• Slan (novel by Van Vogt)

    A.E. Van Vogt: Van Vogt’s first novel, Slan (1946), which was serialized in Astounding Science Fiction from September to December 1940, told the story of mutants with superhuman powers. It was followed by one of Van Vogt’s classics, The Weapon Makers (1947), first serialized in 1943. Other works first serialized in the…

  • slander (law)

    defamation: Libel and slander are the legal subcategories of defamation. Generally speaking, libel is defamation in written words, pictures, or any other visual symbols in a print or electronic medium. Slander is spoken defamation. The advent of early broadcast communications (radio and television) in the 20th century complicated…

  • Slaney, River (river, Ireland)

    River Slaney, river, rising on Lugnaquillia Mountain (3,038 feet [926 m]), County Wicklow, Ireland. It turns westward in a steep torrential course to the Glen of Imail, a granite basin 500–700 feet (150–215 m) above sea level and runs south through the farmed lowlands of County Carlow to Bunclody,

  • slang (linguistics)

    slang, unconventional words or phrases that express either something new or something old in a new way. It is flippant, irreverent, indecorous; it may be indecent or obscene. Its colourful metaphors are generally directed at respectability, and it is this succinct, sometimes witty, frequently

  • Slang and Its Analogues (work by Farmer and Henley)

    dictionary: Specialized dictionaries: Henley in their Slang and Its Analogues, in seven volumes, 1890–1904, with a revised first volume in 1909. For the 20th century the dictionaries of Eric Partridge are valuable. Slang in the United States is so rich and varied that collectors have as yet only scratched the surface,…

  • Slankamen, Battle of (Turkish history)

    Köprülü Fazıl Mustafa Paşa: …under Louis of Baden at Slankamen; Fazıl Mustafa Paşa was mortally shot while rushing to support his right wing. It fell to Mehmed Paşa’s nephew Amca-zâde Hüseyin Paşa, grand vizier between Sept. 13, 1697, and Sept. 29, 1702, to conclude the peace treaty with the allies at Carlowitz (Jan. 26,…

  • Slánský, Rudolf (Czech communist leader)

    Rudolf Slánský was a Czech Communist leader who was the central victim in the November 1952 “Slánský trial.” Of Jewish descent, Slánský joined the Communist Party in 1921 and became editor of the party organ, Rudé Právo, in 1924. He became regional party secretary in Ostrava in 1927 and a member of

  • slant rhyme

    half rhyme, in prosody, two words that have only their final consonant sounds and no preceding vowel or consonant sounds in common (such as stopped and wept, or parable and shell). The device was common in Welsh, Irish, and Icelandic verse years before it was first used in English by Henry Vaughan.

  • slant-faced grasshopper (insect)

    short-horned grasshopper: Major genera and species: The slant-faced grasshoppers, subfamily Acridinae, are characterized by a slanted face and clear hind wings. They are usually found around marshes and wet meadows in small numbers and do little damage to vegetation.

  • Slanted and Enchanted (album by Pavement)

    Pavement: But Slanted and Enchanted (1992) revealed a new grandeur, with enigmatic anthems of subcultural devotion such as “Summer Babe” and “In the Mouth a Desert” treating the slacker life as a birthright. Malkmus’s forever puzzled, laid-back persona (he prided himself on coasting) recast punk: instead of…

  • Slaný (Czech Republic)

    Slaný, town, north-central Czech Republic. Located northwest of Prague, the national capital, Slaný lies in the slightly hilly country west of the Vltava (Moldau) River valley, in an area that grows barley, wheat, hops, sugar beets, and corn (maize) and raises chickens and pigs. During the 1970s

  • slap bass (music)

    Milt Hinton: A master of slap bass (an exaggerated technique in which the strings are pulled far out and then let go so that they snap back), Hinton had a fluid and technical style that was unmatched. He was notably featured on Calloway’s song “Pluckin’ the Bass” (1939). He subsequently…

