Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) air pollution, contamination of the air by noxious gases and minute particles of solid and liquid matter (particulates) in concentrations that endanger health. The major sources of air pollution are t...

(Encyclopedia) shopping center, a concentration of retail, service, and entertainment enterprises designed to serve the surrounding region. The modern shopping center differs from its antecedents—bazaars and marke...

(Encyclopedia) homelessness, the condition of not having a permanent place to live, widely perceived as a societal problem only beginning in the 1980s. Figures for the number of homeless people in the United States ...

(Encyclopedia) Ramakrishna or Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa shrē räˌməkrĭshˈnə pəräˌməhänˈsä [key], 1836–86, Hindu mystic. He was born of a poor Brahman family in Bengal, and his given name was Gadadha...

(Encyclopedia) road, strip of land used for transportation. The history of roads has been related to the centralizing of populations in powerful cities, which the roads have served for military purposes and for trad...

(Encyclopedia) Opium Wars, 1839–42 and 1856–60, two wars between China and Western countries that marked the shift of wealth and power from East to West. The first was between Great Britain and China. Early in t...

(Encyclopedia) corrupt practices, in politics, fraud connected with elections. The term also refers to various offenses by public officials, including bribery, the sale of offices, granting of public contracts to fa...

(Encyclopedia) extraterritoriality or exterritoriality, privilege of immunity from local law enforcement enjoyed by certain aliens. Although physically present upon the territory of a foreign nation, those aliens po...

(Encyclopedia) Modjeska, Helena məjĕˈskə [key], 1844–1909, Polish actress who achieved fame in the United States primarily for her Shakespearean interpretations. After initial acclaim in Warsaw, she emigrated ...

(Encyclopedia) Pan-Americanism, movement toward commercial, social, economic, military, and political cooperation among the nations of North, Central, and South America. In the early 20th cent., U.S. manipulation ...