Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Bismarck, Otto von bĭzˈmärk, Ger. ôˈtō fən bĭsˈmärk [key], 1815–98, German statesman, known as the Iron Chancellor. The Bismarckian era closed with the death of Emperor Frederick III. A ...

(Encyclopedia) war crimes, in international law, violations of the laws of war (see war, laws of). Those accused have been tried by their own military and civilian courts, by those of their enemy, and by expressly e...

(Encyclopedia) Greeley, Horace, 1811–72, American newspaper editor, founder of the New York Tribune, b. Amherst, N.H. Greeley supported Ulysses S. Grant during the first years of his administration but came to r...

(Encyclopedia) star, hot incandescent sphere of gas, held together by its own gravitation, and emitting light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation whose ultimate source is nuclear energy. The universe co...

(Encyclopedia) Declaration of Independence, full and formal declaration adopted July 4, 1776, by representatives of the Thirteen Colonies in North America announcing the separation of those colonies from Great Brita...

(Encyclopedia) Churchill, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer, 1874–1965, British statesman, soldier, and author; son of Lord Randolph Churchill. Churchill was undoubtedly one of the greatest public figures of the 20t...

(Encyclopedia) criticism, the interpretation and evaluation of literature and the arts. It exists in a variety of literary forms: dialogues (Plato, John Dryden), verse (Horace, Alexander Pope), letters (John Keats),...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Structure of the sun sun, intensely hot, self-luminous body of gases at the center of the solar system. Its gravitational attraction maintains the planets, comets, and other bodies of the sola...

(Encyclopedia) Triple Alliance and Triple Entente äntäntˈ [key], two international combinations of states that dominated the diplomatic history of Western Europe from 1882 until they came into armed conflict in W...

(Encyclopedia) Spanish Succession, War of the, 1701–14, last of the general European wars caused by the efforts of King Louis XIV to extend French power. The conflict in America corresponding to the period of the ...