  • Slap in the Face of Public Taste, A (Russian manifesto)

    David Davidovich Burlyuk: …Futurism, Poshchochina obshchestvennomu vkusu (A Slap in the Face of Public Taste). In 1913–14 he took part in a “Futurist tour” of lectures and poetry readings throughout Russia with the poets Mayakovsky and Vasily Kamensky. It was because of his activity in all these fields that he was soon…

  • slap jack (card game)

    slap jack, children’s action card game for up to eight players. A 52-card deck is dealt in facedown stacks (which need not be equal), one for each player. Beginning at the dealer’s left, each player turns up his stack’s top card and places it in the middle of the playing surface; when a jack is

  • slap shot (sports)

    ice hockey: Rules and principles of play: …of shots in hockey: the slap shot, the wrist shot, and the backhander. The slap shot has been timed at more than 100 miles an hour (160 km an hour). The slap shot differs from the wrist shot in that the player brings his stick back until it is nearly…

  • Slap Shot (film by Hill [1977])

    George Roy Hill: Later work: …then reunited with Newman for Slap Shot (1977), a profane but rousing profile of a lowly minor-league hockey team that starts winning after adopting a dirty style of play. Although backed by a riotous screenplay by Nancy Dowd and a fine performance by Newman, the comedy failed commercially. In the…

  • SLAPP (lawsuit)

    Michel Thomas: …of California’s so-called anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) law, which required the plaintiff in a civil suit that arises from the defendant’s exercise of the right of freedom of speech to establish by “reasonable probability” that the plaintiff would prevail should the case go to trial.

  • slapstick (comedy)

    slapstick, a type of physical comedy characterized by broad humour, absurd situations, and vigorous, usually violent action. The slapstick comic, more than a mere funnyman or buffoon, must often be an acrobat, a stunt performer, and something of a magician—a master of uninhibited action and perfect

  • slapstick (device)

    slapstick: A slapstick was originally a harmless paddle composed of two pieces of wood that slapped together to produce a resounding whack when the paddle struck someone. The slapstick seems to have first come into use in the 16th century, when Harlequin, one of the principal characters…

  • Slapstick; or, Lonesome No More (novel by Vonnegut)

    Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions: Slapstick; or, Lonesome No More! (1976; film 1982) focuses on a pair of grotesque siblings who devise a program to end loneliness, and Jailbird (1979) is a postmodern pastiche rooted in 20th-century American social history.

  • SLAR

    warning system: Radar: Side-looking radars are used to obtain higher resolution than conventional radar, improving the ability to recognize surface targets.

  • slash (clothing)

    dress: Europe, 1500–1800: …addition of padded puffs, decoratively slashed. This idea is thought to have been derived from the dress of Swiss and Bavarian mercenaries. Each garment was slashed to show the contrasting colour of the material of the one beneath.

  • slash (punctuation)

    punctuation: Punctuation in Greek and Latin to 1600: …elevatus are joined by the virgule (/) as an alternative form of light stop. Vernacular literature followed the less formal types of Latin literature; and the printers, as usual, followed the scribes. The first printed texts of the Bible and the liturgy are, as a rule, carefully punctuated on the…

  • Slash (American musician)

    Guns N’ Roses: ) Slash (original name Saul Hudson; born July 23, 1965, London, England) Michael “Duff” McKagan (born February 5, 1964, Seattle, Washington, U.S.) Izzy Stradlin (original name Jeff Isbell; born April 8, 1962, Lafayette, Indiana, U.S.) Steve Adler (born January 22, 1965, Cleveland, Ohio,

  • slash pine (tree)

    tree: Tree height growth: …example, a selected strain of Caribbean pine that was certified not to foxtail in Australia reportedly exhibited 80 percent foxtailing when grown in Puerto Rico. Foxtailing decreases with altitude, stand density, and soil quality. The cause is thought to be due to hormone imbalances induced by exotic environments. Some species…

