Fernando Ortiz: In 1906 he published Los negros brujos (“Black Sorcerers”), his first book on the subject, and in 1916 Los negros esclavos (“Black Slaves”), in which he studies Cuban blacks according to the region of Africa from which they came. His Un catauro de cubanismos (1923; “A Load of Cubanisms”)…

Black Sox Scandal, American baseball scandal centering on the charge that eight members of the Chicago White Sox had been bribed to lose the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. The accused players were pitchers Eddie Cicotte and Claude (“Lefty”) Williams, first baseman Arnold (“Chick”)

spitting cobra: Species, range, and conservation status: …a shy snake least concern black spitting cobra Naja nigricincta woodi dry regions of Southern Africa juveniles are gray-bodied but turn solid black as adults; bites are rare least concern black-necked spitting cobra Naja nigricollis sub-Saharan Africa, primarily savanna and semi-desert regions a moderate-size snake; color varies across regions least

black spot, common disease of a variety of plants caused by species of Pseudomonas bacteria or by any number of fungus species in the genera Asterina, Asterinella, Diplotheca, Glomerella, Gnomonia, Schizothyrium, Placosphaeria, and Stigmea. Infections occur during damp periods and appear as round

tree: Adaptations: For example, the black spruce (Picea mariana) is found in bogs and mountaintops in the northeastern United States but cannot compete well with other trees, such as red spruce (P. rubens), on better sites. Consequently, in the White Mountains of New Hampshire in the northeastern United States, red…

Suprematism: …his first Suprematist work (Black Square, 1915), he identified the black square with feeling and the white background with expressing “the void beyond this feeling.”

Marcus Garvey: …Negro Factories Corporation and the Black Star Line (1919), as well as a chain of restaurants and grocery stores, laundries, a hotel, and a printing press.

Bantustan, any of 10 former territories that were designated by the white-dominated government of South Africa as pseudo-national homelands for the country’s Black African (classified by the government as Bantu) population during the mid- to late 20th century. The Bantustans were a major

cereal farming: Fungus diseases: …chief damage is caused by black rust. Because this fungus spends part of its life on cereals and part on the barberry bush, these bushes are often eradicated near wheat fields as a preventive measure. Black rust causes cereal plants to lose their green colour and turn yellow. The grain…

Black Stone of Mecca, Muslim object of veneration, built into the eastern wall of the Kaʿbah (small shrine within the Great Mosque of Mecca) and probably dating from the pre-Islamic religion of the Arabs. It now consists of three large pieces and some fragments, surrounded by a stone ring and held

stork: The black stork (Ciconia nigra) of Europe, Asia, and Africa is about 100 cm tall, black with a white spot on the belly and a red bill and red legs.

Harry Crosby: …in the 1920s, established the Black Sun Press.

John Frankenheimer: The 1970s and ’80s: …was popular, but it was Black Sunday (1977) that finally gave Frankenheimer his long-awaited major hit. An adaptation of Thomas Harris’s suspenseful best seller, it centres on an unstable Vietnam War veteran (Bruce Dern) who is involved in a plot to kill spectators during the Super Bowl; an Israeli officer…

Dambudzo Marechera: In 1980 his novel Black Sunlight was published; less acclaimed than his first work, it is an explosive and chaotic stream-of-consciousness account of a photojournalist’s involvement with a revolutionary organization. Marechera returned to Zimbabwe in 1981; his mental and physical condition deteriorated, and he was often homeless. Mindblast, or…

Swan River: …Vlamingh, was named for the black swans found there. Western Australia’s first free settlement was made on its banks in 1829.

