Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), organization created (1899) at Columbus, Ohio, by veterans of the Spanish-American War. It received a charter from Congress in 1936. The organization later admitted vet...

(Encyclopedia) monitor, type of turreted warship (no longer used) carrying heavy guns, having little draft, and lying low in the water. Monitors were so called from the first of the class, the Monitor, built for the...

(Encyclopedia) Perry, Matthew Calbraith, 1794–1858, American naval officer, b. South Kingstown, R.I.; brother of Oliver Hazard Perry. Appointed a midshipman in 1809, he first served under his brother on the Reveng...

(Encyclopedia) Waitangi, Treaty of (Feb. 6, 1840), a pact between some Maori tribes of New Zealand and the British Gov. William Hobson. The treaty protected Maori land interests in exchange for recognition of Britis...

(Encyclopedia) Russo-Turkish Wars. The great eastward expansion of Russia in the 16th and 17th cent., during the decline of the Ottoman Empire, nevertheless left the shores of the Black Sea in the hands of the Ottom...

(Encyclopedia) Biafra, Republic of, secessionist state of W Africa, in existence from May 30, 1967, to Jan. 15, 1970. At the outset Biafra comprised, roughly, the East-Central, South-Eastern, and Rivers states of th...

(Encyclopedia) Montclair. 1 Residential city (1990 pop. 28,434), San Bernardino co., SE Calif.; inc. 1956. It has some light manufacturing. 2 Town (1990 pop. 37,729), Essex co., NE N.J., a suburb of Newark and New Y...

(Encyclopedia) Fehrbellin, battle of fĕˌbĕlēnˈ [key], 1675. Allied with France in the third Dutch War, King Charles XI of Sweden invaded Brandenburg but was defeated near the town of Fehrbellin, 35 mi (56 km) N...

(Encyclopedia) New England, name applied to the region comprising six states of the NE United States—Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. The region is thought to have been ...

(Encyclopedia) Battle of Britain, in World War II, series of air battles between Great Britain and Germany, fought over Britain from Aug. to Oct., 1940. As a prelude to a planned invasion of England, the German Luft...