  • Slash Records (American record label)

    Black Flag: ” Along with Slash Records, SST became the avatar of the West Coast punk scene, and its early roster included seminal hardcore acts the Minutemen, the Meat Puppets, and Hüsker Dü. After settling on Rollins as its vocalist, Black Flag released Damaged (1981), its first full-length album. Later…

  • slash-and-burn agriculture (agriculture)

    slash-and-burn agriculture, method of cultivation in which forests are burned and cleared for planting. Slash-and-burn agriculture is often used by tropical-forest root-crop farmers in various parts of the world, for animal grazing in South and Central America, and by dry-rice cultivators in the

  • Slashdot (Web site)

    Slashdot, Web site created by Rob Malda, an American college student, in September 1997 in order to provide technology news and information. Editorials, stories, articles, and reviews are submitted by users and then either accepted or rejected by administrators. Owned by SourceForge, Inc., Slashdot

  • Slasher (Canadian-American television series)

    David Cronenberg: Other work: …the anthology horror TV series Slasher, cast as a wealthy patriarch who makes his children compete in brutal tests in order to win his inheritance. During this time Cronenberg also had a recurring role on Star Trek: Discovery. His other notable work includes the novel Consumed (2014), about a salacious…

  • Śląsk (historical region, Europe)

    Silesia, historical region that is now in southwestern Poland. Silesia was originally a Polish province, which became a possession of the Bohemian crown in 1335, passed with that crown to the Austrian Habsburgs in 1526, and was taken by Prussia in 1742. In 1945, at the end of World War II, Silesia

  • Śląska Lowland (region, Poland)

    Poland: The lake region and central lowlands: …divide the area into the Silesian (Śląska) Lowland, which lies in the upper Oder; the southern Great Poland Lowland, which lies in the middle Warta River basin; and the Mazovian (Mazowiecka) and Podlasian (Podlaska) lowlands, which lie in the middle Vistula basin. Lower Silesia and Great Poland are important agricultural…

  • Śląska, Wyżyna (region, Poland)

    Poland: The Little Poland Uplands: …region, and the landscape of Upper Silesia is highly urbanized. Katowice is the largest centre, and the region is closely linked with that around Kraków (Cracow). The Little Poland Uplands protect the Little Poland Lowlands, in which Kraków lies, from the colder air of the north. To the north the…

  • Śląskie (province, Poland)

    Śląskie, województwo (province), southern Poland. It is bordered by the provinces of Łódzkie to the north, Świętokrzyskie to the northeast, Małopolskie to the east, and Opolskie to the west; Slovakia and the Czech Republic are to the south. Created in 1999 as part of Poland’s provincial

  • slat conveyor (mechanical device)

    conveyor: Slat conveyors consist of endless chains, driven by electric motors operating through reduction gears and sprockets, with attached spaced slats to carry objects that would damage a belt because of sharp edges or heavy weights.

  • Slate (online magazine)

    Robert Pinsky: …1986 and from 1997 of Slate, an online magazine. Pinsky cotranslated poems by Czesław Miłosz that were published in The Separate Notebooks (1984). His verse translation of Dante’s Inferno (1994) is notable for its gracefulness and its faithfulness to the original terza rima form. In addition to editing several poetry…

  • slate (geology)

    slate, fine-grained, clayey metamorphic rock that cleaves, or splits, readily into thin slabs having great tensile strength and durability; some other rocks that occur in thin beds are improperly called slate because they can be used for roofing and similar purposes. True slates do not, as a rule,

  • Slate Quarries (painting by Crome)

    John Crome: 1818–20), Slate Quarries (c. 1805), and Moonlight on the Yare (1817). Among his many etchings is the representative series entitled Norfolk Picturesque Scenery (1834).