Darren Aronofsky: The Fountain, The Wrestler, and Black Swan: Black Swan (2010) further solidified Aronofsky as a master of psychological dramas about characters in desperate or disturbing circumstances. The film follows a sheltered ballerina (Natalie Portman) whose relentless quest for perfection in performing Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake drives her to madness. Film…

race records: …companies, among which the short-lived Black Swan label of Harry Pace is recognized as the first. Pace’s motto was “The only genuine colored record. Others are only passing for colored.” African American artists who recorded for Black Swan included Alberta Hunter, Ethel Waters, and pianist and bandleader Fletcher Henderson. When…

black swan event, high-impact event that is difficult to predict under normal circumstances but that in retrospect appears to have been inevitable. A black swan event is unexpected and therefore difficult to prepare for but is often rationalized with the benefit of hindsight as having been

bildungsroman: … (1985) by Jeanette Winterson, and Black Swan Green (2006) by David Mitchell.

Thomas Mann: Later novels of Thomas Mann: …and The Holy Sinner and The Black Swan, published in 1951 and 1953, respectively, show a relaxation of intensity in spite of their accomplished, even virtuoso style. Mann rounded off his imaginative work in 1954 with The Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man, the light, often uproariously funny story of…

Henry King: Films of the 1940s: …King shifted gears to make The Black Swan, a first-rate swashbuckler based on a Rafael Sabatini novel. Power portrayed a buccaneer, and Maureen O’Hara was his love interest. The director then ventured into religious dramas with The Song of Bernadette (1943), an adaptation of Franzel Werfel’s best-selling book about a…

Laos: Ethnic groups and languages: …as the Tai Dam (Black Tai; so named for their black clothing) in the northeast. Beyond the government’s three Lao groupings are communities of Chinese and Vietnamese, both of which are concentrated primarily in the large towns.

tea: Black tea: Plucking the leaf initiates the withering stage, in which the leaf becomes flaccid and loses water until, from a fresh moisture content of 70 to 80 percent by weight, it arrives at a withered content of 55 to 70 percent, depending upon…

tern: The black tern, S. nigra (sometimes Chlidonias niger), about 25 cm (10 inches) long, with a black head and underparts (white below in winter) and gray wings and back, breeds in temperate Eurasia and North America and winters in tropical Africa and South America. It is…

tetra: The black tetra (Gymnocorymbus ternetzi), also called blackamoor, or petticoat fish, is a deep-bodied fish that is 4–7.5 cm (1.5–3 inches) long. When small, it is marked with black on its hind parts and dorsal and anal fins; the black fades to gray as the fish…

Black theater, in the United States, a dramatic movement encompassing plays written by, for, and about African Americans. The minstrel shows of the early 19th century are believed by some to be the roots of Black theater, but they initially were written by white people, acted by white performers in

Black theater, in the United States, a dramatic movement encompassing plays written by, for, and about African Americans. The minstrel shows of the early 19th century are believed by some to be the roots of Black theater, but they initially were written by white people, acted by white performers in

the Roots: …was created in 1987 by Black Thought and Questlove—the only members who remained part of the band throughout its history—when they met as students at the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts. Originally calling themselves the Square Roots, they began performing on Philadelphia street corners. With the…

Black Thunder, historical novel by Arna Bontemps, published in 1936. One of Bontemps’s most popular works, this tale of a doomed early 19th-century slave revolt in Virginia was noted for its detailed portrait of a slave community and its skillful use of dialect. Although it was virtually unnoticed

Black Thursday, Thursday, October 24, 1929, the first day of the stock market crash of 1929, a catastrophic decline in the stock market of the United States that immediately preceded the worldwide Great Depression. That stock market crash (also called the Great Crash) is still considered the worst

tiger: Black tigers have been reported less frequently, from the dense forests of Myanmar (Burma), Bangladesh, and eastern India. The tiger has no mane, but in old males the hair on the cheeks is rather long and spreading. Although most classifications separate the species into six…

tiger snake: The black tiger snake (N. ater) is mainly limited to arid and rocky regions in South Australia. Tiger snakes eat frogs, birds, and mammals, and all attain adult lengths of 1 to 1.5 metres (3 to 5 feet). They are live-bearers.

