Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Aachen bät äˈkhən [key], city, North Rhine–Westphalia, W Germany, near the Belgian and Dutch borders. One of the great historic cities of Europe, it is now chiefly i...

(Encyclopedia) Danilo II (Danilo Petrović-Njegoš), 1826–60, prince of Montenegro (1851–60). He secularized (1852) his principality (chiefly in order to be able to marry) and transferred his ecclesiastic functi...

(Encyclopedia) Klabund älˈfrĕt hĕnshˈkə [key], 1890–1928, German poet, novelist, and dramatist. A skillful translator and adapter of Asian literature, he wrote original poems in a Chinese style. His play Kre...

(Encyclopedia) Lortzing, Gustav Albert go͝osˈtäf älˈbĕrt lôrˈtsĭng [key], 1801–51, German opera composer. Lortzing's first opera was written in 1824. Among his best-known works are the comic operas Zar un...

(Encyclopedia) Khiva, khanate of, former state of central Asia, based on the Khiva (Khwarazm or Khorezm) oasis along the Amu Darya River. The khanate lay S of the Aral Sea and included large areas of the Kyzyl Kum a...

(Encyclopedia) Owl and the Nightingale, The, Middle English poem written probably by Nicholas de Guildford of Dorsetshire about the beginning of the 13th cent. Written in 2,000 lines of octosyllabic couplets, it des...

(Encyclopedia) Saint-Maur-des-Fossés săN-mōr-dā-fôsāˈ [key], city (1990 pop. 77,492), Val-de-Marne dept., N central France, on the Marne River. An industrial suburb of Paris, it manufactures automobile parts,...

(Encyclopedia) Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fraudulent document that reported the alleged proceedings of a conference of Jews in the late 19th cent., at which they discussed plans to overthrow Christianity thr...

(Encyclopedia) John IV, 1604–56, king of Portugal (1640–56). He succeeded as duke of Braganza in 1630. Descended from Manuel I and in illegitimate line from John I, he had the strongest claim to the Portuguese t...

(Encyclopedia) Shimonoseki, Treaty of, Apr. 17, 1895, ending the First Sino-Japanese War. It was negotiated and signed by Ito Hirobumi for Japan and Li Hung-chang for China. Harsh terms were imposed on a badly defea...