The Blue Dahlia: …find his wife, Helen (Doris Dowling), in the midst of a torrid affair with the owner of the Blue Dahlia nightclub, Eddie Harwood (Howard Da Silva). Johnny and Helen have a fight, and Johnny leaves after threatening her with a gun. He is offered a ride by a beautiful…

American football: Walter Camp and the creation of American football: …or lose 10 in three downs (plays), or it would be obliged to surrender the ball to the other side. Camp was also responsible for having 11 players on a side, for devising a new scoring system in 1883 with two points for a touchdown, four points for the goal…

Down, former district (1973–2015) within the former County Down, now part of Newry, Mourne and Down district, situated on Northern Ireland’s eastern coast fronting Strangford Lough (inlet of the sea) and the Irish Sea. It was bordered by the former districts of Ards to the north; Castlereagh,

Down, former (until 1973) county, eastern Northern Ireland. It was bounded by Belfast Lough (inlet of the sea; north), the Irish Sea (east), Carlingford Lough (south), former County Armagh (west), and former County Antrim (northwest). Down had an area of 952 square miles (2,466 square km), and it

Fay Weldon: The novels Down Among the Women (1971), Female Friends (1974), and Remember Me (1976) focus on various women’s reactions to male-and-female relationships. Praxis (1978) is noted for the development of its heroine, who endures in the face of repeated disasters. Puffball (1980), a novel about motherhood, combines…

Paul Mazursky: Films of the 1980s: The same is true of Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), but this time Mazursky and writing partner Leon Capetanos replaced the sentiment with laughs. The film—a reworking of Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932) by Jean Renoir, a director to whom Mazursky is often compared—was a merciless lampooning of…

Down and Out in Paris and London, autobiographical work by George Orwell, published in 1933. Orwell’s first published book, it contains essays in which actual events are recounted in a fictionalized form. The book recounts that to atone for the guilt he feels about the conditions under which the

Irving Cummings: Cummings had greater success with Down Argentine Way (1940), the splashy Technicolor musical that made Betty Grable a star and featured the American film debut of Carmen Miranda. That Night in Rio (1941) repeated the formula with less success; Ameche and Miranda (who sang “Chica Chica Boom Chic”) were joined…

The Fire Next Time: In the second essay, “Down at the Cross: Letter from a Region in My Mind,” Baldwin recounts his coming-of-age in Harlem, appraises the Black Muslim (Nation of Islam) movement, and gives a statement of his personal beliefs.

Leonora Carrington: …endured there in her book Down Below (1944). She managed to escape further psychiatric treatment and, through a marriage of convenience with Mexican diplomat Renato Leduc, secured passage to New York in 1941. She stayed in New York City about a year, and in that time she continued to write…

Jim Jarmusch: …such as the offbeat comedies Down by Law (1986), Mystery Train (1989), and Night on Earth (1992).

Findlay: …compose the popular song “Down by the Old Mill Stream.” During the 1880s Findlay was a booming centre of oil and natural gas production, and its Gas Jubilee of 1887 was one of the most spectacular celebrations ever staged in the area; the supply of petroleum had dwindled by…

Neil Young: Early career: Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young: …about established forms, and “Down by the River,” a long, raw-edged guitar blitzkrieg around lyrics about murder, the album made Young an icon.

Edna O’Brien: Other novels: …House of Splendid Isolation (1994), Down by the River (1996), In the Forest (2002), and The Light of Evening (2006). Many of these works examined the social and cultural changes—and the conflicts ignited by these changes—in modern-day Ireland. The wrenching novel Down by the River, for example, was based on…

bird: Feathers: Down feathers have loose-webbed barbs, all rising from the tip of a very short shaft. Their function is insulation, and they may be found in both pterylae and apteria in adult birds. They also constitute the first feather coat of most young birds. Filoplumes are…

hair: …hairs called down hair, or vellus. Vellus covers every part of the body except the palms of the hands, the soles of the feet, undersurfaces of the fingers and toes, and a few other places. At and following puberty, this hair is supplemented by longer, coarser, more heavily pigmented hair…