Tamil Tigers: …of the LTTE, the “Black Tigers,” was responsible for carrying out suicide attacks. If faced with unavoidable capture by Sri Lankan authorities, those operatives and others purportedly committed suicide by swallowing cyanide capsules that they wore around their necks.

buckwheat tree, (Cliftonia monophylla), evergreen shrub or small tree of the family Cyrillaceae, native to southern North America. It grows to about 15 m (50 feet) tall and has oblong or lance-shaped leaves about 4–5 cm (1.5–2 inches) long. Its fragrant white or pinkish flowers, about 1 cm across,

stock market crash of 1929: On Black Tuesday (October 29) more than 16 million shares were traded. The Dow lost another 12 percent and closed at 198—a drop of 183 points in less than two months. Prime securities tumbled like the issues of bogus gold mines. General Electric fell from 396…

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

turnstone: The black turnstone (A. melanocephala), which breeds in Arctic Alaska and winters as far south as Mexico, has a black and white wing pattern but is otherwise dark.

Audre Lorde: Most critics consider The Black Unicorn (1978) to be her finest poetic work. In the collection she turned from the urban themes of her early work, looking instead to Africa, and wrote on her role as mother and daughter, using rich imagery and mythology.

black varnish, any of a class of oil varnishes in which bitumen (a mixture of asphaltlike hydrocarbons) replaces the natural gums or resins used as hardeners in clear varnish. Black varnish is widely used as a protective coating for interior and exterior ironwork such as pipework, tanks, stoves,

Einsiedeln: Its wooden statue, the “Black Virgin” (which owes its name to the discoloration caused by the candles burned before it through the centuries), became a sacred object of European pilgrims from the 14th century. Huldrych Zwingli, the religious reformer, was the parish priest there from 1516 to 1518, and…

Black Volta River, river in Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta), Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), headstream of the Volta River in western Africa. It rises as the Baoulé in low hills in southwestern Burkina Faso near Bobo Dioulasso, and at the end of its course it empties into Lake Volta (in

vulture: Old World vultures: The cinereous vulture, sometimes called the black vulture (Aegypius monachus), is one of the largest flying birds. Many scientists consider this bird to be the largest vulture and the largest bird of prey. It is about 1 metre (3.3 feet) long and 12.5 kg (27.5 pounds)…

vulture: New World vultures: …New World vultures include the black vulture (Coragyps atratus), a New World vulture sometimes called a black buzzard or, inappropriately, a carrion crow. The black vulture, the most abundant vulture species of all, is a resident of the tropics and subtropics that often wanders far into temperate regions. It is…

Black Wall Street, former byname of the Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where in the early 20th century African Americans had created a self-sufficient prosperous business district. The neighborhood was targeted by a white mob in the Tulsa race massacre of 1921, in which more than 1,400

kangaroo: Descriptions of selected species: …Woodward’s, or black, wallaroo (M. bernardus).

black walnut, (Juglans nigra), tall tree of the walnut family (Juglandaceae), native to eastern North America and valued for its decorative wood. The dark fine-grained wood of black walnuts is used for furniture, paneling, and gunstocks. The trees are also planted as ornamentals and are cultivated

Black War, (1804–30), term applied to hostilities between Tasmanian Aboriginal people and British soldiers and settlers on the Australian island of Tasmania (then called Van Diemen’s Land), which nearly resulted in the extermination of the Indigenous inhabitants of the island. Armed conflict began

Black Warrior River, river in western Alabama, U.S. It is formed by the Locust and Mulberry forks about 20 miles (30 km) west of Birmingham and flows about 180 miles (290 km) southwest to join the Tombigbee River near Demopolis. The river is navigable, and with the Tombigbee it forms a link in the

Black Watch, title of a famous Highland regiment in the British Army. The origin of the regiment dates from 1725 when Highlanders loyal to the British crown were formed into six independent companies to help restore order after the abortive 1715 uprising of the clans under John Erskine, the 6th

Joyce Carol Oates: …Me What You Will (1973), Black Water (1992), Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang (1993), Zombie (1995), We Were the Mulvaneys (1996), Broke Heart Blues (1999), The Falls (2004), My Sister, My Love: The Intimate Story of Skyler Rampike (2008),

Amazon River: Physiography of the river course: …highlands are classified as either blackwater (Jari, Negro, and Tocantins-Araguaia) or clearwater (Trombetas, Xingu, and Tapajós). The blackwater tributaries have higher levels of humic acids (which cause their dark colour) and originate in

South African War: Initial Boer success: …during what became known as Black Week (December 10–15, 1899).

