Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Thomas, Clarence, 1948–, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1991–), b. Pin Point (Savannah), Ga. Raised in a poor family, he graduated (1974) from the Yale Law School and became a promin...

(Encyclopedia) Powell, Colin Luther, 1937–2021, U.S. army general and government official, b. New York City, grad., City College (B.S., 1958); George Washington Univ...

(Encyclopedia) Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), civil-rights organization founded (1942) in Chicago by James Farmer. Dedicated to the use of nonviolent direct action, CORE initially sought to promote better race ...

(Encyclopedia)  Alexander, Andrew Lamar, Jr., American politician, b. Maryville, Tn., Vanderbilt Univ. (B.A., 1962); New York Univ. (J.D., 1965). The son of educators, Alexander studied at Vanderbilt Uni...

(Encyclopedia) Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), former U.S. government program responsible for research and development of a space-based system to defend the nation from attack by strategic ballistic missiles (se...

(Encyclopedia) bean, name applied to the seeds of leguminous trees and shrubs and to various leguminous plants of the family Leguminosae (pulse family) with edible seeds or seed pods (legumes). The genera and specie...

(Encyclopedia) Mineta, Norman Yoshio, 1931–2022, American government official, the first Asian American to be appointed to a cabinet post, b. San Jose, Calif. Of Jap...

(Encyclopedia) Snow, John William, 1939–, U.S. government official and business executive, b. Toledo, Ohio. An economist and lawyer, he held Dept. of Transportation posts in the Nixon and Ford administrations incl...

(Encyclopedia) sweetbrier, sweetbriar, or eglantine ĕgˈləntīn, –tēn [key] [O. Fr. from Lat.,=needle], wild rose of Europe (Rosa eglanteria), cultivated and now naturalized in the United States. The bush has ...

(Encyclopedia) white alder, deciduous shrub or small tree (Clethra alnifolia) native to the Appalachians, named for the resemblance of its leaves to those of the unrelated true alders. It is cultivated as an ornamen...