Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Boyd, Belle, 1844–1900, Confederate spy in the Civil War, b. Martinsburg, Va. (now W.Va.). Operating (probably unofficially) in Martinsburg and Front Royal, she provided Gen. T. J. (Stonewall) Jacks...

(Encyclopedia) Albany Congress, 1754, meeting at Albany, N.Y., of commissioners representing seven British colonies in North America to treat with the Iroquois, chiefly because war with France impended. A treaty was...

(Encyclopedia) Sturgeon, Nicola Ferguson, 1970–, Scottish political leader, first minister of Scotland (2014–). She studied law at the Univ. of Glasgow, then worked as a solicitor until 1999, when she was first ...

(Encyclopedia) ACLU: see American Civil Liberties Union. ...

(Encyclopedia) Mill, John Stuart, 1806–73, British philosopher and economist. A precocious child, he was educated privately by his father, James Mill. In 1823, abandoning the study of law, he became a clerk in the...

(Encyclopedia) colony, any nonself-governing territory subject to the jurisdiction of a usually distant country. The term is also applied to a group of nationals who settle in a foreign country or territory but reta...

(Encyclopedia) protection, practice of regulating imports and exports with the purpose of shielding domestic industries from foreign competition. To accomplish that end, certain imports may be excluded entirely, imp...

(Encyclopedia) Ruskin, John, 1819–1900, English critic and social theorist. During the mid-19th cent. Ruskin was the virtual dictator of artistic opinion in England, but Ruskin's reputation declined after his deat...

(Encyclopedia) Schröder, Gerhard shröˈdər [key], 1944–, chancellor of Germany (1998–2005), b. Mosenburg, Germany. A telegenic lawyer and Social Democrat, he entered politics as a Marxist student in the 1960...

(Encyclopedia) Pittsburgh pĭtsˈbərg [key], city (1990 pop. 369,879), seat of Allegheny co., SW Pa., at the confluence of the Allegheny and the Monongahela rivers, which there form the Ohio River; inc. 1816. A maj...