Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

William II, emperor of Germany and king of Prussia

(Encyclopedia)William II, 1859–1941, emperor of Germany and king of Prussia (1888–1918), son and successor of Frederick III and grandson of William I of Germany and of Queen Victoria of England. After the out...

Quadruple Alliance

(Encyclopedia)Quadruple Alliance, any of several European alliances. The Quadruple Alliance of 1718 was formed by Great Britain, France, the Holy Roman emperor, and the Netherlands when Philip V of Spain, guided by...

Holy Alliance

(Encyclopedia)Holy Alliance, 1815, agreement among the emperors of Russia and Austria and the king of Prussia, signed on Sept. 26. It was quite distinct from the Quadruple Alliance (Quintuple, after the admission o...

Canadian Alliance

(Encyclopedia)Canadian Alliance, former Canadian political party that had its origins in the Reform party of Canada, which was founded in 1987 in Winnipeg, Man., as a W Canada–based conservative alternative to th...

Belle-Alliance

(Encyclopedia)Belle-Alliance belˈ-älyäNsˈ [key], village, central Belgium, near Waterloo. The battle of Waterloo (see Waterloo campaign), where Napoleon I was defeated in June, 1815, is sometimes known, particu...

Andrássy, Julius, Count, 1823–90, Hungarian politician

(Encyclopedia)Andrássy, Julius, Count ŏnˈdräsh-shē [key], 1823–90, Hungarian politician. One of the leading figures in the 1848–49 Hungarian revolution, he supported the liberal program of Louis Kossuth an...

Devolution, War of

(Encyclopedia)Devolution, War of, 1667–68, undertaken by Louis XIV for the conquest of the Spanish Netherlands. On her marriage to Louis, Marie Thérèse, daughter of Philip IV of Spain, had renounced her rights ...

chaconne and passacaglia

(Encyclopedia)chaconne päˌsəkälˈyə [key], two closely related musical forms popular during the baroque period. Both are in triple meter time and employ a characteristic recurring harmonic pattern or actual ba...

Alliance for Progress

(Encyclopedia)Alliance for Progress, Span. Alianza para el Progreso, U.S. assistance program for Latin America begun in 1961 during the presidency of John F. Kennedy. It was created principally to counter the appea...

Humbert I

(Encyclopedia)Humbert I, 1844–1900, king of Italy (1878–1900), son and successor of Victor Emmanuel II. A soldier by training, Humbert showed interest primarily in military affairs and foreign policy, and early...