Daredevil: …Romanova, also known as the Black Widow, and the pair relocated to San Francisco. After four years of well-crafted crime fighting, including a period when the Black Widow received equal cover billing, the pair split, with Murdock returning to New York. While by no means one of Marvel’s top-selling titles,…

black widow, (genus Latrodectus), any of about 30 species of comb-footed spiders distinguished by an hourglass-shaped marking on the abdomen and known for the venomous bite of the females. Black widows are found throughout much of the world and are so named for the female’s habit of eating the male

Northrop Grumman Corporation: …he developed the radar-equipped, twin-engine P-61 Black Widow, the first American aircraft specifically designed as a night interceptor, and also subcontracted with other aircraft manufacturers in order to finance his experimental flying-wing bombers. After the war these were rejected in favour of more conventional designs, but Northrop’s wartime experiments with…

David Harbour: Career: …character) in the Marvel blockbuster Black Widow in 2021. The film was lauded by fans and critics alike, with some critics noting the chemistry that Harbour shared with costar Rachel Weisz.

Bob Rafelson: Films of the late 1980s and beyond: …next project as a director, Black Widow (1987), a variation on another landmark of film noir, Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity (1944). It starred Theresa Russell as a female Bluebeard who slays her husbands one after the other for their money; Debra Winger played the dogged investigator who catches on to…

Griselda Blanco was a Colombian cocaine trafficker who amassed a vast empire and was a central figure in the violent drug wars in Miami in the 1970s and ’80s. Although there is some confusion about her birth location, a number of sources give it as Santa Marta, Colombia, where Blanco was baptized.

animal behaviour: Adaptive design: Others, such as the black wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus), form enormous herds. During the breeding season, only a few males control sexual access to a group of females in a polygynous mating system. When Jarman compared these African ungulates, he found that body size, typical habitat, group size, and mating…

willow: …of the largest willows are black (S. nigra), crack, or brittle (S. fragilis), and white (S. alba), all reaching 20 metres (65 feet) or more; the first named is North American, the other two Eurasian but naturalized widely. All are common in lowland situations.

Don Siegel: Films with Eastwood: Siegel ventured into espionage with The Black Windmill (1974), which starred Michael Caine as a spy whose son is kidnapped. However, the director seemed uneasy with the genre, and the ending was disappointing. Siegel rebounded wth The Shootist (1976), an elegiac western that was the last film made by John…

Tarsila do Amaral: …culture for artistic inspiration, painting The Black Woman (1923), a flattened, stylized, and exaggerated portrait of a nude Afro-Brazilian woman against a geometric background. The painting marks the beginning of her synthesis of avant-garde aesthetics and Brazilian subject matter.

feminism: The race factor: …asked Toni Cade Bambara in The Black Woman: An Anthology (1970). “I don’t know that our priorities are the same, that our concerns and methods are the same.” As far back as Sojourner Truth, Black feminists had seen white feminists as incapable of understanding their concerns.

pro-choice movement: …Project in 1983 (renamed the Black Women’s Health Imperative in 2002) and eventually to a broader move away from the personal-liberty approach.

woodpecker: … includes two well-known species: the black woodpecker (D. martius), which is some 46 cm (18 inches) long and is found in coniferous and beech woodlands of temperate Eurasia, and the pileated woodpecker (D. pileatus), which is some 40–47 cm (15.5–18.25 inches) in size and inhabits mature forests of much of…

Charles Wright: For the collection Black Zodiac (1997) Wright won both a National Book Critics Circle Award and a Pulitzer Prize (1998). Critics praised Black Zodiac for its innovative mixture of meditations, fragments of narrative, humor, and literary and artistic allusions. His later collections include Bye-and-Bye: Selected Late Poems (2012),…

