Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Gondomar, Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, conde de gŏnˈdəmär, Span. dyāˈgō särmyānˈtō ᵺā äko͞oˈnyä kōnˈdā ᵺā gōndōmärˈ [key], 1567?–1626, Spanish ambassador to England (1613�...

(Encyclopedia) Capitol, seat of the U.S. government at Washington, D.C. It is the city's dominating monument, built on an elevated site that was chosen by George Washington in consultation with Major Pierre L'Enfant...

(Encyclopedia) Maddux, Greg (Gregory Alan Maddux), 1966–, American baseball player, b. San Angelo, Tex. Playing in the National League with the Chicago Cubs (1986–92, 2004–6), Atlanta Braves (1993–2003), Los...

(Encyclopedia) Bogle, Jack (John Clifton Bogle) [key], 1929–2019, American financial executive, b. Montclair, N.J., grad. Princeton (1951). Going to work for Walter Morgan's Wellington Fund, he became CEO in 1967...

(Encyclopedia) Somerset, Robert Carr, earl of, 1587?–1645, Scottish favorite of James I of England. His family name also appears as Ker. He may have accompanied James to England as a page in 1603, but he appears t...

(Encyclopedia) Weir, Julian Alden wēr [key], 1852–1919, b. West Point, N.Y., American painter. He studied with his father Robert Walter Weir, a landscape painter of the Hudson River school, at the National Academ...

(Encyclopedia) Tower of London, ancient fortress in London, England, just east of the City and on the north bank of the Thames, covering about 13 acres (5.3 hectares). Now used mainly as a museum, it was a royal res...

(Encyclopedia) Rob Roy [Scottish Gaelic,=red Rob], 1671–1734, Scottish freebooter, whose real name was Robert MacGregor. He is remembered chiefly as he figures in Sir Walter Scott's novel Rob Roy (1818). Deprived ...

(Encyclopedia) Franz Josef Land frăns jōˈzəf, fränts yōˈzĕf [key], Rus. Zemlya Frantsa Iosifa, archipelago, c.6,300 sq mi (16,320 sq km), in the Arctic Ocean N of Novaya Zemlya, Russia. It consists of more t...

(Encyclopedia) Donner Party, group of emigrants to California who in the winter of 1846–47 met with one of the most famous tragedies in Western history. The California-bound families were mostly from Illinois and ...