Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Poitier, Sir Sidney, 1927–2022, Bahamian-American actor, b. Miami, raised in the Bahamas, returned to the United States at 14. Poitier served in the 1...

(Encyclopedia) Alabama claims, claims made by the U.S. government against Great Britain for the damage inflicted on Northern merchant ships during the American Civil War by the Alabama and other Confederate cruisers...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 United Arab Emirates, federation of sheikhdoms (2015 est. pop. 5,780,000), c.30,000 sq mi (77,700 sq km), SE Arabia, on the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. The federation, commonly known as ...

(Encyclopedia) husband and wife, the legal aspects of the married state (for the sociological aspects, see marriage). The former Anglo-American law of marriage was chiefly characterized by the view that husband an...

(Encyclopedia) calypso, a form of folk song developed on the island of Trinidad and also popular in other Caribbean countries. Thought to have begun with 19th-century black slaves, calypso songs developed and contin...

(Encyclopedia) London, Declaration of, international code of maritime law, especially as related to war, proposed in 1909. The declaration grew largely out of the attempt at the second of the Hague Conferences to se...

(Encyclopedia) chorus, in music, large group of singers performing in concert; a group singing liturgical music is a choir. The term chorus may also be used for a group singing or dancing together in a musical or in...

(Encyclopedia) franchise, in government, a right specifically conferred on a group or individual by a government, especially the privilege conferred by a municipality on a corporation of operating public utilities, ...

(Encyclopedia) Lewis, John Robert, 1940–2020, African-American politician and civil-rights leader, b. near Troy, Ala., B.A. American Baptist Theological Seminary, 19...

(Encyclopedia) Taylor, John, 1753–1824, American political philosopher. Known as John Taylor of Caroline, he was born in Virginia, probably in Caroline co., where he later lived at “Hazlewood.” Orphaned at 10,...