Bessie Smith: …recordings, including the classic “Down Hearted Blues,” which became an enormous success, selling more than two million copies. She made 160 recordings in all, in many of which she was accompanied by some of the great jazz musicians of the time, including Fletcher Henderson, Benny Goodman, and Louis Armstrong.…

William Stafford: …thesis, which was published as Down in My Heart (1947). In 1968 he joined the faculty of Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, serving as English professor from 1960 to 1980. Stafford also was poetry consultant to the Library of Congress (1970–71; now poet laureate consultant in poetry) and…

Wesley Snipes: …featured Tommy Lee Jones; and Down in the Delta (1998), the directorial debut of Maya Angelou.

Kurt Weill: Weill’s American folk opera Down in the Valley (1948) was much performed. Two of his songs, the “Moritat von Mackie Messer” (“Mack the Knife”) from Die Dreigroschenoper and “September Song” from Knickerbocker Holiday, have remained popular. Weill’s Concerto for violin, woodwinds, double bass, and percussion (1924), Symphony No. 1…

Creedence Clearwater Revival: …such as “Green River,” “Down on the Corner,” “Up Around the Bend,” and “Travelin’ Band” (1970) and offered many other songs equal to them in craftsmanship.

quark: Quark flavours: down quark (charge −13e) make up protons and neutrons and are thus the ones observed in ordinary matter. Strange quarks (charge −13e) occur as components of K mesons and various other extremely short-lived subatomic particles that were first observed in cosmic rays

Es’kia Mphahlele: …writer, and teacher whose autobiography, Down Second Avenue (1959), is a South African classic. It combines the story of a young man’s growth into adulthood with penetrating social criticism of the conditions forced upon black South Africans by apartheid.

Joris-Karl Huysmans: …first was À vau-l’eau (1882; Down Stream), a tragicomic account of the misfortunes, largely sexual, of a humble civil servant, Folantin. À rebours (1884; Against the Grain), Huysmans’s best-known novel, relates the experiments in aesthetic decadence undertaken by the bored survivor of a noble line. The ambitious and controversial Là-bas…

Down syndrome, congenital disorder caused by the presence in the human genome of extra genetic material from chromosome 21. The affected individual may inherit an extra part of chromosome 21 or an entire extra copy of chromosome 21, a condition known as trisomy 21. British physician John Langdon

Walter Mosley: Down the River unto the Sea (2018) centers on a New York City police investigator who tries to rebuild his life after being wrongly convicted of assault.

black mass: Joris-Karl Huysmans’s novel Là-bas (1891; Down There) describes a black mass celebrated in late 19th-century France.

Peter Gabriel: …Thomas Newman, Gabriel crafted “Down to Earth,” an upbeat track that won the Grammy Award for best song written for a motion picture in 2009. He later released Scratch My Back (2010), on which he performed orchestrally arranged songs by musicians he admired; several of them in turn covered…

Louis C.K.: …writer on the Rock-starring films Down to Earth (2001) and I Think I Love My Wife (2007).

Clara Bow: …role in the whaling drama Down to the Sea in Ships (1922) brought her considerable attention. She had prominent roles, usually as a flapper, in such films as The Plastic Age (1925), Mantrap (1926), Kid Boots (1926), and Dancing Mothers (1926).

Lucinda Williams: …she released the double album Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone. A second double album, The Ghosts of Highway 20, appeared in 2016. She reworked the songs of Sweet Old World to good effect for This Sweet Old World (2017). The unsparing Good Souls Better Angels (2020) focused on…

Sarah Paulson: Early life and career: …as What Women Want (2000), Down with Love (2003), and The Notorious Bettie Page (2005).

