Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Oswald, Lee Harvey, 1939–63, presumed assassin of John F. Kennedy, b. New Orleans. Oswald spent most of his boyhood in Fort Worth, Tex. Later, he attended a Dallas high school, and enlisted (1956) i...

(Encyclopedia) Wheeler, John Archibald, 1911–2008, American physicist and educator, b. Jacksonville, Fla. Educated at Johns Hopkins (Ph.D., 1933), he joined the faculty at Princeton in 1938, and after 1976 was dir...

(Encyclopedia) state flowers. Each state of the United States has designated, usually by legislative action, one flower as its floral emblem; the rose has been designated by Congress as the national flower of the Un...

(Encyclopedia) Borlaug, Norman Ernest bôrˈlôg [key], 1914–2009, U.S. agronomist, b. near Saude, Iowa, grad. Univ. of Minn. (Ph.D., 1942). He worked as researcher with the E. I. du Pont Company until 1944, when ...

(Encyclopedia) Clark, Tom Campbell, 1899–1977, U.S. attorney general (1945–49), associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1949–67), b. Dallas, Tex.; father of Ramsey Clark. He received his law degree from t...

(Encyclopedia) Knight, Bobby (Robert Montgomery Knight), 1940–, American basketball coach, b. Massillon, Ohio. A point guard at Ohio State (grad. 1962), Knight became (1963) an assistant coach at West Point and tw...

(Encyclopedia) Wouk, Herman wōk [key], 1915–2019, American writer, b. New York City. In The Caine Mutiny (1951; Pulitzer Prize), he made the protagonist-antagonist Captain Queeg a popular symbol of uncontrolled a...

(Encyclopedia) Wright, Silas, 1795–1847, American political leader, b. Amherst, Mass. He was admitted (1819) to the bar and began practicing law at Canton, N.Y. Becoming involved in state politics, in the 1820s he...

(Encyclopedia) scallop or pecten, marine bivalve mollusk. Like its close relative the oyster, the scallop has no siphons, the mantle being completely open, but it differs from other mollusks in that both mantle edge...

(Encyclopedia) Scott, Thomas Alexander, 1823–81, American railroad president, b. Fort Loudon, Pa. He was employed by the Pennsylvania RR as a station agent in 1850 and rose to become general superintendent (1858) ...