Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Thornhill, Sir James, 1676–1734, English decorative artist. George I made him court painter and later knighted him. He executed decorations in Hampton Court and the cupola of St. Paul's, London; the...

(Encyclopedia) Townsend, Mount, 7,247 ft (2,209 m) high, SE New South Wales, in the Australian Alps. The second tallest peak in Australia, it was explored by Polish-British geologist Sir Paul Strzelecki, who believe...

(Encyclopedia) Gilbert, Walter, 1932–, American molecular biologist, b. Boston, Ph.D. Cambridge, 1957. In 1968 he became a professor of biophysics at Harvard, where he had taught since 1959. He helped formulate a ...

(Encyclopedia) Grignard, Victor vēktôrˈ grēnyärˈ [key], 1871–1935, French chemist. He shared the 1912 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Paul Sabatier for his work in organic synthesis based on his discovery (190...

(Encyclopedia) Gallio (Junius Annaeus Gallio) gălˈēō [key], d. a.d. 65?, Roman proconsul in Achaea; brother of the philosopher Seneca. His name was originally Lucius Annaeus Novatus. The “Gallio Inscription,�...

(Encyclopedia) Dawes, William, 1745–99, figure in the American Revolution, b. Boston, Mass. On the night of Apr. 18, 1775, Dawes rode from Boston, via Brighton Bridge, to Lexington, warning the countryside of the ...

(Encyclopedia) Perugia pāro͞oˈjä [key], city (1991 pop. 144,732), capital of Umbria and of Perugia prov., central Italy, situated on a hill overlooking the valley of the Tiber River. It is a commercial, industri...

(Encyclopedia) Wisdom of Solomon or Wisdom, early Jewish book included in the Septuagint and the Vulgate but not in the Hebrew Bible. The book opens with an exhortation to seek wisdom, followed by a statement on wor...

(Encyclopedia) Beauvoir, Simone de sēmônˈ də bōvwärˈ [key], 1908–86, French author. A leading exponent of existentialism, she is closely associated with Jean-Paul Sartre, with whom she had a life-long relat...

(Encyclopedia) Benedict XVI, 1927–2022, pope (2005–13) and Roman Catholic theologian, a German (b. Marktl am Inn, Bavaria) named Josef (or Joseph) Alois Ratzinger;...