Down syndrome, congenital disorder caused by the presence in the human genome of extra genetic material from chromosome 21. The affected individual may inherit an extra part of chromosome 21 or an entire extra copy of chromosome 21, a condition known as trisomy 21. British physician John Langdon

Down syndrome: British physician John Langdon Down first described the physical features of Down syndrome in 1866, and thus the disorder was later named for him.

trapshooting, sport in which participants use shotguns for shooting at saucer-shaped clay targets flung into the air from a spring device called a trap. A later variant, skeet shooting, is also included in trapshooting. Trapshooting originated in England in the late 18th century when marksmen, to

thunderstorm: Downbursts: Sometimes thunderstorms will produce intense downdrafts that create damaging winds on the ground. These downdrafts are referred to as macrobursts or microbursts, depending on their size. A macroburst is more than 4 km (2.5 miles) in diameter and can produce winds as high as…

updraft and downdraft: downdraft, in meteorology, upward-moving and downward-moving air currents, respectively, that are due to several causes. Local daytime heating of the ground causes surface air to become much warmer than the air above, and, because warmer air is less dense, it rises and is replaced by…

industrial glass: Tubes and rods: In the downdraw process, molten glass is allowed to flow vertically downward through a defined orifice and is pulled by traction from below. The orifice controls the thickness of the tube wall and the shape of the bore. The process allows the forming of complex cross sections,…

Alexander Downer is an Australian Liberal Party politician who led his party for a brief period in 1994–95 and who served as minister of foreign affairs (1996–2007) and as Australia’s high commissioner to the United Kingdom (2014–18). Downer came from a well-connected political family. His father,

Alexander Downer is an Australian Liberal Party politician who led his party for a brief period in 1994–95 and who served as minister of foreign affairs (1996–2007) and as Australia’s high commissioner to the United Kingdom (2014–18). Downer came from a well-connected political family. His father,

Henry Billings Brown: …a controversial opinion concurring in Downes v. Bidwell (one of the Insular Cases), in which he declared that peoples of annexed territories were not entitled to constitutionally guaranteed rights and privileges.

Downey, city, Los Angeles county, southern California, U.S. Situated about 10 miles (16 km) east of the Pacific Ocean, it lies just southeast of central Los Angeles. The area became part of Rancho Los Nietos, a Spanish land grant to Manuel Nieto, in 1784, and, when Nieto’s lands were subdivided

June Etta Downey was an American psychologist and educator whose studies centred on the psychology of aesthetics and related philosophical issues. Downey graduated from the University of Wyoming in 1895. After a year of teaching school in Laramie, she resumed her education at the University of

Robert Downey, Jr. is one of Hollywood’s most gifted and versatile actors. He earned acclaim for such early films as Chaplin (1992) and later found considerable fame as the superhero Iron Man in the Marvel film franchise. In 2024 Downey won the Academy Award for best supporting actor for his

Robert Downey, Jr. is one of Hollywood’s most gifted and versatile actors. He earned acclaim for such early films as Chaplin (1992) and later found considerable fame as the superhero Iron Man in the Marvel film franchise. In 2024 Downey won the Academy Award for best supporting actor for his

Will Ferrell: Later credits: …film credits from 2020 included Downhill, a dramedy about a struggling couple on a family vacation, and Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, in which he starred as an aspiring Icelandic musician. He later appeared with Ryan Reynolds in Spirited (2022), a musical comedy inspired by Charles Dickens’s…

Jackson Browne: Downhill from Everywhere appeared in 2021.

Michael Ritchie: Films: Ritchie’s first feature was Downhill Racer (1969), with Robert Redford as an arrogant, talented star of an Olympic ski team; Gene Hackman played his coach. Competition became a common theme in the director’s later films, a number of which were set in the world of sports. Prime Cut (1972)…

downhill skiing, ski race for speed on an adjusted downhill course that is marked by gates formed by paired poles, set at least 8 metres (26 feet) apart, through which the racer must pass. Contestants make at least one timed practice run, then compete singly in an order set by previous performance

the Tragically Hip: Overview: …their appeal was that singer Gord Downie (b. February 6, 1964, Amherstview, Ontario—d. October 17, 2017, Toronto) was one of the only rock lyricists to explicitly refer to Canadian history and geography, in an abstract rather than a jingoistic manner. Because their biggest success was in their native country, the…

the Troubles: The Anglo-Irish Agreement and Downing Street Declaration: Street Declaration, which established a framework for all-party peace talks. A cease-fire declared by the Provos in 1994 and joined by the principal loyalist paramilitary groups fell apart in 1996 because Sinn Féin, which had replaced the more moderate Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) as the leading nationalist party,…

blog: Political blogs: …the substance of the so-called Downing Street memo, which purportedly showed that the Bush administration had deliberately “juiced up” military intelligence to support war against Iraq. Criticism of the mainstream media has come not only from the left. Dan Rather, a news anchor for CBS TV, was no doubt ushered…

