Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Glass, Philip, 1937–, American composer, b. Baltimore. Considered one of the most innovative of contemporary composers, he was a significant figure in the development of minimalism in music. Glass a...

(Encyclopedia) tsunami tso͝onäˈmē [key], series of catastrophic ocean waves generated by submarine movements, which may be caused by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides beneath the ocean, or an asteroid ...

(Encyclopedia) Normandy nôrmäNdēˈ [key], region and former province, NW France, bordering on the English Channel. It now includes five departments—Manche, Calvados, Eure, Seine-Maritime, and Orne. Normandy is ...

(Encyclopedia) James, Henry, 1843–1916, American novelist and critic, b. New York City. A master of the psychological novel, James was an innovator in technique and one of the most distinctive prose stylists in En...

(Encyclopedia) flood, inundation of land by the rise and overflow of a body of water. Floods occur most commonly when water from heavy rainfall, from melting ice and snow, or from a combination of these exceeds the ...

(Encyclopedia) mine, in warfare, term formerly applied to a system of tunnels dug under an army fortification and ending in a chamber where either explosives were placed to be detonated at a chosen moment or the sup...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Edible grasses grass, any plant of the family Poaceae (formerly Gramineae), an important and widely distributed group of vascular plants, having an extraordinary range of adaptation. Numbering...

(Encyclopedia) Mughal art and architecture, a characteristic Indo-Islamic-Persian style that flourished on the Indian subcontinent during the Mughal empire (1526–1857). This new style combined elements of Islamic ...

(Encyclopedia) Yucatán yo͞okətănˈ [key], peninsula, c.70,000 sq mi (181,300 sq km), mostly in SE Mexico, separating the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico. It comprises the states of Yucatán, Campeche, and ...

(Encyclopedia) electronic music or electro-acoustic music, term for compositions that utilize the capacities of electronic media for creating and altering sounds. Initially, a distinction must be made between the te...