Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Petty, Richard, 1937–, American auto racing driver, b. Level Cross, N.C. The son of Lee Petty, a champion stock car race driver, he won a record 200 National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing ra...

(Encyclopedia) Badius, Jodocus jōdōˈkəs bāˈdēəs [key], 1462–1535, French printer, b. Asche, near Brussels. His original name was Josse Bade, and he is sometimes called for his birthplace Jodocus Badius Asc...

(Encyclopedia) Cooper, Myles, 1737?–1785, 2d president of King's College (now Columbia Univ.), b. England, educated at Oxford. He was ordained a priest in 1761 and went to King's College (1762) as professor of mor...

(Encyclopedia) Curtis, Benjamin Robbins, 1809–74, American jurist, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1851–57), b. Watertown, Mass. After studying law at Harvard, he practiced at Northfield, Mass., and...

(Encyclopedia) Harris, Patricia Roberts, 1924–85, U.S. government official, b. Mattoon, Ill. A lawyer who was active in the Democratic party, she was a law professor and dean at Howard Univ. during the 1960s and b...

(Encyclopedia) epitaph, strictly, an inscription on a tomb; by extension, a statement, usually in verse, commemorating the dead. The earliest such inscriptions are those found on Egyptian sarcophagi. In England epit...

(Encyclopedia) Dance Theatre of Harlem, the first black classical ballet company. The group was founded in Harlem, New York City, by Arthur Mitchell, then of the New York City Ballet, the first African-American prin...

(Encyclopedia) Simon, Neil (Marvin Neil Simon), 1927–2018, American playwright, b. the Bronx, New York City. His plays, nearly all of them popular with audiences, if not always with critics, are comedies treating ...

(Encyclopedia) Chaeronea kĕrənēˈə [key], ancient town of Boeotia, Greece, in the Cephissus (now Kifisós) River valley and NW of Thebes. There the Athenians and Thebans were defeated (338 b.c.) by the Macedonia...

(Encyclopedia) Abydos, ancient town of Phrygia, Asia Minor, on the Asian side of the Hellespont opposite Sestos, in present-day Turkey. It was originally a Milesian colony. Near there Xerxes built his bridge of boat...