  • slate-coloured junco (bird)

    junco: The dark-eyed, or slate-coloured, junco (J. hyemalis) breeds across Canada and in the Appalachian Mountains; northern migrants are the “snowbirds” of the eastern United States. In western North America there are several forms of junco with brown or pinkish markings; among them is the yellow-eyed Mexican…

  • slate-pencil urchin (invertebrate)

    sea urchin: The slate-pencil urchin (Heterocentrotus mammillatus) of the Indo-Pacific has 12-cm spines that may be 1 cm thick—stout enough to be used for writing. Lytechinus variegatus, a pale-greenish urchin of the southeastern coast of the United States and the Caribbean, and the large, short-spined Psammechinus (sometimes Echinus)…

  • Slater, Christian (American actor)

    Kevin Bacon: Breakthrough in Footloose and later film career: …in which he starred with Christian Slater and Gary Oldman. In 1995 he also played real-life astronaut Jack Swigert, appearing alongside Tom Hanks, in Ron Howard’s Apollo 13.

  • Slater, F. C. (South African author)

    South African literature: In English: F.C. Slater often evoked by image and rhythm a uniquely South African experience, as in “Lament for a Dead Cow” (Collected Poems [1957]). Sydney Clouts was another important poet who came to prominence after World War II, but it was Douglas Livingstone who became the…

  • Slater, John C. (American chemist)

    physical science: Chemistry: …bonds was rapidly developed by John C. Slater and Linus C. Pauling in the United States. Slater proposed a simple general method for constructing multiple-electron wave functions that would automatically satisfy the Pauli exclusion principle. Pauling introduced a valence-bond method, picking out one electron in each of the two combining…

  • Slater, Kelly (American surfer)

    Kelly Slater is widely considered the greatest surfer of all time. He earned the title of world champion an unprecedented 11 times, including a record five times consecutively (1994–98), and he was also the all-time leader in event wins. The son of a bait-store proprietor, Slater grew up near the

  • Slater, Robert Kelly (American surfer)

    Kelly Slater is widely considered the greatest surfer of all time. He earned the title of world champion an unprecedented 11 times, including a record five times consecutively (1994–98), and he was also the all-time leader in event wins. The son of a bait-store proprietor, Slater grew up near the

  • Slater, Samuel (American industrialist)

    Samuel Slater was an English American businessman and founder of the American cotton-textile industry. As an apprentice in England to Jedediah Strutt (partner of Richard Arkwright), Slater gained a thorough knowledge of cotton manufacturing. He immigrated to the United States in 1789, attracted by

  • Slatersville (Rhode Island, United States)

    Samuel Slater: …and founded the town of Slatersville, Rhode Island.

  • Slatin, Rudolf Karl, Baron von (governor of The Sudan)

    Rudolf Karl, baron von Slatin was an Austrian soldier in the service of England in the Sudan, famous for his imprisonment by the Mahdists (religious and nationalist revolutionaries in the Sudan) and his subsequent escape. His nearly 40 years in the Sudan indelibly influenced its development. Slatin

  • Slatina (Romania)

    Slatina, town, capital, Olt județ (county), southern Romania. It lies along the Olt River, where there once was a fort. The local museum has prehistoric (Lower Paleolithic) chipped-stone tools that were found in a valley south of the town. Roman artifacts, money, and arms and ancient books and

  • Slatkin, Leonard (American conductor)

    National Symphony Orchestra: cellist Mstislav Rostropovich (1977–94), Leonard Slatkin (music director-designate, 1994–96; music director, 1996–2008), and Christoph Eschenbach (2010–17). Gianandrea Noseda assumed the music directorship in 2017.

  • Slaton, Mary Leta Dorothy (American actress)

    Dorothy Lamour was an American actress who was best remembered by filmgoers as the sarong-clad object of Bob Hope’s and Bing Crosby’s attention in a series of "Road" pictures. She was a favorite pinup of troops in World War II, frequently visited the Hollywood Canteen to dance and talk with

  • Slattery’s Hurricane (film by De Toth [1949])

    André De Toth: Slattery’s Hurricane (1949) put Richard Widmark to good use as an airplane pilot who fears he might crash during a storm.

