Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Æthelbert ĕˈthəlbərt, ă– [key], d. 616, king of Kent (560?–616). Although defeated by the West Saxons in 568, he became the strongest ruler in England S of the Humber River. His wife, Bertha...

(Encyclopedia) Rule, Britannia, English patriotic song. The music was composed by Thomas Augustine Arne for his masque Alfred, first performed August 1, 1740, in commemoration of the accession of George I. The words...

(Encyclopedia) San Gimignano sän jēmēnyäˈnō [key], town (1991 pop. 6,956), Tuscany, central Italy. It is a tourist center that has fully preserved its medieval aspect. The city walls, the palaces, and the cele...

(Encyclopedia) Saint Marys. 1 River, c.175 mi (280 km) long, rising in Okefenokee Swamp, SE Ga., and flowing, with a great southern bend, E to the Atlantic Ocean. It forms part of the Georgia–Florida line. The low...

(Encyclopedia) Francis Xavier, Saint, 1506–52, Basque Jesuit missionary, called the Apostle to the Indies, b. Spanish Navarre, of noble parents. He studied in Paris (1525–34), where he became an associate of St....

(Encyclopedia) Pelagianism pəlāˈjənĭzəm [key], Christian heretical sect that rose in the 5th cent. challenging St. Augustine's conceptions of grace and predestination. The doctrine was advanced by the celebrat...

(Encyclopedia) Saint Petersburg, city (1990 pop. 238,629), Pinellas co., W Fla., on Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico at the southern end of the Pinellas peninsula; settled in the mid-1800s, inc. 1892. A port with a ...

(Encyclopedia) Saint Paul's Cathedral, London, masterpiece of Sir Christopher Wren and one of the finest church designs of the English baroque. It stands at the head of Ludgate Hill, where, according to tradition, a...

(Encyclopedia) Philip, Saint, one of the Twelve Apostles. Like Peter and Andrew, he came from Bethsaida in Galilee. He is mentioned several times in the New Testament (Mat. 10.3; John 1.43–51; 6.5,7; 12.21,22; 14....

(Encyclopedia) West Indies, University of the, autonomous regional institution with main campuses in Jamaica, Trinidad, and Barbados; coeducational; est. 1948 in Mona, Jamaica, as an external university college of t...