Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Clarksville, city (2020 pop. 166,722), seat of Montgomery co., NW Tenn., on the Cumberland and Red rivers, in a farm, livestock, and tobacco region; pla...

(Encyclopedia) Amsterdam, city (2020 pop. 18,219), Montgomery co., E central N.Y., on the Mohawk River; inc. 1885. Historically famous for the manufacture of carpets, its manufactures now include machine...

(Encyclopedia) Sherwood, Robert Emmet, 1896–1955, American dramatist, b. New Rochelle, N.Y., grad. Harvard, 1918. After serving in World War I, he wrote for Vanity Fair and Life, serving as editor of the latter fr...

(Encyclopedia) Bolton, John Robert, 1948–, U.S. government official, b. Baltimore, grad Yale (B.A., 1970; J.D., 1974). A conservative Republican who has supported hardline, unilateral approaches to international r...

(Encyclopedia) Ingersoll, Robert Green, 1833–99, American orator and lawyer, b. Dresden, N.Y. The son of a Congregational minister who eventually settled in Illinois, Ingersoll was admitted (1854) to the bar and b...

(Encyclopedia) peacock or peafowl, large bird of the genus Pavo, in the pheasant family, native to E Asia. There are two main species, the common (Pavo cristatus), and the Javanese (P. musticus) peacocks, both found...

(Encyclopedia) oilbird, common name for an owllike, cave-dwelling bird, Steatornis caripensis, belonging to the family Steatornithidae. It spends its days in dark caves, maneuvering by means of a batlike sonar devic...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 A. Structure of a bird wing B. Structure of a bat wing wings, flight organs of the bird, the bat, and the insect. Birds' wings are pectoral appendages that are basically the same in skeletal...

(Encyclopedia) Curl, Robert Floyd, Jr., 1933–, American chemist, b. Alice, Tex., Ph.D. Univ. of California, Berkeley, 1957. Curl has been a professor at Rice Univ. in Houston, Tex., since 1958. In 1996 he was awar...

(Encyclopedia) Laird, Melvin Robert, 1922–2016, American politician, U.S. secretary of defense (1969–73), b. Omaha, Nebr. After serving (1942–46) in the navy during World War II, he entered politics as a Repub...