Simon Newcomb: Accomplishments: …was his inauguration, jointly with A.M.W. Downing, then superintendent of the British Nautical Almanac Office, of a worldwide unified system of astronomical constants, which was later to lead to the outstandingly successful scheme of international collaboration among the principal almanac makers of the world that survived two World Wars with…

Andrew Jackson Downing was an American horticulturist, landscape gardener, and architect, the first great landscape designer in the United States. Downing was born into horticulture, his father being a nurseryman. After finishing his schooling at 16, he worked in his father’s nursery and gradually

Seba Smith: …humorist, creator of the fictional Major Jack Downing.

Sir George Downing was an English diplomat and financial administrator who helped precipitate two wars with the Dutch and who instituted major reforms in public finance. Downing Street, London, where the residence of the British prime minister is located, is named for him. The son of a Puritan

telecommunications media: Satellite links: …to satellite receiver) and a downlink (a link from satellite transmitter to terrestrial receiver). Most telecommunications satellites have been placed in geostationary orbit (GEO), a circular orbit 35,785 km (22,235 miles) above the Earth in which the period of their revolution around the Earth equals the period of the Earth’s…

Downpatrick, town, Newry, Mourne, and Down district, southeastern Northern Ireland. Downpatrick is located where the River Quoilé broadens into its estuary in Strangford Lough (inlet of the sea). The town takes its name from dún (fortress) and from its association with St. Patrick. It is the

Downs, rounded and grass-covered hills in southern England that are typically composed of chalk. The name comes from the Old English dūn (“hill”). The main areas of chalk downs lie in Berkshire, Wiltshire, and northern Hampshire, with spurs running eastward into West Sussex, Surrey, and Kent. Chalk

migration: Oceanodromous fish: …Sea between Denmark and Norway; Downs herring spawn from November to January off the French coast, mainly between Dunkirk and Fécamp, then feed in summer in the middle and northern parts of the North Sea, sharing the feeding grounds with other populations. The diversity of migration and of reproductive seasons…

political science: Theory of rational choice: …work in rational choice theory, Anthony Downs claimed that significant elements of political life could be explained in terms of voter self-interest. Downs showed that in democracies the aggregate distribution of political opinion forms a bell-shaped curve, with most voters possessing moderate opinions; he argued that this fact forces political…

Maarten Tromp: In the Battle of the Downs, the armada was completely defeated, suffering severe losses in both ships and manpower. Tromp was knighted by Louis XIII in 1640 and by Charles I in 1642 when he visited Dover to escort Queen Henrietta Maria and Princess Mary to Holland.…

My Darling Clementine: …former fiancée Clementine Carter (Cathy Downs), whose presence causes a rivalry between the two men. When the Clantons kill Virgil, Doc joins Wyatt and Morgan in a violent showdown against the Clantons at the O.K. Corral. The Clantons are defeated, though Doc is also killed. Wyatt and Morgan opt…

Barbara Walters: …named cohost of Today with Hugh Downs. The following year she won an Emmy for her work on the show.

magic: In 1903, Okito, T. Nelson Downs, the Great Lafayette, Servais LeRoy, Paul Valadon, Howard Thurston, and Horace Goldin, a veritable all-star team of renowned conjurers, appeared simultaneously in different London theatres. At the same time, Max Malini (1873–1942) traveled the globe giving impromptu performances in private settings for…

alkali metal: History: …replaced in 1926 by the Downs cell process. This process, in which a molten sodium chloride–calcium chloride mixture (to reduce the melting point) is electrolyzed, produces both sodium metal and chlorine.

