animal behaviour: Behavioral genetics: …the calling behaviour that male crickets (Gryllus integer) use to attract females has been measured. In any one population, some males chirp away for many hours each night, others call for just a few hours, and still others almost never call. The heritability of calling duration for one Canadian population…

musical: Origin: …1866 the first musical comedy, The Black Crook, opened in New York City. It was later described as a combination of French Romantic ballet and German melodrama, and it attracted patrons of opera and serious drama, as well as those of burlesque shows. In the late 1890s the British showman…

crowberry: Species: Crowberry, or black crowberry (Empetrum nigrum), is native to cool regions of North America, Asia, and Europe and is the most common species of the genus. Purple crowberry, or rockberry (E. eamesii), is found in the northeastern United States and eastern Canada, and red crowberry (E. rubrum)…

black cumin, (Nigella sativa), annual plant of the ranunculus family (Ranunculaceae) grown for its pungent seeds, which are used as a spice and in herbal medicine. The black cumin plant is found in southwestern Asia and parts of the Mediterranean region and Africa, where it has a long history of

black currant, (Ribes nigrum), species of currant in the family Grossulariaceae grown for its edible berries. Native to temperate areas of northern Eurasia, the plant is widely cultivated in Europe and other areas with suitable climates. The tart fruits are very high in vitamin C and can be eaten

cypress pine: Major species: …columellaris), found throughout Australia; the black cypress pine (C. endlicheri) of eastern Australia, locally also called black pine, red pine, and scrub pine; the Port Macquarie pine, or stringybark (C. macleayana), of southeastern Australia; and the common cypress pine (C. preissii) of southern Australia, often shrubby near the seacoast, with…

Joyce Carol Oates: The stories in Black Dahlia and White Rose (2012) were threaded with menace and violence; the title piece fictionalized the sensational 1947 Black Dahlia murder in Los Angeles. Evil Eye: Four Novellas of Love Gone Wrong (2014) features tales that explore the sinister possibilities of romantic entanglement. Oates’s…

James Ellroy: Quartet series: The Black Dahlia (1987; film 2006), The Big Nowhere (1988), L.A. Confidential (1990; film 1997), and White Jazz (1992). Perfidia (2014) was the first volume in his second L.A. Quartet. The novel, which chronologically precedes the events of the

Brian De Palma: Later work: The Black Dahlia (2006), set in 1947 Los Angeles, was a flawed adaptation of James Ellroy’s noir novel about two policemen (Josh Hartnett and Aaron Eckhart) investigating the grisly murder of an aspiring actress. De Palma also directed the Iraq War drama Redacted (2007), which…

Nancy Huston: …Agonia), and Danse noire (2013; Black Dance). She won the Prix Femina for Lignes de faille (2006), a translation into French of her novel Fault Lines, originally written in English but not published in that language until 2007.

Black Death, pandemic that ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1351, taking a proportionately greater toll of life than any other known epidemic or war up to that time. The Black Death is widely believed to have been the result of plague, caused by infection with the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Modern

Han Kang: Education: …the mystery Geomeun saseum (“Black Deer”), was published later that year.

African American English (AAE), a language variety that has also been identified at different times in dialectology and literary studies as Black English, black dialect, and Negro (nonstandard) English. Since the late 1980s, the term has been used ambiguously, sometimes with reference to only

Ousmane Sembène: …novel, Le Docker noir (Black Docker), based on his experiences in Marseille. After a spinal disorder forced him to give up physical labour, he made literature his livelihood. Among the works that followed were Ô pays, mon beau peuple! (1957; “O My Country, My Good People”), Les Bouts de…

Stephen Dobyns: (1976), Heat Death (1980), Black Dog, Red Dog (1984), Cemetery Nights (1987), Velocities: New and Selected Poems, 1966–1992 (1994), Common Carnage (1996), The Porcupine’s Kisses (2002), Winter’s Journey (2010), and The Day’s Last Light Reddens the Leaves of the Copper Beech

Ian McEwan: …espionage during the Cold War; Black Dogs (1992) tells the story of a husband and wife who have lived apart since a honeymoon incident made clear their essential moral antipathy; The Daydreamer (1994) explores the imaginary world of a creative 10-year-old boy. The novel Amsterdam (1998), a social satire influenced…

