

(Encyclopedia) Clarke, John, 1609–76, one of the founders of Rhode Island, b. Westhorpe, Suffolk, England. He emigrated to Boston in 1637 and shortly thereafter joined Anne Hutchinson (with whom he had sided in th...

(Encyclopedia) Horvitz, H. Robert (Howard Robert Horivtz), 1947–, American geneticist, b. Chicago, Ill., Ph.D. Harvard, 1974. Horvitz has been a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1978. W...

(Encyclopedia) America, in music, a patriotic hymn of the United States. The words (beginning “My country, 'tis of thee”) were written in 1832 by Samuel Francis Smith while he was a theological student in Andove...

(Encyclopedia) Frank, Barney, 1940–, American congressman, b. Bayonne, N.J., grad. Harvard (B.A., 1962; J.D., 1977). A liberal Democrat, he began his political career as chief assistant to Boston Mayor Kevin White...

(Encyclopedia) Hancock, John, 1737–93, political leader in the American Revolution, signer of the Declaration of Independence, b. Braintree, Mass. From an uncle he inherited Boston's leading mercantile firm, and n...