Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Roanoke Island, 12 mi (19 km) long and 3 mi (4.8 km) wide, NE N.C., off the Atlantic coast between Croatan (W) and Roanoke (E) sounds in the Outer Banks. Manteo is the chief town, and tourism and fish...

(Encyclopedia) sewing machine, device that stitches cloth and other materials. An attempt at mechanical sewing was made in England (1790) with a machine having a forked, automatic needle that made a single-thread ch...

(Encyclopedia) El Dorado ĕlˈdəräˈdō, –rāˈ– [key] [Span.,=the gilded man], legendary country of the Golden Man sought by adventurers in South America. The legend supposedly originated in a custom of the C...

(Encyclopedia) naturalization, official act by which a person is made a national of a country other than his or her native one. In some countries naturalized persons do not necessarily become citizens but may merely...

(Encyclopedia) Hebrides, the hĕbˈrĭdēz [key], Western Isles, or Western Islands, group of more than 50 islands, W and NW Scotland. Less than a fifth of the islands are inhabited. The Outer Hebrides (sometimes al...

(Encyclopedia) Spenser, Edmund, 1552?–1599, English poet, b. London. He was the friend of men eminent in literature and at court, including Gabriel Harvey, Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Robert Sidney,...

(Encyclopedia) Coligny, Gaspard de Châtillon, comte de gäspärˈ də shätēyôNˈ kôNt də kōlēnyēˈ [key], 1519–72, French Protestant leader. A nephew of Anne, duc de Montmorency, he came to the French cou...

(Encyclopedia) yellow fever, acute infectious disease endemic in tropical Africa and many areas of South and Central America. Yellow fever is caused by a virus transmitted by the bite of the female Aedes aegypti mos...

(Encyclopedia) electronics industry, the business of creating, designing, producing, and selling devices such as radios, televisions, stereos, computers, semiconductors, transistors, and integrated circuits (see ele...

(Encyclopedia) Essex, Robert Devereux, 2d earl of dĕvˈəro͞oksˌ, –ro͞oˌ, –rĕksˌ [key], 1567–1601, English courtier and favorite of Queen Elizabeth I. Succeeding to the earldom on the death (1576) of hi...