Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Branner, Hans Christian, 1903–66, Danish writer. Branner's early novels, often concerned with the irrational fears of childhood, include The Child Playing on the Shore (1937). With The Riding Master...

(Encyclopedia) Zsigmondy, Richard Adolf, 1865–1929, Austrian-German chemist, Ph.D. Univ. of Munich, 1889. Zsigmondy was a lecturer at the Univ. of Munich (1887–1893) and at the Univ. of Graz (1893–97), then wo...

(Encyclopedia) Andersen, Hans Christian, 1805–75, Danish poet, novelist, and writer of fairy tales. Born to an illiterate washerwoman and reared in poverty, he left Odense at 14 for Copenhagen, where he lived with...

(Encyclopedia) Hitler, Adolf äˈdôlf hĭtˈlər [key], 1889–1945, founder and leader of National Socialism (Nazism), and German dictator, b. Braunau in Upper Austria. By July, 1944, the German military si...

(Encyclopedia) Hollein, Hans, 1934–2014, Austrian architect and designer. He studied with Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Richard Neutra. Opening his own practice in 1964, he established an internationa...

(Encyclopedia) Harleian Library härˈlēən, härlēˈ– [key], manuscript collection of more than 7,000 volumes and more than 14,000 original legal documents, formed by Robert Harley, 1st earl of Oxford, and his ...

(Encyclopedia) Butenandt, Adolf Friedrich Johann, 1903–95, German biochemist, Ph.D. Univ. of Göttingen, 1927. Butenandt held academic posts at the Univ. of Göttingen (1927–33) and the Institute of Technology a...

(Encyclopedia) Jensen, Johannes Hans Daniel, 1907–73, German physicist, Ph.D. Univ. of Hamburg, 1932. Jensen was a professor at the Technical Univ. of Hanover from 1941 to 1949, when he joined the faculty at Heide...

(Encyclopedia) Keilson, Hans Alex, 1909–2011, German-Dutch novelist and physician. He attended medical school in Berlin, but Nazi racial laws prevented Keilson, who was Jewish, from practicing. In 1933 he publishe...

(Encyclopedia) laetrile lāˈətrĭlˌ [key], name given to the chemical amygdalin, a substance derived from an extract of the kernels of many fruits, notably apricots, bitter almonds, and peaches. The idea that lae...