Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Chatham Islands, island group, 385 sq mi (996 sq km), South Pacific, c.500 mi (800 km) E of New Zealand, to which it belongs. The two largest islands are Chatham Island, which has a large central lago...

(Encyclopedia) Frederick William IV, 1795–1861, king of Prussia (1840–61), son and successor of Frederick William III. A romanticist and a mystic, he conceived vague schemes of reform based on a revival of the m...

(Encyclopedia) Gibson, John, 1740–1822, American frontiersman, b. Lancaster, Pa. After taking part in the capture (1758) of Fort Duquesne (renamed Fort Pitt) in the French and Indian War, he became a trader with t...

(Encyclopedia) Bradford, William, 1663–1752, British pioneer printer in the American colonies. Born in Leicestershire, England, he served an apprenticeship under a London printer before emigrating in 1685 to Phila...

(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) British Empire, overseas territories linked to Great Britain in a variety of constitutional relationships, established over a period of three centuries. The establishment of the empire resulted primar...

(Encyclopedia) Bligh, William blī [key], 1754–1817, British admiral. He is chiefly remembered for the mutiny (1789) on his ship, the Bounty, but he had a long and notable career. He was sailing master on Capt. Ja...

(Encyclopedia) Bentinck, Lord William Cavendish bĕnˈtingk, –tĭk [key], 1774–1839, British administrator in India. He served in the Napoleonic Wars and was (1803–7) governor of Madras. He was appointed gover...

(Encyclopedia) Pratt, Charles, 1st Earl Camden, 1714–94, British jurist. Appointed (1761) chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas, he earned wide popularity as a result of his ruling in Entick v. Carrington (17...

(Encyclopedia) Maitland, William (Maitland of Lethington), 1528?–1573, Scottish statesman. In 1559 he deserted the regent Mary of Guise and joined the revolt of the Protestant nobles. When Mary Queen of Scots retu...