Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) cable television, the transmission of televised images to viewers by means of coaxial cables. Cable systems receive the television signal, which is sent out over cables to individual subscribers, by a...

(Encyclopedia) Nuevo Laredo nwāˈvō lärāˈᵺō [key], city (1990 pop. 218,413), Tamaulipas state, NE Mexico, across the Rio Grande from Laredo, Tex. Linked with the United States by automobile and railroad brid...

(Encyclopedia) Curtis, Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar, 1850–1933, American publisher and philanthropist, b. Portland, Maine. He started his first periodical, The People's Ledger, in Boston in 1872. Later, in Philadelphi...

(Encyclopedia) gentlemen's agreement, in U.S. history, an agreement between the United States and Japan in 1907 that Japan should stop the emigration of its laborers to the United States and that the United States s...

(Encyclopedia) city government, political administration of urban areas. The English tradition of incorporating urban units (cities, boroughs, villages, towns) and allowing them freedom in most local matters is gene...

(Encyclopedia) Independent Treasury System, in U.S. history, system for the retaining of government funds in the Treasury and its subtreasuries independently of the national banking and financial systems. In one for...

(Encyclopedia) Cortona kōrtōˈnä [key], town, Tuscany, central Italy. It is an agricultural and tourist c...

(Encyclopedia) Smith, Seba, 1792–1868, American humorist, b. Buckfield, Maine. He founded the Portland Courier in 1829 and in it began (1830) a series of humorous letters on politics under the pen name Major Jack ...

(Encyclopedia) Diebenkorn, Richard, 1922–93, American painter, b. Portland, Oreg. Raised in California, he studied at Stanford and at a collector's home encountered (1943) the work of Matisse, whose bold use of co...

(Encyclopedia) nuclear strategy, a policy for the use of nuclear weapons. The first atomic bombs were used in the context of the Allies' World War II policy of strategic bombing. Early in the cold war, U.S. policy w...