Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Hani, Chris 1942–1993, anti-apartheid activist, politician, and soldier. A legendary figure in South African history and a key participant in the ...

(Encyclopedia) spiritism or spiritualism, belief that the human personality continues to exist after death and can communicate with the living through the agency of a medium or psychic. The advocates of spiritism ar...

(Encyclopedia) French Revolutionary Wars, wars occurring in the era of the French Revolution and the beginning of the Napoleonic era, the decade of 1792–1802. The wars began as an effort to defend the Revolution a...

(Encyclopedia) molecular biology, scientific study of the molecular basis of life processes, including cellular respiration, excretion, and reproduction. The term molecular biology was coined in 1938 by Warren Weave...

(Encyclopedia) Chancellorsville, battle of, May 2–4, 1863, in the American Civil War. Late in Apr., 1863, Joseph Hooker, commanding the Union Army of the Potomac, moved against Robert E. Lee, whose Army of Norther...

(Encyclopedia) Mackenzie, river, c.1,120 mi (1,800 km) long, issuing from Great Slave Lake, Northwest Territories, Canada, and flowing generally NW to the Arctic Ocean through a great delta. Between Great Slave Lake...

(Encyclopedia) philosophy of science, branch of philosophy that emerged as an autonomous discipline in the 19th cent., especially through the work of Auguste Comte, J. S. Mill, and William Whewell. Several of the is...

(Encyclopedia) Mitchell, Joni, 1943–, Canadian-American songwriter, singer, guitarist, poet, and painter, b. MacLeod (now Fort Macleod), Alta., as Roberta Joan Ander...

(Encyclopedia) Dampier, William dămˈpēr [key], 1651–1715, English explorer, buccaneer, hydrographer, and naturalist. He fought (1673) in the Dutch War, managed a plantation in Jamaica (1674), and then worked wi...

(Encyclopedia) Geronimo jərŏnˈəmōˌ [key], c.1829–1909, leader of a Chiricahua group of the Apaches, b. Arizona. From his youth he participated in the forays of Cochise, Victorio, and other Apache leaders. Wh...