Encyclopædia Britannica: Seventh edition: …Encyclopaedia Britannica was bought by Adam Black, another Edinburgh publisher, for whom Napier edited the seventh edition. Its 21 volumes, comprising 17,011 pages and 506 plates, appeared in parts from 1830 to 1842 and were a revision of previous editions, incorporating the Supplement and a number of newly commissioned articles.…

John Banville is an Irish novelist and journalist whose fiction is known for being referential, paradoxical, and complex. Common themes throughout his work include loss, obsession, destructive love, and the pain that accompanies freedom. Banville has also published mysteries under the pseudonym

Elvis Presley: From Tupelo to Sam Phillips and Sun Records: Scotty Moore, and bassist Bill Black. Their repertoire consisted of the kind of material for which Presley would become famous: blues and country songs, Tin Pan Alley ballads, and gospel hymns. Presley knew some of this music from the radio, some of it from his parents’ Pentecostal church and…

Duke Ellington: Classical forms: His musical suite Black, Brown and Beige (1943), a portrayal of African-American history, was the first in a series of suites he composed, usually consisting of pieces linked by subject matter. It was followed by, among others, Liberian Suite (1947); A Drum Is a Woman (1956), created for…

Leander Paes: (1999), Martina Navratilova (2003), Cara Black (2008–10), and Martina Hingis (2015–16).

Encyclopædia Britannica: Ninth edition: and C. Black to reprint the ninth edition, and with The Times of London, then in an uncertain financial state, to advertise the sale of the volumes. The moving spirit of this successful enterprise was the publisher Horace E. Hooper, who with another publisher, Walter M.…

Brian Epstein: Death and legacy: Kramer & the Dakotas, and Cilla Black. In 2014 Epstein was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame—one of the first two managers to receive that honor.

Conrad Black is a Canadian-born British businessman who built one of the world’s largest newspaper groups in the 1990s, Hollinger International. In 2007 he was convicted of mail fraud and obstruction of justice, and he served time in jail. After growing up in Toronto, Black studied history and

Conrad Black is a Canadian-born British businessman who built one of the world’s largest newspaper groups in the 1990s, Hollinger International. In 2007 he was convicted of mail fraud and obstruction of justice, and he served time in jail. After growing up in Toronto, Black studied history and

Constance Garnett was an English translator who made the great works of Russian literature available to English and American readers in the first half of the 20th century. In addition to being the first to render Dostoyevsky and Chekhov into English, she translated the complete works of Turgenev

Davidson Black was a Canadian physician and physical anthropologist who first postulated the existence of a distinct form of early man, popularly known as Peking man. Black, a graduate of the University of Toronto, taught at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, which he left to join the

economics: Public finance: …the voting process, Scottish economist Duncan Black brought a political dimension to cost-benefit studies. His book The Theory of Committees and Elections (1958) became the basis of public choice theory. As expressed in the book Calculus of Consent (1962) by American economists James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, public choice theory…

Eugene Robert Black was an American financier who, as the third president of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) from 1949 to 1962, expanded its membership and lent billions of dollars without a default. Black, the son of a governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of

Myron S. Scholes: …for his work with colleague Fischer Black on the Black-Scholes option valuation formula, which made options trading more accessible by giving investors a benchmark for valuing. Scholes shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences with Robert C. Merton, who generalized the Black-Scholes formula to make it apply to other

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.).