Alexander Payne: …science fiction with the satire Downsizing (2017), which he also cowrote. It starred Matt Damon as a man who undergoes a medical procedure that causes him to shrink and received scant critical praise. In 2023 Payne directed The Holdovers, a comedy-drama set in a New England boarding school during the…

katabatic wind, wind that blows down a slope because of gravity. It occurs at night, when the highlands radiate heat and are cooled. The air in contact with these highlands is thus also cooled, and it becomes denser than the air at the same elevation but away from the slope; it therefore begins to

Sigfrid Siwertz: …for the novel Selambs (1920; Downstream) and for his short stories.

Thomas Kinsella: …of the poet’s imagination; and Downstream (1962), a collection focusing on war and political and social disruption in modern Ireland.

Julian Fellowes: …2010 Fellowes created and produced Downton Abbey, which began following the fortunes of more than a dozen major characters, from the earl and countess of Grantham down to the scullery maid, in the pre-World War I period. Although the costume drama, which debuted on Britain’s ITV television, was dismissed by…

Julian Fellowes: …for two feature films (2019 and 2022) that follow the characters in the ensuing years.

Julian Fellowes: …two feature films (2019 and 2022) that follow the characters in the ensuing years.

Western architecture: From the 17th to the 19th century: …and apparently “natural” composition in Downton Castle, Herefordshire, near Ludlow (1774–78). This was the first irregularly planned castellated (castle-style) building with a Classical interior. It inspired a vast range of such buildings. John Nash is the best known and most proficient exponent of the style. Starting with his own house,…

British Invasion: …Diddy Diddy”), Petula Clark (“Downtown”), Freddie and the Dreamers (“I’m Telling You Now”), Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders (“Game of Love”), Herman’s Hermits (“Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter”), the Rolling Stones (“[I Can’t Get No] Satisfaction” and others), the Troggs (“Wild Thing

John Heisman: …to become director of the Downtown Athletic Club of New York City. Beginning in 1935, the club annually awarded a trophy, known since 1936 as the Heisman Trophy, to the top college football player.

Rod Stewart: Solo career: …1985 Tom Waits song “Downtown Train” (1989) was the high point of a midcareer period generally considered inconsistent. For a time in the early 21st century, Stewart abandoned songwriting and focused solely on interpreting others’ work. Beginning in 2002 he released several collections of traditional-pop standards, as well as…

Washington, D.C.: Downtown: The area referred to as Downtown Washington describes the business district located between the Capitol, the White House, and Georgetown. It includes Chinatown, the Metro Center, the Federal Triangle area, and the K Street office corridor.

social mobility: …either “upward mobility” or “downward mobility.” An industrial worker who becomes a wealthy businessman moves upward in the class system; a landed aristocrat who loses everything in a revolution moves downward in the system.

Nine Inch Nails: Reznor’s second full-length release, The Downward Spiral (1994), bowed at number two on the Billboard album chart. On the strength of such singles as “Closer” and “Hurt,” the album soon surpassed the band’s debut in sales. (An emotional acoustic version of “Hurt” later became a surprise hit for country…

sedimentary rock: Coal: …combination of episodic upwarping and downwarping of the continental blocks or global (eustatic) changes in sea level or both, coupled with normal changes in the rate of sediment supply that occurs along coasts traversed by major laterally meandering river systems, may have been the cause.

Ekman layer: …downward in a process called downwelling, while a region of divergence draws water from below into the surface Ekman layer in a process known as upwelling. Upwelling and downwelling also occur where the wind blows parallel to a coastline. The principal upwelling regions of the world are along the eastern…

white birch: …known as downy birch (B. pubescens), is a tree about 18 metres (60 feet) tall and is native to Eurasia. It has egg-shaped leaves, usually hairy below. The soft yellowish or reddish white wood is commercially important in construction and in the manufacture of vehicles, furniture, and small articles…

downy mildew, disease of plants, especially in cool humid regions, caused by several funguslike organisms of the phylum Oomycota. White, gray, bluish, or violet downy patches of mildew form mostly on the undersides of leaves in damp weather. Pale green to yellow or brown areas usually develop on

jewel orchid: Downy rattlesnake plantain (Goodyera pubescens), native to eastern North America, has dark green leaves with silver and white veins. The Hawai’i jewel orchid (Anoectochilus sandvicensis), A. setaceus, A. sikkimensis, Dossinia marmorata, Ludisia discolor, and