  • Slattery, John (American actor and director)

    Mad Men: …devilishly affable Roger Sterling (John Slattery), a partner at the firm; the ambitious young account executive Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser); and the effortlessly savvy head secretary, Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks). While the show generated many of its story lines from the lively dynamics of the office, it also focused…

  • slaty cleavage (geology)

    metamorphic rock: Major features: …s-surface, bedding, or crystal orientation; slaty cleavage, a planar structure leading to facile cleavage that is normally caused by the preferred orientation of mica crystals; schistosity, a term used to describe repetitive and pronounced foliation of the type that is present in schists; and lineation, which is any linear structure,…

  • slaty foliation (geology)

    metamorphic rock: Major features: …s-surface, bedding, or crystal orientation; slaty cleavage, a planar structure leading to facile cleavage that is normally caused by the preferred orientation of mica crystals; schistosity, a term used to describe repetitive and pronounced foliation of the type that is present in schists; and lineation, which is any linear structure,…

  • slaty-backed nightingale thrush (bird)

    nightingale thrush: …unspotted; an example is the slaty-backed nightingale thrush (C. fuscater), 16 cm (6.5 inches) long, of mountain forests from Costa Rica to Bolivia. In more northerly species, sometimes placed in the genus Hylocichla, the eye rims are whitish, the bill is dark, and the underparts are spotted. An example is…

  • slaty-capped shrike-vireo (bird)

    shrike-vireo: The slaty-capped shrike-vireo (Vireolanius leucotis) of northern South America is a heavily built forest bird with an olive green back and a slaty gray head punctuated with yellow. Much more subdued in colouring, the chestnut-sided shrike-vireo (V. melitophrys) is greenish brown above and white below, with…

  • Slauerhoff, Jan Jacob (Dutch poet)

    Jan Jacob Slauerhoff was a Dutch poet whose romanticism led him to go to sea as a ship’s doctor and whose pessimistic poetry reflects his subsequent disillusionment. Slauerhoff’s restlessness and contemptuous hatred of Holland are prominent themes throughout his work, from the first volume,

  • Slaughterhouse Cases (law cases)

    Slaughterhouse Cases, in American history, legal dispute that resulted in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1873 limiting the protection of the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In 1869 the Louisiana state legislature granted a monopoly

  • Slaughterhouse, The (work by Echeverría)

    Esteban Echeverría: …powerful story “El matadero” (“The Slaughterhouse”), a landmark in the history of Latin American literature. “The Slaughterhouse,” probably written in 1838, was not published until 30 years later. It is mostly significant because it displays the clash between “civilization and barbarism,” between European mores and more primitive and violent…

  • Slaughterhouse-Five (film by Hill [1972])

    George Roy Hill: Film directing: …project for the studio was Slaughterhouse-Five (1972). With its time-traveling hero and bitterly ironic tone, Kurt Vonnegut’s best seller was not a book that easily translated to film, but Hill’s adaptation was largely praised—though it was a financial failure. With the help of Redford and Newman, Hill rebounded in impressive…

  • Slaughterhouse-Five (novel by Vonnegut)

    Slaughterhouse-Five, antiwar novel by Kurt Vonnegut, published in 1969. The absurdist, nonlinear work blends science fiction with historical facts, notably Vonnegut’s own experience as a prisoner of war in Dresden, Germany, during the Allied firebombing of that city in early 1945. It is considered

  • Slaughterhouse-Five; or, The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death (novel by Vonnegut)

    Slaughterhouse-Five, antiwar novel by Kurt Vonnegut, published in 1969. The absurdist, nonlinear work blends science fiction with historical facts, notably Vonnegut’s own experience as a prisoner of war in Dresden, Germany, during the Allied firebombing of that city in early 1945. It is considered

