Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) opera, drama set to music. In the early part of the 20th cent. the foremost operatic composer was Richard Strauss. Although influenced by Wagner, he composed operas with even richer and more stunnin...

(Encyclopedia) Gaul gôl [key], Lat. Gallia, ancient designation for the land S and W of the Rhine, W of the Alps, and N of the Pyrenees. The name was extended by the Romans to include Italy from Lucca and Rimini no...

(Encyclopedia) Forman, Miloš, 1932–2018, Czech-American filmmaker, b. Čáslav, Czechoslovakia (now in the Czech Republic), asJan Tomáš Forman. He attended film school in Prague and worked as a screenwriter and...

(Encyclopedia) Vargas Llosa, Mario märˈyō värˈgäs yōˈsä [key], 1936–, Peruvian novelist and politician, b. Arequipa. Although his works contain much external realism, emphasizing the ugly and grotesque, h...

(Encyclopedia) Bellow, Saul, 1915–2005, American novelist, b. Lachine, Que., as Solomon Bellow, grad. Northwestern Univ., 1937. Born of Russian-Jewish parents, he grew up in the slums of Montreal and Chicago, and ...

(Encyclopedia) West Florida Controversy, conflict between Spain and the United States concerning possession of Florida. By the Treaty of Paris of 1763, Britain received Florida from Spain, and from France that porti...

(Encyclopedia) Kerch kyĕrch [key], city (1989 pop. 174,000), E Crimea. It lies on the Kerch Strait of the Black Sea and at the eastern end of the Kerch Peninsula, a strip of land between the Sea of Azov and the Bla...

(Encyclopedia) typewriter, instrument for producing by manual operation characters similar to those of printing. Corresponding to each key on the instrument's keyboard is a steel type. Activated through a series of ...

(Encyclopedia) bicycle racing or cycling, an internationally popular sport conducted on closed courses or the open road. Track racing takes place at a velodrome, usually a banked 1,093.6 ft (.333 km) oval. Olympic m...

(Encyclopedia) Murdoch, Dame Iris (Dame Jean Iris Murdoch) mûrˈdŏk [key], 1919–99, British novelist and philosopher, b. Dublin, Ireland, grad. Oxford (1942). In 1948 she was named lecturer in philosophy at Oxfo...