George Black was a British manager and producer of entertainments. Black originated the brilliant, long-lived “Crazy Gang” revues at the London Palladium and later at the Victoria Palace, London, and was a pioneer of the motion-picture business. As a young man, Black helped his father establish the

Harold Stephen Black was an American electrical engineer who discovered and developed the negative-feedback principle, in which amplification output is fed back into the input, thus producing nearly distortionless and steady amplification. The principle has found widespread applications in

Hugo Black was a lawyer, politician, and associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1937–71). Black’s legacy as a Supreme Court justice derives from his support of the doctrine of total incorporation, according to which the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United

Hugo Black was a lawyer, politician, and associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1937–71). Black’s legacy as a Supreme Court justice derives from his support of the doctrine of total incorporation, according to which the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United

Jack Black is an American actor and musician known for his many film roles, including those in School of Rock (2003), High Fidelity (2000), and Kung Fu Panda (2008). He is the lead vocalist for the Grammy Award-winning comedy rock duo Tenacious D. Black was born in Santa Monica, California, to

Jeremiah Sullivan Black was a U.S. attorney general during Pres. James Buchanan’s administration who counseled a firm stand by the federal government against secession. Primarily self-educated, Black served his legal apprenticeship in the offices of a prominent attorney, then in 1830 was himself

Joseph Black was a British chemist and physicist best known for the rediscovery of “fixed air” (carbon dioxide), the concept of latent heat, and the discovery of the bicarbonates (such as bicarbonate of soda). Black lived and worked within the context of the Scottish Enlightenment, a remarkable

Lizzie Black Kander was an American welfare worker who created a popular cookbook that became a highly profitable fund-raising tool for the institution she served. Lizzie Black graduated from Milwaukee High School in 1878 and in May 1881 married Simon Kander, a businessman and local politician.

Max Black was an American Analytical philosopher who was concerned with the nature of clarity and meaning in language. Black studied at the Universities of Cambridge (B.A., 1930), Göttingen (1930–31), and London (Ph.D., 1939). He immigrated to the United States in 1940 and became a naturalized

Shirley Temple was an American actress and public official who was an internationally popular child star of the 1930s, best known for sentimental musicals. For much of the decade, she was one of Hollywood’s greatest box-office attractions. Encouraged to perform by her mother, Temple began taking

Sir James Black was a Scottish pharmacologist who, along with George H. Hitchings and Gertrude B. Elion, received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1988 for his development of two important drugs, propranolol and cimetidine. Black earned a medical degree from the University of St.

Sir James Black was a Scottish pharmacologist who, along with George H. Hitchings and Gertrude B. Elion, received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1988 for his development of two important drugs, propranolol and cimetidine. Black earned a medical degree from the University of St.

Jack Black is an American actor and musician known for his many film roles, including those in School of Rock (2003), High Fidelity (2000), and Kung Fu Panda (2008). He is the lead vocalist for the Grammy Award-winning comedy rock duo Tenacious D. Black was born in Santa Monica, California, to

Winifred Sweet Black was an American reporter whose sensationalist exposés and journalistic derring-do reflected the spirit of the age of yellow journalism. Winifred Sweet grew up from 1869 on a farm near Chicago. She attended private schools in Chicago, in Lake Forest, Illinois, and in

Gordon setter, breed of sporting dog dating from 17th-century Scotland, named for the duke of Gordon, whose kennels brought the breed to prominence. Like the other setters, its function is to search for game and indicate its presence to the hunter. The Gordon setter stands 23 to 27 inches (58 to 69

Manchester terrier, breed of dog developed in England from the whippet, a racing dog, and the black-and-tan terrier, a valued ratter, to combine the talents of each. In 1860 the breed was named after the city of Manchester, a breeding centre, but it was often called the black-and-tan terrier until

technology of photography: Black-and-white films: The sensitive surface of ordinary film is a layer of gelatin carrying minute suspended silver halide crystals or grains (the emulsion)—typically silver bromide with some silver iodide. Exposure to light in a camera

technology of photography: …used photographic process is the black-and-white negative–positive system (Figure 1). In the camera the lens projects an image of the scene being photographed onto a film coated with light-sensitive silver salts, such as silver bromide. A shutter built into the lens admits light reflected from the scene for a given…

tegu: …long; however, one species, the black-and-white tegu (T. merianae), reaches 1.3 metres (about 4 feet) in total length. Like other teiids, the tegu uses its tongue and Jacobson’s organ (a chemoreceptor organ located on the roof of its mouth) to detect and discriminate chemical cues associated with prey and other…