  • slaughtering (meat packing)

    Temple Grandin: …pain and fear from the slaughtering process. Her designs enabled workers to move animals without frightening them. She also maintained that her acute visualization could be harnessed in making design decisions regarding other matters. For example, she said that she never would have located backup emergency generators in the nonwaterproof…

  • Slav (people)

    Slav, member of the most numerous ethnic and linguistic body of peoples in Europe, residing chiefly in eastern and southeastern Europe but extending also across northern Asia to the Pacific Ocean. Slavic languages belong to the Indo-European family. Customarily, Slavs are subdivided into East Slavs

  • Slav Congress (Europe [1848])

    Austria: Revolution and counterrevolution, 1848–59: In June 1848 a Pan-Slav congress met in Prague to hammer out a set of principles that all Slavic peoples could endorse (see Pan-Slavism). The organizer of the conference was the great Czech historian František Palacký (most of the delegates were Czech), who not only had called for the…

  • Slav’ansk (Ukraine)

    Slov’yansk, city, eastern Ukraine. It lies at the confluence of the Kazenny Torets and Sukhyy Torets rivers. Founded in 1676 as Tor and renamed Slov’yansk in 1794, it is today the main centre of the northwestern part of the Donets Basin industrial area. The presence of saline and mud springs, rock

  • Slav’ansk-na-Kubani (Russia)

    Slavyansk-na-Kubani, city and centre of Slavyansk rayon (sector), Krasnodar kray (territory), southwestern Russia. It is situated on the left bank of the Protoka River, an arm of the Kuban. Until 1958 it was known as stanitsa (Cossack village) Slavyanskaya; thereafter it was a city. Industries in

  • Slav’s Poetical Views of Nature, The (work by Afanasev)

    Aleksandr Afanasev: …vozzreniya slavyan na prirodu (The Slav’s Poetical Views of Nature) in three volumes, which provided the first synthesis of the theories of the Mythological school, a 19th-century Romantic literary movement that drew its inspiration from folklore. The Mythological school was grounded in the aesthetic philosophy of F.W. von Schelling…

  • slava (Slavic feast)

    Slavic religion: Communal banquets and related practices: …religious service); in the Serbian slava (“glorification”); and in the sobor (“assembly”) and kurban (“victim” or “prey”) of Bulgaria. Formerly, communal banquets were also held by the Poles and the Polabs (Elbe Slavs) of Hannover. In Russia the love feasts are dedicated to the memory of a deceased person or…

  • Slavata, William (governor of Bohemia)

    Defenestration of Prague: …Prague, where the imperial regents, William Slavata and Jaroslav Martinic, were tried and found guilty of violating the Letter of Majesty and, with their secretary, Fabricius, were thrown from the windows of the council room of Hradčany (Prague Castle) on May 23, 1618. Although inflicting no serious injury on the…

  • Slave (people)

    Slave, group of Athabaskan-speaking Indians of Canada, originally inhabiting the western shores of the Great Slave Lake, the basins of the Mackenzie and Liard rivers, and other neighbouring riverine and forest areas. Their name, Awokanak, or Slave, was given them by the Cree, who plundered and

  • slave basket (basketry)

    sweetgrass basket, type of basket made of sweetgrass (Muhlenbergia filipes), so called because it smells like freshly mowed hay. The art of the sweetgrass coiled basket, born in West Africa centuries ago, is still practiced in the United States in the 21st century, chiefly in the Low Country of

  • slave clock (horology)

    clock: Electric clocks: …series of distant dials, or slave clocks, advancing the hands of each through the space of a half minute. Thus, a master clock can control scores of dials in a large group of buildings, as well as such other apparatus as time recorders and sirens.

  • Slave Coast (region, West Africa)

    Slave Coast, in 18th- and 19th-century history, the section of the coast of the Gulf of Guinea, in Africa, extending approximately from the Volta River in the west to Lagos, in modern Nigeria, or, alternatively, the Niger Delta in the east (in the present-day republics of Togo, Benin, and Nigeria).

