Columbia Encyclopedia

(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...

(Encyclopedia) Whitelaw of Penrith, William Stephen Ian Whitelaw, Viscount, 1918–99, British politician. A Scottish landowner and cattle farmer, he was elected to Parliament as a Conservative in 1955 and served as...

(Encyclopedia) Gary, Elbert Henry, 1846–1927, American lawyer and industrialist, b. near Wheaton, Ill., grad. Union College of Law, Chicago, 1868. Rising rapidly as a corporation lawyer, he became mayor of Wheaton...

(Encyclopedia) Manning, Henry Edward, 1808–92, English churchman, cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. Ordained a Catholic priest, Manning became a celebrated confessor, an ardent advocate of prison reform, a...

(Encyclopedia) Smuts, Jan Christiaan yän krĭsˈtyän smŭts [key], 1870–1950, South African statesman and soldier, b. Cape Colony. Of Boer (Afrikaner) stock but a British subject by birth, he was educated at Vic...

(Encyclopedia) aye-aye īˈīˈ [key], name for an aberrant primate, Daubentonia madagascariensis, related to the lemurs but distinguished by its specialized teeth and fingers. A large nocturnal and arboreal primate...

(Encyclopedia) sea snake, name for any of the venomous marine snakes of the family Hydrophidae, found in tropical waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans. The sea snake's body is flattened laterally and its oarlike ...

(Encyclopedia) Taurus [Lat.,= the bull], in astronomy, constellation NW of Orion and lying on the ecliptic (the sun's apparent path through the heavens) between Gemini and Aries; it is one of the constellations of t...

(Encyclopedia) Eisenstein, Sergei Mikhailovich syĭrgāˈ mēkhīˈləvĭch īˈzənshtīn [key], 1898–1948, Russian film director. An architect and engineer, he became interested in a theatrical career and worked...

(Encyclopedia) Altgeld, John Peter ältˈgĕlt [key], 1847–1902, American politician, governor of Illinois (1892–96), b. Germany. He was taken by his immigrant parents to Ohio, where he grew up with little forma...