Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Great Lakes, group of five freshwater lakes, central North America, creating a natural border between the United States and Canada and forming the largest body of freshwater in the world, with a combi...

(Encyclopedia) Old Testament, Christian name for the Hebrew Bible, which serves as the first division of the Christian Bible (see New Testament). The designations “Old” and “New” seem to have been adopted af...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Prince Edward Island, province (2001 pop. 135,294), 2,184 sq mi (5,657 sq km), E Canada, off N.B. and N.S. The Mi'kmaq lived on the island before Europeans arrived. Jacques Cartier wrote ent...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616, English dramatist and poet, b. Stratford-upon-Avon. He is widely considered the greatest playwright who ever lived. For about 150 years after his death ...

(Encyclopedia) Northwest Passage, water routes through the Arctic Archipelago, N Canada, and along the northern coast of Alaska between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Even though the explorers of the 16th cent. de...

(Encyclopedia) progressivism, in U.S. history, a broadly based reform movement that reached its height early in the 20th cent. In the decades following the Civil War rapid industrialization transformed the United St...

(Encyclopedia) teacher training, professional preparation of teachers, usually through formal course work and practice teaching. Although the concept of teaching as a profession is fairly new, most teachers in indus...

(Encyclopedia) machine, arrangement of moving and stationary mechanical parts used to perform some useful work or to provide transportation. From a historical perspective, many of the first machines were the result ...

(Encyclopedia) Canadian literature, French, the body of literature of the French-speaking population of Canada. Except for the narratives of French explorers (such as Samuel de Champlain and Pierre Esprit Radisson) ...

(Encyclopedia) Twain, Mark, pseud. of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835–1910, American author, b. Florida, Mo. As humorist, narrator, and social observer, Twain is unsurpassed in American literature. His novel The Ad...