  • slave code (United States history)

    slave code, in U.S. history, any of the set of rules based on the concept that enslaved persons were property, not persons. Inherent in the institution of slavery were certain social controls, which enslavers amplified with laws to protect not only the property but also the property owner from the

  • Slave craton (geological region, Canada)

    North America: The Canadian Shield: …during their mutual aggregation; the Slave craton lies to the northwest, the Nain craton to the northeast, and the Superior craton to the south of the intervening nonrigid Churchill province, which may be composite in origin. The structural grain of the cratons is truncated at their margins, suggesting that they…

  • Slave Dancer, The (book by Fox)

    Paula Fox: Writing career: Her book The Slave Dancer (1973), a dark but historically accurate work showing the horrors of the slave trade in the mid-19th century, won the 1974 Newbery Medal. In 1978 Fox was awarded a Hans Christian Andersen Medal for all her children’s books. One-Eyed Cat (1984), which…

  • Slave dynasty (rulers of India [1206–1290])

    Mamluk dynasty, (1206–90), line of sultans of the Muiʿzzī family at Delhi, India, that lasted for nearly a century. It was the first of the Delhi sultanate dynasties and had no connection to the Mamluk rulers of Egypt and Syria. The Mamluk dynasty was founded by Quṭb al-Dīn Aibak, a Mamluk

  • Slave Girl, The (novel by Emecheta)

    Buchi Emecheta: …novels—including The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977), The Joys of Motherhood (1979), Destination Biafra (1982), and Double Yoke (1982)—are realistic works of fiction set in Nigeria. Perhaps her strongest work, The Rape of Shavi (1983), is also the most difficult to categorize. Set in an imaginary idyllic African…

  • Slave House (museum and historic building, Gorée Island, Senegal)

    Gorée Island: The Maison des Esclaves (“Slave House”), which was constructed in 1786, includes displays of slavery artifacts, and the Fort d’Estrées (built in the 1850s) is the site of a historical museum. There are also museums of women’s history and of the sea. In 1978 Gorée Island…

  • slave labour

    forced labour, labour performed involuntarily and under duress, usually by relatively large groups of people. Forced labour differs from slavery in that it involves not the ownership of one person by another but rather merely the forced exploitation of that person’s labour. Forced labour has

  • Slave Life in Virginia and Kentucky; or, Fifty Years of Slavery in the Southern States of America (work by Fredric)

    fugitive slave: Another, Slave Life in Virginia and Kentucky; or, Fifty Years of Slavery in the Southern States of America (1863), tells the story of a slave named Francis Fedric (sometimes spelled Fredric or Frederick), who suffered extreme brutality at the hand of his owner. He was able…

  • slave narrative (American literature)

    slave narrative, an account of the life, or a major portion of the life, of a fugitive or former slave, either written or orally related by the slave personally. Slave narratives comprise one of the most influential traditions in American literature, shaping the form and themes of some of the most

  • Slave Power, The (work by Cairnes)

    John Elliott Cairnes: His book The Slave Power (1862) criticized slavery by outlining its inefficiencies as a system of labour. Because it was published at the time of the American Civil War (1861–65), the book influenced British opinion in support of the North.

  • Slave province (geological region, Canada)

    North America: The Canadian Shield: …during their mutual aggregation; the Slave craton lies to the northwest, the Nain craton to the northeast, and the Superior craton to the south of the intervening nonrigid Churchill province, which may be composite in origin. The structural grain of the cratons is truncated at their margins, suggesting that they…

  • slave rebellions

    slave rebellions, in the history of the Americas, periodic acts of violent resistance by Black enslaved people during nearly three centuries of chattel slavery. Such resistance signified continual deep-rooted discontent with the condition of bondage and, in some places, such as the United States,

