Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) integration, in U.S. history, the goal of an organized movement to break down the barriers of discrimination and segregation separating African Americans from the rest of American society. Racial segr...

(Encyclopedia) bowfin, primitive freshwater fish found in the Mississippi basin, the Great Lakes, and E to Vermont. The bowfin has a light covering of rounded, overlapping scales, a large mouth, and sharp teeth. Its...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Constitution of the United States, document embodying the fundamental principles upon which the American republic is conducted. Drawn up at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787...

(Encyclopedia) Hennepin, Louis hĕnˈəpĭn [key], 1640–1701?, French cleric and explorer in North America. A Franciscan Recollect friar, Hennepin came to Canada in 1675, meeting on the journey La Salle, who made ...

(Encyclopedia) fall line, boundary between an upland region and a coastal plain across which rivers from the upland region drop to the plain as falls or rapids. A fall line is formed in an area where the rivers have...

(Encyclopedia) delta [from triangular shape of the Nile delta, like the Greek letter delta], a deposit of clay, silt, and sand formed at the mouth of a river where the stream loses velocity and drops part of its sed...

(Encyclopedia) Carter, Hodding, 1907–72, American journalist and news publisher, b. Hammond, La. He taught briefly at Tulane Univ. and worked as a newspaperman until starting (1932) his own paper, the Hammond (La....

(Encyclopedia) Cape Girardeau jĭrärˈdō, jērərdōˈ [key], city (2020 pop. 42,131), Cape Girard...

(Encyclopedia) Rice, Jerry Lee, 1962–, American football player, b. Crawford, Miss. Winning national attention while at the otherwise obscure Mississippi Valley State College, Itta Bena, Miss., Rice subsequently p...

(Encyclopedia) Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, better known as Virginia Tech, at Blacksburg; land-grant and state supported; coeducational; chartered and opened 1872 as an agricultural and mecha...