Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Morse, Jedidiah, 1761–1826, American Congregational clergyman, b. Woodstock, Conn., grad. Yale, 1783. Licensed to preach in 1785, he taught and preached in various places before becoming (1789) mini...

(Encyclopedia) biogenetic law, in biology, a law stating that the earlier stages of embryos of species advanced in the evolutionary process, such as humans, resemble the embryos of ancestral species, such as fish. T...

(Encyclopedia) Stamford, city (1990 pop. 108,056), Fairfield co., SW Conn., on Long Island Sound; settled 1641, inc. 1893 as a city within the town of Stamford (the two were consolidated in 1949). A variety of light...

(Encyclopedia) Dogon dōgänˈ [key], African people who live on the bend of the Niger River in the Republic of Mali in West Africa. A patrilineal, sedentary agricultural people, they number over 360,000. They depen...

(Encyclopedia) Bournonville, Auguste ōgüstˈ bo͞ornôNvēlˈ [key], 1805–79, Danish dancer, choreographer, and teacher. Bournonville studied in Copenhagen with his father Antoine, the ballet master, and in Pari...

(Encyclopedia) interlude, development in the late 15th cent. of the English medieval morality play. Played between the acts of a long play, the interlude, treating intellectual rather than moral topics, often contai...

(Encyclopedia) Ficino, Marsilio märsēˈlyō fēchēˈnō [key], 1433–99, Italian philosopher. Under the patronage of Cosimo de' Medici, Ficino became the most influential exponent of Platonism in Italy in the 15...

(Encyclopedia) Harris, William Torrey, 1835–1909, American educator and philosopher, b. Windham co., Conn., educated at Yale. He was superintendent (1868–80) of the St. Louis public school system and was U.S. co...

(Encyclopedia) Kovalevsky, Sonya or Sophie kōˌvəlĕfˈskē [key], 1850–91, Russian mathematician. She studied at the universities of Heidelberg and Berlin (under K. T. Weierstrass) and in 1874 received a Ph.D. ...

(Encyclopedia) federal government or federation, government of a union of states in which sovereignty is divided between a central authority and component state authorities. A federation differs from a confederation...