Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Simpson-Miller, Portia, 1945–, Jamaican political leader, prime minister of Jamaica (2006–7, 2012–16). A member of the People's National party (PNP), she was first elected to parliament in 1976....

(Encyclopedia) kettle, oval depression found in glacial moraines, which are landforms made up of rock debris. When a glacier melts and draws away from an area, a block of ice may break off and be covered by earth an...

(Encyclopedia) Kara Sea kärˈə [key], Rus. Karskoye More, shallow section of the Arctic Ocean, off N Russia, between Severnaya Zemlya and Novaya Zemlya. It has an average depth of 420 ft (128 m). It receives the O...

(Encyclopedia) latent heat, heat change associated with a change of state or phase (see states of matter). Latent heat, also called heat of transformation, is the heat given up or absorbed by a unit mass of a substa...

(Encyclopedia) melting point, temperature at which a substance changes its state from solid to liquid. Under standard atmospheric pressure different pure crystalline solids will each melt at a different specific tem...

(Encyclopedia) Americas, antiquity and prehistory of the, study of the origins of the aboriginal peoples of the Americas. Archaeologists believe humans had entered and occupied much of the Americas by the end of the...

(Encyclopedia) Tikhonov, Viktor Vasilyevich, 1930–2014, Soviet and Russian ice hockey player and coach, b. Moscow. As a defenseman (1949–63), he won four national championships (1951–54) with the Soviet air fo...

(Encyclopedia) Comaneci, Nadia nädyä kōmänēch [key], 1961–, Romanian-American gymnast. Under the tutelage of coach Bela Karolyi, she rose to prominence in the celebrated Romanian gymnastics program. Comaneci ...

(Encyclopedia) boomerang bo͞oˈmərăngˌ [key], special form of throwing stick, used mainly by the aborigines of Australia. Other forms of throwing sticks were used by the peoples of ancient Egypt, Ethiopia, and I...

(Encyclopedia) snowmobile, vehicle designed to travel over snow, ice, and similar surfaces that offer limited traction and weight-supporting capability. As the performance of the vehicle depends to a large extent on...