serviceberry: Common species: The downy serviceberry (A. arborea) is also similar to A. canadensis but is more vigorous and has larger hanging flower clusters. The apple serviceberry (Amelanchier ×grandiflora), a natural hybrid of A. arborea and A. laevis, grows up to 9 metres (29.5 feet) and has larger individual…

woodpecker: …species of Dendrocopos include the downy woodpecker (D. pubescens), only about 15 cm (6 inches) long and inhabiting the woodlands and gardens of temperate North America; the great spotted woodpecker (D. major), about 23 cm (9 inches) long and found from the forests and gardens of western temperate Eurasia south…

dowry, the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings to her husband or his family in marriage. Most common in cultures that are strongly patrilineal and that expect women to reside with or near their husband’s family (patrilocality), dowries have a long history in Europe, South Asia, Africa, and

Dowry Prohibition Act, Indian law, enacted on May 1, 1961, intended to prevent the giving or receiving of a dowry. Under the Dowry Prohibition Act, dowry includes property, goods, or money given by either party to the marriage, by the parents of either party, or by anyone else in connection with

Treasury Relief Art Project: …was directed by the painter Olin Dows and designed to embellish existing federal buildings that lacked construction appropriations to finance such works.

Dulcibella, in English poetry, an idealized sweetheart, based on the Latin word dulcis (“sweet”). Dulcibella, like Dulcinea, represents beauty, inspiration, and virtuous love. The name was used in medieval literature and appeared with some frequency in the 16th century, but it was obsolete by the

History of film: Australia, New Zealand, and Canada: …in the 21st century included Michael Dowse, director of such comedies as It’s All Gone Pete Tong (2004), What If (2013), Stuber (2019), and Coffee & Kareem (2020). Filmmaking in Quebec, which had gone through a strong period in the 1970s and ’80s, made a lesser impression in the 1990s.…

dowsing, in occultism, use of a forked piece of hazel, rowan, or willow wood or of a Y-shaped metal rod or of a pendulum suspended by a nylon or silk thread, in an attempt to detect such hidden substances as water, minerals, treasure, archaeological remains, and even dead bodies. The practice seems

Ernest Dowson was one of the most gifted of the circle of English poets of the 1890s known as the Decadents. In 1886 Dowson entered Queen’s College, Oxford, but left in 1888 to spend six years working at his father’s dry dock in the Limehouse district of London. Dowson became an active member of

Ernest Dowson was one of the most gifted of the circle of English poets of the 1890s known as the Decadents. In 1886 Dowson entered Queen’s College, Oxford, but left in 1888 to spend six years working at his father’s dry dock in the Limehouse district of London. Dowson became an active member of

Riyadh: History of Riyadh: The Doxiadis Plan (later revised by a French consulting group) introduced a linear development concept along a central spine running in a north-south direction, thus avoiding encroachment of the city on the Wadi Ḥanīfah system to the west, the boundaries of which have been the prime…

modernization: New patterns of urban life: …Greek architect and city planner Constantinos Apostolos Doxiadis argued that this process is part of a long-term evolution that must eventually culminate in the world-city, or “Ecumenopolis.” This remarkable object will incorporate areas reserved for recreation and agriculture as well as desert and wilderness conservation areas, but essentially it will…

Dachshund, dog breed of hound and terrier ancestry developed in Germany to pursue badgers into their burrows. The Dachshund (whose name means “badger dog” in German) is a long-bodied, characteristically lively dog with a deep chest, short legs, tapering muzzle, and long ears. Usually reddish brown

doxing, the act of exposing private or identifying information on the Internet about an individual or group without the person’s or group’s consent, usually with malicious intent. It derives from the phrase “dropping dox,” a term for disclosing another person’s “documents” or personal information.

doxology, an expression of praise to God. In Christian worship there are three common doxologies: 1. The greater doxology, or Gloria in Excelsis, is the Gloria of the Roman Catholic and Anglican masses, and in its hundreds of musical settings it is usually sung in Latin. It is used in the Roman