  • slave revolts

    slave rebellions, in the history of the Americas, periodic acts of violent resistance by Black enslaved people during nearly three centuries of chattel slavery. Such resistance signified continual deep-rooted discontent with the condition of bondage and, in some places, such as the United States,

  • Slave River (river, Canada)

    Slave River, river in northern Alberta and southern Northwest Territories, Canada, forming an integral part of the Mackenzie River waterway. Explored by Samuel Hearne in 1771–72, the river was named after the Dene Tha’ people who inhabited its banks. From the confluence of the Peace River and

  • slave trade

    slave trade, the capturing, selling, and buying of enslaved persons. Slavery has existed throughout the world since ancient times, and trading in slaves has been equally universal. Enslaved persons were taken from the Slavs and Iranians from antiquity to the 19th century, from the sub-Saharan

  • Slave, The (play by Baraka)

    The Slave, one-act play by Amiri Baraka, performed and published in 1964. An examination of tension between blacks and whites in contemporary America, The Slave is the story of a visit by African American Walker Vessles to the home of Grace, his white ex-wife, and Easley, her white husband. Baraka

  • Slave, The (work by Amadi)

    Elechi Amadi: …The Great Ponds (1969), and The Slave (1978). These novels concern human destiny and the extent to which it can be changed; the relationship between people and their gods is the central issue explored. Amadi was a keen observer of details of daily life and religious rituals, which he unobtrusively…

  • Slavenae (people)

    Bulgaria: Slavic invasions: …Danube at this time, the Slavenae and the Antae. Evidence suggests that the Slavenae, to the west, were the ancestors of the Serbs and Croats, while the Antae moved into the regions of Bulgaria, Macedonia, and northern Greece. The Slavic tribes tilled the soil or practiced a pastoral way of…

  • Slaveroad (work by Wideman)

    John Edgar Wideman: Books and teaching career: Slaveroad (2024) explores the title term and the experience of African Americans through a series of interrelated essays that blend memoir, history, and biography.

  • slavery (sociology)

    slavery, condition in which one human being was owned by another. A slave was considered by law as property, or chattel, and was deprived of most of the rights ordinarily held by free persons. What do you think? Explore the ProCon debate There is no consensus on what a slave was or on how the

  • slavery (zoology)

    ant: Notable ant behaviors: Slave-making ants, of which there are many species, have a variety of methods for “enslaving” the ants of other species. The queen of Bothriomyrmex decapitans of Africa, for example, allows herself to be dragged by Tapinoma ants into their nest. She then bites off the…

  • Slavery Abolition Act (United Kingdom [1833])

    Slavery Abolition Act, (1833), in British history, act of Parliament that abolished slavery in most British colonies, freeing more than 800,000 enslaved Africans in the Caribbean and South Africa as well as a small number in Canada. It received Royal Assent on August 28, 1833, and took effect on

  • Slavery As It Is (work by Weld)

    Theodore Dwight Weld: …Bible Against Slavery (1837) and Slavery As It Is (1839). The latter was said to be the work on which Harriet Beecher Stowe partly based her Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

  • slavery in the United States

    African American folktale: When slaves arrived in the New World from Africa in the 1700s and 1800s, they brought with them a vast oral tradition. The details and characters of the stories evolved over time in the Americas, though many of the motifs endured. The African hare, for example,…

  • Slaves (sculpture by Michelangelo)

    sculpture: Symbolism: Michelangelo’s Slaves have been interpreted as Neoplatonic allegories of the human soul struggling to free itself from the bondage of the body, its “earthly prison,” or, more directly, as symbols of the struggle of intelligible form against mere matter. But they could also be disturbing symbols…

  • Slaves in Their Chains (work by Theotókis)

    Konstantínos Theotókis: His long novel Slaves in Their Chains (1922), set in Corfu during a period of social change, reveals the old aristocracy trying to keep up a way of life that is long past, the bourgeoisie on the decline, and the newly rich trying to use their wealth to…