Mount Mitchell, highest peak in North Carolina and in the United States east of the Mississippi River, reaching an elevation of 6,684 feet (2,037 metres). It is located in Yancey county, in the western part of the state, about 20 miles (30 km) northeast of Asheville in the Black Mountains. The

ringworm: Black dot ringworm, also a ringworm of the scalp, derives its distinctive appearance and name from the breaking of the hairs at the scalp surface. Except for ringworm of the scalp, which tends to be highly contagious, the contraction of ringworm depends to a large…

Sir James Douglas was the lord of the Douglas family and champion of Robert de Bruce (King Robert I of Scotland). Son of Sir William Douglas (d. c. 1298), who was captured by the English and died in the Tower of London, Sir James was educated in Paris and returned home to find an Englishman, Robert

Ana Castillo: The memoir Black Dove: Mamá, Mi’jo, and Me appeared in 2016.

Keira Knightley: Later films and theatrical work: …murder in the Netflix miniseries Black Doves. For her performance, Knightley earned a Golden Globe nomination.

taiga: Natural disturbances: The so-called Black Dragon Fire of 1987 in China and Russia may have been the largest single fire in the world in the past several hundred years. During the 20th century about 1 million hectares of taiga in Canada burned annually; a great majority of the burning…

Japan: The weakening of party government: Most, like the Black Dragon Society (Kokuryūkai), combined continental adventurism and a strong nationalist stance with opposition to party government, big business, acculturation, and Westernization. By allying with other rightists, they alternately terrorized and intimidated their presumed opponents. A number of business leaders and political figures were killed,…

drongo: …Asia is the 33-cm (13-inch) black drongo (D. macrocercus), also called king crow because it can intimidate the true crow. The 24-cm (9.5-inch) African drongo (D. adsimilis; perhaps the same as D. macrocercus) is common throughout sub-Saharan Africa.

drum: …an air bladder; and the sea drum, or black drum (Pogonias cromis), a gray or coppery red, western Atlantic fish.

black duck, (Anas rubripes), highly prized game bird (family Anatidae) of eastern North America, inhabiting salt, brackish, and freshwater marshes, as well as lakes, rivers, and beaver ponds. These ducks winter from Nebraska to Texas and along the Atlantic coast from Nova Scotia to Florida; their

honeybee: Apis species: andreniformis, the black dwarf honeybee, is native to forested habitats of southeastern Asia. A. dorsata, the giant honeybee, also occurs in southeastern Asia and sometimes builds combs nearly three meters (more than nine feet) in diameter. A. cerana, the Eastern honeybee, is native to southern and southeastern…

white dwarf star: …object is sometimes called a black dwarf.

Vasily Vasilyevich Dokuchayev: …Russia and introduced the term chernozem to describe the black soil, rich in carbonates and humus, that occurs in the temperate latitudes of Russia. Dokuchayev viewed soil as the result of interaction between climate, bedrock, and organisms. In 1898 he introduced a classification of Russian soils that showed that similar…

James Blish: …Blish considered as one work: Black Easter; or, Faust Aleph-Null (1968) and The Day After Judgement (1971), a fantasy in which Satan and his demons conquer Earth.

ebony: …and hard heartwood known as black ebony, as billetwood, or as Gabon, Lagos, Calabar, or Niger ebony.

Patrice Tlhopane Motsepe: …to benefit from the country’s Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) laws, which required companies to have a minimum 26 percent black ownership before a mining license would be granted. In 1994 Motsepe founded a mine services company, Future Mining, and applied all of his life experience—knowledge of the mining trade and…

Dipsacales: Adoxaceae: European, or black, elderberry (Sambucus nigra) is commonly used in herbal medicine.

Black Elk Speaks: …Sioux) warrior and holy man Black Elk, published in 1932. Black Elk dictated his life story to Nebraska-based writer John G. Neihardt in Lakota, with Black Elk’s son Ben serving as an English translator and Neihardt’s daughter Enid transcribing their conversations. Neihardt then shaped the conversations into an autobiographical narrative.

