Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Douglas, Sir James, 1803–77, Canadian fur trader and colonial governor, b. British Guiana (now Guyana). As a young man, he went to Canada in the service of the North West Company; soon after its mer...

(Encyclopedia) Albers, Josef yōˈzĕf älˈbĕrs [key], 1888–1976, German-American painter, printmaker, designer, and teacher, b. Bottrop, Germany. After working at the Bauhaus (1920–33), Albers and his wife, t...

(Encyclopedia) Tippett, Sir Michael, 1905–98, English composer, b. London. Tippett studied at the Royal College of Music. During World War II he was briefly imprisoned as a conscientious objector. His strongly hel...

(Encyclopedia) Davidson, Donald Herbert, 1917–2003, American philosopher, b. Springfield, Mass., grad. Harvard (B.A., 1939; Ph.D., 1949). A student of W. V. Quine, Davidson emerged as one of the major figures in p...

(Encyclopedia) Davis, John William, 1873–1955, American lawyer and public official, b. Clarksburg, W.Va. Admitted (1895) to the bar, he taught (1896–97) at Washington and Lee Univ. and later practiced (1897–19...

(Encyclopedia) Langland, William, c.1332–c.1400, putative author of Piers Plowman. He was born probably at Ledbury near the Welsh marshes and may have gone to school at Great Malvern Priory. Although he took minor...

(Encyclopedia) Donne, John dŭn, dŏn [key], 1572–1631, English poet and divine. He is considered the greatest of the metaphysical poets. All of Donne's verse—his love sonnets and his religious and philosophic...

(Encyclopedia) Congreve, William, 1670–1729, English dramatist, b. near Leeds, educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and studied law in the Middle Temple. After publishing a novel of intrigue, Incognita (1692), and...

(Encyclopedia) gang, group of people organized for a common purpose, often criminal. Gangs of criminals were long known on the American frontier and also flourished in urban settings. Notorious were the outlaws led ...

(Encyclopedia) LeMond, Greg (Gregory James LeMond) ləmŏndˈ [key], 1961–, American cyclist, b. Los Angeles. In 1986, LeMond became the first American to win the Tour de France, a three-week, 2,500-mi (4,000-km) ...