Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) New Netherland, territory included in a commercial grant by the government of Holland to the Dutch West India Company in 1621. Colonists were settled along the Hudson River region; in 1624 the first p...

(Encyclopedia) Bagehot, Walter băjˈət [key], 1826–77, English social scientist. After working in his father's banking firm, he edited (1860–77) the Economist (which had been founded by his father-in-law) and ...

(Encyclopedia) Calixtus I, Callixtus I, or Callistus I, Saint kəlĭkˈstəs, kəlĭsˈtəs [key], c.160–c.222, pope (217–222), a Roman; successor of St. Zephyrinus. As archdeacon to Zephyrinus he established th...

(Encyclopedia) Croker, Richard, 1841–1922, American politician, head of Tammany Hall from 1886 to 1902, b. Co. Cork, Ireland. He became prominent as Democratic leader of New York City's East Side and as an aide of...

(Encyclopedia) Whiskey Ring, in U.S. history, a group of distillers and public officials who defrauded the federal government of liquor taxes. Soon after the Civil War these taxes were raised very high, in some case...

(Encyclopedia) Rockefeller University, philanthropic organization in New York City, founded 1901 as the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research by John D. Rockefeller for furthering medical science and its allied...

(Encyclopedia) Banks, Nathaniel Prentiss, 1816–94, American politician and Union general in the Civil War, b. Waltham, Mass. After serving in the Massachusetts legislature (1849–53), Banks entered Congress as a ...

(Encyclopedia) Baldwin, Stanley, 1867–1947, British statesman; cousin of Rudyard Kipling. The son of a Worcestershire ironmaster, he was educated at Harrow and at Trinity College, Cambridge, and entered the family...

(Encyclopedia) North, Oliver Laurence, 1943–, American military officer and broadcasting personality, b. San Antonio, Tex. Raised in Philmont, N.Y., he entered the U.S. Marines, graduated from Annapolis (1968), se...

(Encyclopedia) Constantine, Donation of, Lat. Constitutum Constantini, forged document, probably drafted in the 8th cent. It purported to be a grant by Roman Emperor Constantine I of great temporal power in Italy an...