Black Elk Peak, highest point (7,242 feet [2,207 metres]) in the Black Hills and in South Dakota, U.S., and the highest point in North America east of the Rocky Mountains. It is found about 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Custer near Mount Rushmore National Memorial. The granite peak, noted for its

Black Elk Speaks, the autobiography of Oglala Lakota (Oceti Sakowin, or Sioux) warrior and holy man Black Elk, published in 1932. Black Elk dictated his life story to Nebraska-based writer John G. Neihardt in Lakota, with Black Elk’s son Ben serving as an English translator and Neihardt’s daughter

Black Elk Speaks, the autobiography of Oglala Lakota (Oceti Sakowin, or Sioux) warrior and holy man Black Elk, published in 1932. Black Elk dictated his life story to Nebraska-based writer John G. Neihardt in Lakota, with Black Elk’s son Ben serving as an English translator and Neihardt’s daughter

scorpion: Size range and diversity of structure: Giants among scorpions include the black emperor scorpion (Pandinus imperator), an African species found in Guinea, which attains a body length of about 18 cm (7 inches) and a mass of 60 grams (more than 2 ounces). The longest scorpion in the world is the rock scorpion (Hadogenes troglodytes) of…

African American English (AAE), a language variety that has also been identified at different times in dialectology and literary studies as Black English, black dialect, and Negro (nonstandard) English. Since the late 1980s, the term has been used ambiguously, sometimes with reference to only

Ebonics, dialect of American English spoken by a large proportion of African Americans. Many scholars hold that Ebonics, like several English creoles, developed from contacts between nonstandard varieties of colonial English and African languages. Its exact origins continue to be debated, however,

Black Entertainment Television (BET), American cable television network and multimedia group providing news, entertainment, and other programming developed primarily for African American viewers. BET also operates a channel geared toward African American women, BET Her; features contemporary and

Black Eyed Peas, American musical group with an eclectic range of styles encompassing hip-hop, dance, and pop. The Black Eyed Peas originated in the underground hip-hop movement of the 1990s. After the dissolution of their group Atban Klann, rappers will.i.am (byname of William James Adams, Jr.; b.

African Meeting House, meetinghouse, built in 1806 and located at 46 Joy Street in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., that is the oldest standing church for African Americans in the United States. It was one of four separate churches—two of which (including the African Meeting House) were Baptist and two

Black feminism, political and social movement that focuses on the multidimensional aspects of the oppression of Black women in the United States and other countries. As a field of study, Black feminism differs from mainstream feminism in that it seeks to understand the injustices affecting the

Barbara Christian: …to Accompany Black Foremothers (1980); Black Feminist Criticism: Perspectives on Black Women Writers (1985), a work emphasizing literary, textual analysis of fiction by black women; From the Inside Out: Afro-American Women’s Literary Tradition and the State (1987); and Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple” and Other Works: A Critical Commentary (1987).…

rugby: Women and rugby: …national team, known as the Black Ferns, who won both the 1998 and 2002 World Cups. The Black Ferns’ success can be attributed to the NZRFU’s providing the national team with leading coaches and training facilities, as well as operating the game in a professionalized manner not dissimilar to the…

African American literature: The Black Arts movement: …appeared in the landmark anthology Black Fire, edited by Baraka and Larry Neal. One of the most versatile leaders of the Black Arts movement, Neal summed up its goals as the promotion of self-determination, solidarity, and nationhood among African Americans.

Black Flag, American band whose extensive touring and prolific recording helped to popularize hardcore punk, the genre that arose in California in the early 1980s in response to the punk movement of the 1970s. The original members were guitarist Greg Ginn (b. June 8, 1954, Tucson, Arizona, U.S.),

China: Vietnam: …escaped from China, including the Black Flags, who were under the command of Liu Yung-fu, a confederate of the Taiping. After a small French force had occupied some key points in Tongkin in 1873, a treaty was signed at Saigon in March 1874 that stipulated the sovereignty and independence of…

