Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Cape Town, City of, metropolitan municipality (2021 est. pop. 4,710,000), Western Cape prov., South Africa, on the Atlantic Ocean. Cape Town is the ...

(Encyclopedia) chinchilla chĭnchĭlˈə [key], small burrowing rodent of South America. It lives in colonies at high altitudes (up to 15,000 ft/4,270 m) in the Andes of Bolivia, Chile, and Peru. One of the costlies...

(Encyclopedia) Constitutional Union party, in U.S. history, formed when the conflict between North and South broke down the older parties. The Constitutional Union group, composed of former Whigs and remnants of the...

(Encyclopedia) fire-eaters, in U.S. history, term applied by Northerners to proslavery extremists in the South in the two decades before the Civil War. Edmund Ruffin, Robert B. Rhett, and William L. Yancey were the ...

(Encyclopedia) Fitzhugh, George, 1806–81, American author and editor, b. Prince William co., Va. Although he had little formal education he was admitted to the bar, but he devoted little time to the practice of la...

(Encyclopedia) Jonathan, Joseph Leabua jŏnˈəthən [key], 1914–87, prime minister of Lesotho (1965–86). He founded (1959) and led the Basutoland National party working for separate independence from Great Bri...

(Encyclopedia) Hampton, Wade, c.1752–1835, American planter and soldier, b. Halifax co., Va. He served in the American Revolution and took part in South Carolina politics, opposing the ratification of the U.S. Con...

(Encyclopedia) Kiir Mayardit, Salva, 1951–, South Sudanese political and military leader. A member of the Dinka ethnic group and a Christian, in the 1960s he joined the southern Sudanese rebellion, becoming a memb...

(Encyclopedia) Kruger National Park, game reserve, c.8,000 sq mi (20,720 sq km), Limpopo and Mpumalanga, NE South Africa. One of the world's largest wildlife sanctuaries, it has almost every species of game found in...

(Encyclopedia) Arawak äˈräwäk [key], linguistic stock of indigenous people who came from South America and, at the time of the Spanish Conquest, occupied the islands of the Greater Antilles, the Bahamas, Trinida...