Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Iriarte, Tomás de

(Encyclopedia)Iriarte, Tomás de tōmäsˈ dā ēryärˈtā [key], 1750–91, Spanish poet and dramatist, b. Canary Islands. He spent most of his life in Madrid, where, like many of his contemporaries, he engaged i...

Kraus Trujillo, Alfredo

(Encyclopedia)Kraus Trujillo, Alfredo, 1927–99, Spanish lyric tenor, b. Canary Islands. Widely considered the finest light tenor of his time, he was admired for his bright timbre, fine phrasing, and acting skill....

Spanish Africa

(Encyclopedia)Spanish Africa, historical name for the Spanish possessions in Africa—Ceuta and Melilla (enclaves in Morocco), the Canary Islands, and Western Sahara. Spain also formerly held Ifni (now part of Moro...

Leacock, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Leacock, Richard, 1921–2011, Anglo-American filmmaker, b. London. A key figure in the development of cinéma vérité, he also helped create the camera and sound equipment that made the style possib...

Köhler, Wolfgang

(Encyclopedia)Köhler, Wolfgang köˈlər [key], 1887–1967, American psychologist, b. Estonia, Ph.D. Univ. of Berlin, 1909. From 1913 to 1920 he was director of a research station on Tenerife, Canary Islands. Lat...

dragon's blood

(Encyclopedia)dragon's blood, name for a red resin obtained from a number of different plants. It was held by early Greeks, Romans, and Arabs to have medicinal properties; Dioscorides and other early writers descri...

Buch, Christian Leopold, Freiherr von

(Encyclopedia)Buch, Christian Leopold, Freiherr von krĭsˈtyän lāˈōpôlt frīˈhĕr fən bo͞okh [key], 1774–1853, German geologist and paleontologist, graduate of the mining academy, Freiberg, Germany, and ...

Hooten, Earnest Albert

(Encyclopedia)Hooten, Earnest Albert ho͞oˈtən [key], 1887–1954, American anthropologist, b. Clemansville, Wis.; grad. Lawrence College, 1907, Ph.D. Univ. of Wisconsin, 1911, Rhodes scholar, 1910–13. He began...

Hamites

(Encyclopedia)Hamites, African people of caucasoid descent who occupy the Horn of Africa (chiefly Somalia and Ethiopia), the western Sahara, and parts of Algeria and Tunisia. They are believed to be the original se...

canary wood

(Encyclopedia)canary wood or canary whitewood, name applied to the timber of the tulip tree (see magnolia) in some parts of the United States, also to that of an Australian eucalyptus, the Indian mulberry, and to t...
 

Browse by Subject