Niger River: Hydrology of Niger River: …and October; a second rise—the black flood (so called because of the greater sediment content)—begins in December with the arrival of floodwaters from upstream. May and June are the low-water months in the middle stretch. On the Benue there is only one high-water season. Because of the Benue’s more southerly…

black fly, (family Simuliidae), any member of a family of about 1,800 species of small, humpbacked flies in the order Diptera. Black flies are usually black or dark gray, with gauzy wings, stout antennae and legs, and rather short mouthparts that are adapted for sucking blood. Only females bite and

Black Forest, mountain region, Baden-Württemberg Land (state), southwestern Germany, source of the Danube and Neckar rivers. It occupies an area of 2,320 square miles (6,009 square km) and extends toward the northeast for about 100 miles (160 km) from Säckingen on the Upper Rhine River (at the

Painted Desert: Notable there is the Black Forest Bed, one of four remarkable areas of petrified trees of Triassic age (i.e., dating from about 252 million to 201 million years ago). The rocks in that formation are some 213 million years old. Navajo and Hopi reservations occupy a large part of…

forest cobra: peroescobari), the black forest cobra (N. guineensis), and the West African banded cobra (N. savannula).

fox: The red fox: In North America black and silver coats are found, with a variable amount of white or white-banded hair occurring in a black coat. A form called the cross, or brant, fox, found in both North America and the Old World, is yellowish brown with a black cross extending…

fisher, (Martes pennanti), North American carnivore of northern forests (taiga), trapped for its valuable brownish black fur (especially fine in the female). It is a member of the weasel family (Mustelidae). The fisher has a weasel-like body, bushy tail, tapered muzzle, and low rounded ears. Adults

Pixies: …know as Black Francis and Frank Black; b. April 6, 1965, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.), Joey Santiago (b. June 10, 1965, Manila, Philippines), Kim Deal (b. June 10, 1961, Dayton, Ohio, U.S.), and David Lovering (b. December 6, 1961, Burlington, Massachusetts, U.S.).

Dominican, one of the four great mendicant orders of the Roman Catholic Church, founded by St. Dominic in 1215. Its members include friars, nuns, active sisters, and lay Dominicans. From the beginning the order has been a synthesis of the contemplative life and the active ministry. The members live

Black Friday, in U.S. history, a securities market panic that occurred on September 24, 1869, as a result of plummeting gold prices. The crash was a consequence of an attempt by financier Jay Gould and railway magnate James Fisk to corner the gold market and drive up the price. The scheme depended

Black Friday is a term commonly used to refer to the Friday after Thanksgiving, when retailers have traditionally kicked off the holiday shopping season with deep discounts. Occasionally used to identify different financial calamities in the 19th and 20th centuries, the term gradually became

frost: …is sometimes popularly called a black frost.

Rhizopus: Mucormycosis (also called zygomycosis) is a rare and serious disease caused primarily by R. arrhizus in burn victims, individuals suffering from severe malnutrition, patients with diabetic ketoacidosis, or immunocompromised individuals, such as those with HIV/AIDS or certain cancers. The infection invades blood vessels

Paul Muni: …in a union dispute in Black Fury, and for his performance he earned his third Oscar nomination (as a write-in candidate). He then fought with Warner Brothers to make The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936). Despite a shoestring budget, the biopic of the French microbiologist was a major hit, and…

Ousmane Sembène: …feature film, La Noire de…(Black Girl), was considered the first major film produced by an African filmmaker. It depicts the virtual enslavement of an illiterate girl from Dakar employed as a servant by a French family. The film won a major prize at the 1967 Cannes international film festival.

Anthony Quinn: …role came in 1947 in Black Gold. That year Quinn went to New York City and made his Broadway debut in The Gentleman from Athens. He followed that with touring as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, returning to New York City in 1950 to replace Marlon Brando in…

grama grass: gracilis), black grama (B. eriopoda), and hairy grama (B. hirsuta) are some of the most important North American range species. Blue grama is sometimes cultivated for its attractive flower spikes, which can be dried for floral arrangements.

