Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) exploration, travel to a part of the earth that is relatively unknown to the traveler's culture, historically often motivated by a desire for colonization, conquest, or trade. See also space explorati...

(Encyclopedia) Ford, Henry, 1863–1947, American industrialist, pioneer automobile manufacturer, b. Dearborn, Mich. Henry Ford's son, Edsel Bryant Ford, 1893–1943, b. Detroit, shared in the control of the vast ...

(Encyclopedia) ethics, in philosophy, the study and evaluation of human conduct in the light of moral principles. Moral principles may be viewed either as the standard of conduct that individuals have constructed fo...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Northwest Territories, territory (2001 pop. 37,360), 532,643 sq mi (1,379,028 sq km), NW Canada. The Northwest Territories lie W of Nunavut, N of lat. 60°N, and E of Yukon. Until 1999, when th...

(Encyclopedia) Metropolitan Opera Company, term used in referring collectively to the organizations that have produced opera at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City. The original house, at West 39th Street an...

(Encyclopedia) organized crime, criminal activities organized and coordinated on a national scale, often with international connections. The American tradition of daring desperadoes like Jesse James and John Dilling...

(Encyclopedia) small arms, firearms designed primarily to be carried and fired by one person and, generally, held in the hands, as distinguished from heavy arms, or artillery. Automatic small arms were develope...

(Encyclopedia) deafness, partial or total lack of hearing. It may be present at birth (congenital) or may be acquired at any age thereafter. A person who cannot detect sound at an amplitude of 20 decibels in a frequ...

(Encyclopedia) English art and architecture, the distinctive national art and architecture that art may be said to have evolved in the 12th cent. with the Norman style. Building before that time was in what is commo...

(Encyclopedia) Canadian literature, English, literary works produced in Canada and written in the English language. The essayist Northrop Frye is noted for his systematic classification of literature, presented in...