Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) West, Jerry (Jerome Alan West), 1938–, American basketball player, b. Cheylan, W.Va. One of the game's great shooting guards, he led West Virginia Univ. to the 1959 National Collegiate Athletic Asso...

(Encyclopedia) Mardonius märdōˈnēəs [key], d. 479 b.c., Persian general; son-in-law of Darius I. Darius sent him (492 b.c.) to retaliate against Eretria and Athens for aiding the Ionians in the Persian Wars, bu...

(Encyclopedia) Hamm, Mia mēˈə [key] (Mariel Margaret Hamm), 1972–, U.S. soccer player, b. Selma, Ala. The best all-around women's soccer player of her generation, she was perhaps most responsible for making wom...

(Encyclopedia) Puskás, Ferenc, 1927–2006, Hungarian soccer player. A relatively slow but extremely powerful forward, Puskás became famous for his extraordinarily effective left-footed kick. He began playing prof...

(Encyclopedia) Wilkens, Lenny (Leonard Randolph Wilkens), 1937–, American basketball player and coach, b. Brooklyn, N.Y. After playing at Providence College, he joined the St. Louis Hawks of the National Basketbal...

(Encyclopedia) Artemisia ärˌtəmĭˈshēə [key], fl. 4th cent. b.c., ruler of the ancient region of Caria. She was the sister, wife, and successor of Mausolus and erected the mausoleum at Halicarnassus in his mem...

(Encyclopedia) Leopold I, 1790–1865, king of the Belgians (1831–65); youngest son of Francis Frederick, duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. After serving as a page at the court of Napoleon I and as a general of the Ru...

(Encyclopedia) Venizelos, Eleutherios ĕlĕfthârˈyôs vĕnēzĕˈlôs [key], 1864–1936, Greek statesman, b. Crete. After studying at the Univ. of Athens, he returned to Crete and played a prominent part in the C...

(Encyclopedia) Thales thāˈlēz [key], c.636–c.546 b.c., pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of Miletus and reputed founder of the Milesian school of philosophy. He is the first recorded Western philosopher. Thales ta...

(Encyclopedia) Ándros änˈthrôs, ănˈdrəs [key], island, 146 sq mi (378 sq km), SE Greece, in the Aegean Sea, the northernmost and second largest of the Cyclades. Ándros is the cap...