diabase: …dark-coloured rocks commercially known as black granite. Diabase is widespread and occurs in dikes (tabular bodies inserted in fissures), sills (tabular bodies inserted while molten between other rocks), and other relatively small, shallow bodies. Chemically and mineralogically, diabase closely resembles the volcanic rock basalt, but it is somewhat coarser and…

greasewood, (species Sarcobatus vermiculatus), North American weedy shrub of the Sarcobataceae family. Greasewood is a characteristic plant of strongly alkaline and saline soils in the desert plains of western North America. It is a much-branched, somewhat spiny shrub, up to 3 metres (10 feet)

grouper: …black, or Warsaw, grouper (E. nigritus, also classified as Hyporthodus nigritus), of the Atlantic, is another large species. Adult black groupers can grow to 2.3 metres (7.5 feet) in length and weigh nearly 200 kg (440 pounds). Grayish or brownish in colour, it is the only grouper with 10…

grouse: …Old World member is the black grouse (Lyrurus tetrix), of Wales, Scotland, Scandinavia, and north-central Europe; a related form (L. mlokosiewiczi) occurs in the Caucasus. The male, known as blackcock, may be 55 cm (22 inches) long and weigh almost 2 kg (about 4 pounds). He is iridescent blue-black, with…

Florence: The early period: …policy was embraced by the Blacks (Neri; the rich merchants), the latter by the Whites (Bianchi; the lesser citizens).

guillemot: …the three species is the black guillemot, or tystie (C. grylle). It is about 35 cm (14 inches) long and is coloured black with white wing patches in the breeding season. In winter it is fully white below and speckled brown and white above. The black guillemot breeds around the…

black gum, (Nyssa sylvatica), tupelo tree (family Nyssaceae) prized for its brilliant scarlet autumnal foliage. It is found in moist areas of the eastern United States from Maine south to the Gulf Coast and westward to Oklahoma. Its wood is light and soft but tough, and the tree is sometimes grown

Sicilian Mafia, hierarchically structured organization of criminals in Sicily, Italy. The Sicilian Mafia is made up of a coalition of criminal organizations—called “families” or “clans” in English and cosche (singular, cosca) in Italian—which engage in extortion, smuggling, gambling, and the

Black Hand, secret Serbian society of the early 20th century that used terrorist methods to promote the liberation of Serbs outside Serbia from Habsburg or Ottoman rule and was instrumental in planning the assassination of the Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand (1914), precipitating the outbreak of

Black Hand, any of several extortion rackets run by immigrant Sicilian and Italian gangsters in the Italian communities of New York City, Chicago, New Orleans, Kansas City, and other U.S. cities from about 1890 to 1920. It consisted of sending threatening notes to local merchants and other

Bka’-brgyud-pa: Of these, the Karma-pa was, during the 15th to early 17th century, the chief rival of the now-predominant Dge-lugs-pa (Yellow Hat) for the temporal authority of Tibet, while the ’Brug-pa became the main school of Buddhism in Bhutan.

viburnum: 5-metre- (15-foot-) high black haw (V. prunifolium), of eastern North America, has plumlike leaves, small white flower clusters, and blue-black berries.

hawk: The black hawks are two species of short-tailed and exceptionally wide-winged black buteos. The great black hawk, or Brazilian eagle (Buteogallus urubitinga), about 60 cm (24 inches) long, ranges from Mexico to Argentina. Smaller, the common, or Mexican, black hawk (B. anthracinus) has some white markings…

Black Hawk was a leader of a faction of Sauk, Fox, Kickapoo, and Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) peoples. Black Hawk and his followers contested the disposition of 50 million acres (20 million hectares) of territory that had supposedly been granted to the United States by tribal spokesmen in the Treaty of St.

Battle of Mogadishu: …was adapted as the film Black Hawk Down.

Black Hawk War, brief but bloody war from April to August 1832 between the United States and Native Americans led by Black Hawk (Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak), a 65-year-old Sauk warrior who in early April led some 1,000 Sauk, Fox, and Kickapoo men, women, and children, including about 500 warriors,

Black Hebrew Israelites, African American religious community in Israel, the members of which consider themselves to be the descendents of a lost tribe of Israel. Black Hebrew Israelites hold religious beliefs that differ from those of modern Jewish communities in Israel. Black Hebrew Israelites

Christmas rose, (Helleborus niger), small poisonous perennial herb of the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae), known for its tendency to bloom from late autumn to early spring, often in the snow. It has evergreen compound leaves, of seven or more leaflets arranged like the fingers on a hand, that

henbane, (Hyoscyamus niger), highly toxic plant of the nightshade family (Solanaceae), native to Eurasia and naturalized throughout much of the world. The dried leaves of henbane, and sometimes those of Egyptian henbane (H. muticus) and white henbane (H. albus), yield three medicinal

African Meeting House: Late 19th century to the present: …a stop on the museum’s Black Heritage Trail, a walking tour of Boston that highlights the history of the city’s African American community. Together with the Abiel Smith School, the African Meeting House was declared a National Historic Site in 1974.

