Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Taft, William Howard, 1857–1930, 27th President of the United States (1909–13) and 10th chief justice of the United States (1921–30), b. Cincinnati. Taft retired from public life and taught ...

(Encyclopedia) Miller, Arthur, 1915–2005, American dramatist, b. New York City, grad. Univ. of Michigan, 1938. One of America's most distinguished playwrights, he has been hailed as the finest realist of the 20th-...

(Encyclopedia) Paine, Thomas, 1737–1809, Anglo-American political theorist and writer, b. Thetford, Norfolk, England. The son of a working-class Quaker, he became an excise officer and was dismissed from the servi...

(Encyclopedia) African National Congress (ANC), the oldest black (now multiracial) political organization in South Africa; founded in 1912. Prominent in its opposition to apartheid, the organization began as a nonvi...

(Encyclopedia) Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de sərvănˈtēz, Span. mēgĕlˈ dā thĕrvänˈtās säˌävāᵺrä [key], 1547–1616, Spanish novelist, dramatist, and poet, author of Don Quixote de la Mancha, b. Alc...

(Encyclopedia) Clark, George Rogers, 1752–1818, American Revolutionary general, conqueror of the Old Northwest, b. near Charlottesville, Va.; brother of William Clark. A surveyor, he was interested in Western land...

(Encyclopedia) Butler, Judith, 1956–, American philosopher and political theorist, b. Cleveland, Ph.D. Yale University, 1984. Holds the Hannah Arendt Chair at The Eu...

(Encyclopedia) Burgundy bo͝orgôˈnyə [key], historic region, E France. The name once applied to a large area embracing several kingdoms, a free county (see Franche-Comté), and a duchy. The administrative region ...

(Encyclopedia) Gilded Age, a term used to describe a period in United States history—from roughly 1870 to 1900—when the wealthy elite consisted of industrialists w...

(Encyclopedia) track and field athletics or athletics, sports of foot racing, hurdling, jumping, vaulting, and throwing varied weights and objects. They are usually separated into two categories: track, the running ...