Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Pétain, Henri Philippe äNrēˈ fēlēpˈ pātăNˈ [key], 1856–1951, French army officer, head of state of the Vichy government (see under Vichy). In World War I he halted the Germans at Verdun (1...

(Encyclopedia) rugby, game that originated (1823), according to tradition, on the playing fields of Rugby, England. It is related to both soccer and American football. The game is said to have started when a Rugby S...

(Encyclopedia)  Spector, Phil (Harvey Philip), 1939-2021, American record producer, b. Bronx, NY. The child of Russian Jewish immigrants, Spector’s father passed awa...

(Encyclopedia) Anabaptists ănˌəbăpˈtĭsts [key] [Gr.,=rebaptizers], name applied, originally in scorn, to certain Protestant sects holding that infant baptism is not authorized in Scripture and that baptism sho...

(Encyclopedia) George I (George Louis), 1660–1727, king of Great Britain and Ireland (1714–27); son of Sophia, electress of Hanover, and great-grandson of James I. He became (1698) elector of Hanover, fought in ...

(Encyclopedia) Hall, Stuart, 1932–2014, Jamaican-born British sociologist and cultural theorist, b. Kingston, Jamaica. Hall attended Jamaica College and moved to Eng...

(Encyclopedia) Vicksburg campaign, in the American Civil War, the fighting (Nov., 1862–July, 1863) for control of the Mississippi River. The Union wanted such control in order to split the Confederacy and to resto...

(Encyclopedia) amusement park, a commercially operated park offering various forms of entertainment, such as arcade games, carousels, roller coasters, and performers, as well as food, drink, and souvenirs. Amusement...

(Encyclopedia) Reconstruction, 1865–77, in U.S. history, the period of readjustment following the Civil War. At the end of the Civil War, the defeated South was a ruined land. The physical destruction wrought by t...

(Encyclopedia) Long, Huey Pierce, 1893–1935, American political leader, b. Winnfield, La.; brother of Earl Long. Originally a farm boy, he was an extremely successful traveling salesman before studying law at Tula...