Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) bobsledding, winter sport in which a bobsled—a partially enclosed vehicle with steerable sledlike runners, accommodating two or four persons—hurtles down a course of iced, steeply banked, twisting...

(Encyclopedia) rugby, game that originated (1823), according to tradition, on the playing fields of Rugby, England. It is related to both soccer and American football. The game is said to have started when a Rugby S...

(Encyclopedia) archery, sport of shooting with bow and arrow, an important military and hunting skill before the introduction of gunpowder. England's Charles II fostered archery as sport, establishing in 1673 the wo...

(Encyclopedia) windsurfing, also called boardsailing or sailboarding, water sport that employs a board-and-sail device and combines elements of sailing and surfing. The sailboard was first developed in 1964 by boate...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 A. Water molecule (black circles represent valence-shell electrons) B. Structure of ice: Each oxygen atom (white circles) is bonded to four other oxygen atoms by hydrogen bonds, the hydrogen at...

(Encyclopedia) halo, in meteorology, short-lived circles or arcs, and less commonly spikes and crosses, of colored or whitish light surrounding the moon or sun or in clouds as seen from above. A halo occurs when the...

(Encyclopedia) Antarctic Peninsula, glaciated mountain region of W Antarctica, extending c.1,200 mi (1,930 km) N toward South America. In the south, volcanic peaks rise to c.11,000 ft (3,350 m); other volcanic cones...

(Encyclopedia) Fleming, Peggy, 1948–, American ice skater, b. San Jose, Calif. She began skating at age 9, and after distinguished accomplishments as a juvenile and novice skater, she was U.S. Ladies Champion from...

(Encyclopedia) motorboating, sport of navigating a motor-powered vessel on the water. It is done on either fresh- or saltwater and may be competitive or recreational. The first successful motorboat traveled (1887) a...

(Encyclopedia) snowball earth, hypothesized condition in which the earth was covered completely by ice during several periods in the Proterozoic. The hypothesis was originally developed to explain evidence of the co...