Historical Columbia
Encyclopedia : H : HI : HIS : Historical Columbia
- See Columbia for a more extensive list of uses for the name. For the South American country, see Colombia.
Columbia is a poetic and the first popular name for the (present-day) United States of America, dating from before the Revolution but which largely fell out of use in the early 20th century (Exceptions to this trend include the song "Columbia, Gem of the Ocean", still occasionally sung, and the song "Hail, Columbia," an early anthem of the United States, now used as the anthem of the Vice President of the United States.) This was also the origin of the name District of Columbia. It is still featured as CBS's name, the Columbia Broadcasting System.
The proper noun "Columbia" is a name widely used in English, derived from that of Christopher Columbus. Therefore, it was used in a broader sense to refer to the Americas. The term "Pre-Columbian" refers to the time before the arrival in the Americas of Columbus and other European explorers.
Columbia was also a female personification of the USA, similar to the male Uncle Sam, the British female Britannia and male John Bull, and the French Marianne, often seen in political cartoons through the early 20th century (see illustration at right). It is still used by Columbia Pictures, though its current incarnation looks very different.
The term Columbian was used to mean "from USA" and there have been suggestions that it should be used again as an alternative word for American when referring to someone from the United States, but for some reason has not re-entered general use—perhaps not least because of its confusing association to Colombian.
Columbia was the name of NASA's first fully functional Space Shuttle. It was first launched in April 12, 1981. On February 1, 2003, it was destroyed on its return to Cape Canaveral, Florida during the re-entry into Earth's atmosphere.
Columbia University is a private university in New York City, named after the USA.
References
- Roger Ebert ["Movie Answer Man: Hail, Columbia! Mystery solved"]. Retrieved Aug. 27, 2005.
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