Ngugi wa Thiong’o: The Black Hermit (1968; produced 1962) was the first of several plays, of which The Trial of Dedan Kimathi (1976; produced 1974), cowritten with Micere Githae Mugo, is considered by some critics to be his best. He was also coauthor, with Ngugi wa Mirii, of…

heron: …typical herons also include the black heron, Hydranassa (or Melanophoyx) ardesiaca, of Africa, and several species of the genus Egretta (egrets), such as the tricoloured heron (E. tricolor), of the southeastern United States and Central and South America, and the little blue heron (E. caerulea). The green heron (Butorides

Black Hills, isolated eroded mountain region in western South Dakota and northeastern Wyoming, U.S., lying largely within Black Hills National Forest. The hills lie between the Cheyenne and Belle Fourche rivers and rise about 3,000 feet (900 metres) above the surrounding plains. They culminate in

American frontier: How the West was won: …American resistance led to the Black Hills War, a clash that reached its apotheosis in the Battle of Little Bighorn (June 25, 1876). The annihilation of a U.S. 7th Cavalry detachment under Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer by a force led by Sitting Bull was a tactical victory for the…

Black History Month, monthlong commemoration of African American history and achievement that takes place each February in the United States. It was begun in 1976. The idea for a Black History Month was first conceived by the historian Carter G. Woodson and members of his Association for the Study

black hole, cosmic body of extremely intense gravity from which nothing, not even light, can escape. A black hole can be formed by the death of a massive star. When such a star has exhausted the internal thermonuclear fuels in its core at the end of its life, the core becomes unstable and

Black Hole of Calcutta, scene of an incident on June 20, 1756, in which a number of Europeans were imprisoned in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and many died. The Europeans were the remaining defenders of Calcutta following the capture of the city by the nawab (ruler) Sirāj al-Dawlah, of Bengal, and the

horehound: Other species: Black horehound (Ballota nigra), a hairy perennial herb with a fetid odour, belongs to the same family. It has purplish flowers and lacks the woolly white appearance of white horehound. It is sometimes used to adulterate extracts of white horehound. It is native to the…

Black horror, horror subgenre that focuses on the experiences of Black Americans. Films in the Black horror genre feature stories involving Black characters and are usually made by Black writers and directors. Although Black horror is mainly a film genre, it also includes works of literature and

Lisbon: City layout: …water to the vast arcaded Commerce Square (Praça do Comércio). The three landward sides of the square are surrounded by uniform buildings dating from the 18th century. That formal Baroque-inspired layout is pierced by a monumental archway, built a century later, marking the entry north into the central city. In…

Patricia Highsmith: …collections of short stories include The Black House (1981) and Tales of Natural and Unnatural Catastrophes (1987). Highsmith also wrote on the craft of writing. In her Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction (1966; revised and enlarged 1981), she held that “art has nothing to do with morality, convention, or moralizing.”…

huckleberry: Major species: The common huckleberry (Gaylussacia baccata) of the eastern United States and Canada is also called black, or high-bush, huckleberry. Dwarf huckleberry (G. dumosa) extends from Florida to Newfoundland. Box huckleberry (G. brachycera), native to the eastern and central United States, can form huge clones, some of…

black humour, writing that juxtaposes morbid or ghastly elements with comical ones that underscore the senselessness or futility of life. Black humour often uses farce and low comedy to make clear that individuals are helpless victims of fate and character. Though in 1940 the French Surrealist

black humour, writing that juxtaposes morbid or ghastly elements with comical ones that underscore the senselessness or futility of life. Black humour often uses farce and low comedy to make clear that individuals are helpless victims of fate and character. Though in 1940 the French Surrealist