Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) De Smet, Pierre Jean pyĕr zhäN də smĕtˈ [key], 1801–73, Jesuit missionary in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, b. Belgium. He emigrated to the United States in 1821, served his novitiate in Florissan...

(Encyclopedia) cacomistle kăkˈəmĭsˌəl [key], small New World mammal, genus Bassaricus, related to the raccoon. There are two species, one found in Mexico and the SW United States, the other in Central America....

(Encyclopedia) cranberry, low creeping evergreen bog plant of the genus Oxycoccus of the family Ericaceae (heath family). Cranberries are considered by some botanists to belong to the blueberry genus Vaccinium. The ...

(Encyclopedia) Aberdeen, George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th earl of ăbˌədēnˈ [key], 1784–1860, British statesman. He served (1813) as ambassador extraordinary at Vienna and helped arrange (1814) the peace terms at P...

(Encyclopedia) Applegate, Jesse, 1811–88, American pioneer in Oregon, b. Kentucky. With his family he moved (1821) to Missouri, and there in 1843 he joined the Great Migration of more than 900 people over the Oreg...

(Encyclopedia) home rule, municipal, system adopted in many states of the United States by which a city is given the right to draft and amend its own charter and to regulate purely local matters without interference...

(Encyclopedia) neutrality, in international law, status of a nation that refrains from participation in a war between other states and maintains an impartial attitude toward the belligerents. Neutrality is not to be...

(Encyclopedia) Arkansas State University, at Jonesboro; coeducational; chartered 1909; named State Agricultural and Mechanical College, 1925–33. In 1933 the school became Arkansas State College, and in 1967 it ach...

(Encyclopedia) Cinco de Mayo, May 5, the anniversary of Mexico's victory over France in 1862 in the Battle of Puebla, in which Gen. Ignacio Zaragoza's small, ill-equipped Mexican forces defeated a much larger French...

(Encyclopedia) Americanization, term used to describe the movement during the first quarter of the 20th cent. whereby the immigrant in the United States was induced to assimilate American speech, ideals, traditions,...