Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Ga, black African ethnic group

(Encyclopedia)Ga gä [key], black African ethnic group, SE Ghana. The Ga speak a Kwa language and, together with the closely related Adangme, number over 1 million. Inheritance and succession to public office are d...

Butaritari

(Encyclopedia)Butaritari māˈkĭn, mŭgˈĭn [key], triangular atoll (4.5 sq mi/11.7 sq km), central Pacific, in the ...

Teraina

(Encyclopedia)Teraina tĕrīˈnə [key], atoll (1990 pop. 936), 3 sq mi (7.8 sq km), central Pacific, one of the Line Islands and part of the Republic of Kiribati. Visited by the American explorer Edmund Fanning in...

Torrens, Sir Robert Richard

(Encyclopedia)Torrens, Sir Robert Richard tŏrˈənz [key], 1814–84, Australian statesman, b. Ireland. Son of Col. Robert Torrens (1780–1864), one of the founders of South Australia, he went to that colony in 1...

Westminster

(Encyclopedia)Westminster. 1 Residential city (1990 pop. 78,118), Orange co., S Calif.; founded 1870 as a temperance colony for Presbyterians, inc. 1957. It has several industrial parks. Naval Weapons Station Seal ...

Beresford, William Carr Beresford, Viscount

(Encyclopedia)Beresford, William Carr Beresford, Viscount, 1768–1854, British general. He served with distinction in Egypt (1801–3) and participated (1806) in the capture of Cape Colony (later Cape Province, So...

Menéndez de Avilés, Pedro

(Encyclopedia)Menéndez de Avilés, Pedro pāˈᵺrō mānānˈdĕth dā ävēlāsˈ [key], 1519–74, Spanish naval officer and colonizer, founder of Saint Augustine, Fla. He went to sea as a youth and so distingu...

Sevastopol

(Encyclopedia)Sevastopol sĭvăsˈtəpōlˌ [key], formerly spelled Sebastopol, city (1989 pop. 355,000), on the Crimean peninsula and the Bay of Sevastopol, an inlet of the Black Sea. From 1954 part of Ukraine (th...

Columbus, Christopher

(Encyclopedia)Columbus, Christopher, Ital. Cristoforo Colombo krēstōˈbäl kōlōnˈ [key], 1451–1506, European explorer, b. Genoa, Italy. Columbus was not the first European mariner to sail to the New World...

bee

(Encyclopedia)bee, name for flying insects of the superfamily Apoidea, in the same order as the ants and the wasps. Bees are characterized by their enlarged hind feet, typically equipped with pollen baskets of stif...
 

Browse by Subject