Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) mountain climbing, the practice of climbing to elevated points for sport, pleasure, or research. Also called mountaineering, it is practiced throughout the world. Many mountain climbing clubs have...

(Encyclopedia) Red Cross, international organization concerned with the alleviation of human suffering and the promotion of public health; the world-recognized symbols of mercy and absolute neutrality are the Red Cr...

(Encyclopedia) Germans, great ethnic complex of ancient Europe, a basic stock in the composition of the modern peoples of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, N Italy, the Netherlands, Be...

(Encyclopedia) Dickens, Charles, 1812–70, English author, b. Portsmouth, one of the world's most popular, prolific, and skilled novelists. Charles Dickens is one of the giants of English literature. He wrote fro...

(Encyclopedia) Wagner, Richard vägˈnər [key], 1813–83, German composer, b. Leipzig. Wagner's second wife, Cosima Wagner, 1837–1930, was the daughter of Liszt and the comtesse d'Agoult. From 1857 to 1870 sh...

(Encyclopedia) Trotsky, Leon trŏtˈskē, Rus. lāˈən trôtˈskē [key], 1879–1940, Russian Communist revolutionary, one of the principal leaders in the establishment of the USSR; his original name was Lev David...

(Encyclopedia) League of Nations, former international organization, established by the peace treaties that ended World War I. Like its successor, the United Nations, its purpose was the promotion of international p...

(Encyclopedia) map, conventionalized representation of spatial phenomena on a plane surface. Unlike photographs, maps are selective and may be prepared to show various quantitative and qualitative facts, including b...

(Encyclopedia) forestry, the management of forest lands for wood, water, wildlife, forage, and recreation. Because the major economic importance of the forest lies in wood and wood products, forestry has been chiefl...

(Encyclopedia) woman suffrage, the right of women to vote. Throughout the latter part of the 19th cent. the issue of women's voting rights was an important phase of feminism. On the European mainland, Finland (1...