Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Brunel, Sir Marc Isambard ĭzˈəmbärdˌ bro͞onĕlˈ [key], 1769–1849, British engineer and inventor. Born in France, he came to the United States in 1793 as a royalist refugee. He became chief en...

(Encyclopedia) Iturbide, Agustín de ägo͞ostēnˈ dā ēto͞orbēˈᵺā [key], 1783–1824, Mexican revolutionist, emperor of Mexico (1822–23). An officer in the royalist army, he was sympathetic to independenc...

(Encyclopedia) squirrel, name for small or medium-sized rodents of the family Sciuridae, found throughout the world except in Australia, Madagascar, and the polar regions; it is applied especially to the tree-living...

(Encyclopedia) Burke, Edmund, 1729–97, British political writer and statesman, b. Dublin, Ireland. Burke left, in his many and diverse writings, a monumental construction of British political thought that had fa...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Cape Verde vûd [key], Port. Cabo Verde, officially Republic of Cape Verde, republic (...

(Encyclopedia) Santa Anna, Antonio López de äntōˈnyō lōˈpās dā sänˈtä äˈnä [key], 1794–1876, Mexican general and politician. He fought in the royalist army, but later joined Iturbide in the struggle...

(Encyclopedia) Müller, Herta, 1953–, Romanian-born German author, grad. Timişoara Univ. (1976). A member of Romania's German-speaking minority, she was active in a group of dissident writers who opposed Ceauşes...

(Encyclopedia) Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 1751–1816, English dramatist and politician, b. Dublin. His father, Thomas Sheridan, was an actor and teacher of elocution and his mother, Frances Sheridan, published two...

(Encyclopedia) spiritism or spiritualism, belief that the human personality continues to exist after death and can communicate with the living through the agency of a medium or psychic. The advocates of spiritism ar...

(Encyclopedia) Genovese, Eugene Dominick, 1930–2012, American historian, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., grad. Brooklyn College (B.A., 1953), Columbia (M.A., 1955; Ph.D., 1959). Known for his penetrating studies of slavery and...