Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Billy the Kid, 1859–81, American outlaw, b. New York City. His real name was probably Henry McCarty; he was known as William H. Bonney. His family moved to Kansas and then to New Mexico when he was ...

(Encyclopedia) Bligh, William blī [key], 1754–1817, British admiral. He is chiefly remembered for the mutiny (1789) on his ship, the Bounty, but he had a long and notable career. He was sailing master on Capt. Ja...

(Encyclopedia) Busoni, Ferruccio Benvenuto fār-ro͞otˈchō bānvāno͞oˈtō bo͞ozōˈnē [key], 1866–1924, Italian pianist and composer. A child prodigy, he gave a concert in Trieste at the age of eight, which...

(Encyclopedia) Chesnutt, Charles Waddell wädĕlˈ [key], 1858–1932, American author and lawyer, b. Cleveland, Ohio. In 1887 he was admitted to the Ohio bar. His short stories were first published in the Atlantic ...

(Encyclopedia) Hershey, Milton Snavely, 1857–1945, American manufacturer and philanthropist, b. near Derry Church (now Hershey), Pa. The son of Mennonite farmers, at 15 he was apprenticed to a confectioner in Lanc...

(Encyclopedia) Wright, Judith (Judith Arundell Wright), 1915–2000, Australian poet. After graduating from the Univ. of Sydney, she worked variously as a clerk, secretary, and statistician. She is regarded as one o...

(Encyclopedia) Xenophanes zĕnŏfˈənēz [key], c.570–c.480 b.c., pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of Colophon. Although thought by some to be the founder of the Eleatic school, his thought is only superficially si...

(Encyclopedia) Thou, Jacques Auguste de zhäk ôgüstˈ də to͞o [key], 1553–1617, French historian and magistrate. As a member of the Parlement of Paris, Thou rendered outstanding service to Henry IV. The first ...

(Encyclopedia) Thales thāˈlēz [key], c.636–c.546 b.c., pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of Miletus and reputed founder of the Milesian school of philosophy. He is the first recorded Western philosopher. Thales ta...

(Encyclopedia) Burmese, language belonging to the Tibeto-Burman subfamily of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages (see Sino-Tibetan languages). It is spoken by about 30 million people in Myanmar, where it is both th...