Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Banneker, Benjamin, 1731–1806, African-American inventor, astronomer, and mathematician, b. Baltimore co., Md., at what is now Ellicott's Mills. A free black, Banneker was essentially self-taught. H...

(Encyclopedia) Applegarth, Robert, 1834–1924, English trade union leader, a carpenter by trade. A charter member of the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners, he became in 1862 its general secretary. Under...

(Encyclopedia) Tzara, Tristan trēstäNˈ tsäˈrä [key], 1896–1963, French writer, b. Romania. He studied at the Univ. of Zürich, where he and his friends formulated the dadaist movement initially as a pacifist...

(Encyclopedia) parapsychology, study of mental phenomena not explainable by accepted principles of science. The organized, scientific investigation of paranormal phenomena began with the foundation (1882) of the Soc...

(Encyclopedia) Grace, 1929–82, princess consort of Monaco, b. Philadelphia as Grace Patricia Kelly. She acted on stage and television in New York, and made her film debut in 1951. Cool, blonde, and patrician, she ...

(Encyclopedia) wake, watch kept over a dead body, usually during the night preceding burial. Ancient peoples in various parts of the world observed the custom. As an ancient ritual, it was rooted in a concern that n...

(Encyclopedia) Anne of Austria, 1601–66, queen of France, daughter of King Philip III of Spain. Married to the French king Louis XIII (1615), she was neglected by her husband and sought the society of the court in...

(Encyclopedia) Daniel, book of the Bible. It combines “court” tales, perhaps originating from the 6th cent. b.c., and a series of apocalyptic visions arising from the time of the Maccabean emergency (167–164 b...

(Encyclopedia) Newton, Alfred, 1829–1907, English zoologist, b. Geneva. He studied (1854–65) ornithology in Lapland, Iceland, the West Indies, and North America and in 1866 became the first professor of zoology ...

(Encyclopedia) Gray, Stephen, 1666–1736, English physicist. Gray, a dyer by trade, cultivated science as a hobby. In 1696 he published an account of a magnifying glass that interested the Royal Society and from th...