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  • Dove, Heinrich Wilhelm (Polish scientist)
    In Europe the writings of Heinrich Dove, a Polish scientist who directed the Prussian Meteorological Institute, greatly influenced views concerning wind behaviour in storms. Unlike the Americans, Dove did not focus on the pattern of the winds around the storm but rather on how the wind should change at one place as a storm passed. It was many years before his followers understood the complexity......
  • dove of peace (bird)
    ...array of crossbreeds of domesticated strains, all of them ultimately traceable to the Old World rock dove (Columba livia). The rock dove is typically dull in colour—gray and white rump and two large black wing bars; this Eurasian species nests above 5,000 feet (1,525 m) in Asia. It has been domesticated and selectively......
  • Dove, Rita (American author)
    African American writer and teacher who was poet laureate of the United States (1993–95)....
  • Dove, Rita Frances (American author)
    African American writer and teacher who was poet laureate of the United States (1993–95)....
  • dove shell (gastropod family)
    ...rock shells common in cooler waters, others mostly tropical.Superfamily BuccineaceaScavengers that have lost the mechanisms for boring; dove shells (Columbellidae), mud snails (Nassariidae), tulip shells (Fasciolariidae), whelks (Buccinidae), and crown conchs (Galeodidae) mainly cool-water species; but dove and tulip shel...
  • Dove, The (film by West [1927])
    ...Benjamin Glazer for 7th HeavenTitle Writing: Joseph FarnhamCinematography: Charles Rosher and Karl Struss for SunriseArt Direction: William Cameron Menzies for The Dove and TempestHonorary Award: Charlie Chaplin for The Circus, Warner Bros. for The Jazz Singer Two “Special Awards” were bestowed in the first year of the......
  • dove tree (plant)
    (species Davidia involucrata), small flowering tree, in the family Nyssaceae, with showy creamy bracts (modified leaves) surrounding the flowers. Native to southwestern China, it has been introduced elsewhere. Pyramidal in shape, with large bright-green leaves, it is especially impressive in bloom. Each terminal ...
  • Dove, Ulysses (American dancer and choreographer)
    U.S. dancer and choreographer who created dances for many of the leading U.S. and European companies and for the Philip Glass opera The Civil Wars (b. Jan. 17, 1947--d. June 11, 1996)....
  • dovekie (bird)
    small, black and white seabird of the North Atlantic. The dovekie belongs to the family Alcidae (order Charadriiformes). It is about 20 centimetres (8 inches) long, with a short bill. Its legs and wings are short, and its feet are webbed. It is a proficient diver, feeding on fish, mollusks, and crustaceans. Dovekies breed on rocky coasts and i...
  • Dover (Delaware, United States)
    city, capital (1777) of Delaware, U.S., seat of Kent county, in the east-central portion of the state on the St. Jones River. It was laid out in 1717 around an existing county courthouse and jail on the order (1683) of William Penn and was named for the English city. Dover was incorporated as a town in 1829 and as a city in 1929. Colonial buildings clustered a...
  • Dover (New Hampshire, United States)
    city, seat (1769) of Strafford county, southeastern New Hampshire, U.S. It is located at the falls (a 33-foot [10-metre] drop) of the Cocheco River, near its junction with the Piscataqua River, just northwest of Portsmouth. Originally settled in 1623 by fishermen and traders, it was known as Bristol. A second settlement was made at nearby Dover Neck, or Point,...
  • Dover (England, United Kingdom)
    town and seaport on the Strait of Dover, Dover district, administrative and historic county of Kent, England. Situated at the mouth of a valley in the chalk uplands that form the famous white cliffs, Dover is the closest English port to the European mainland....
  • Dover (district, England, United Kingdom)
    district, eastern part of the administrative and historic county of Kent, England, on the Strait of Dover. The history and economy of the district reflect its location as the part of England closest to France. Through the district pass major routes fro...
  • Dover Beach (work by Arnold)
    the treatment of something abstract as a material or concrete thing, as in the following lines from Matthew Arnold’s poem “Dover Beach”: The Sea of FaithWas once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shoreLay like the folds of a bright girdle furled....
  • Dover Beach Revisited (work by Finch)
    ...later work, Acis in Oxford (1961), a series of meditations inspired by a performance of G.F. Handel’s dramatic oratorio Acis and Galatea. Dover Beach Revisited (1961), treating the World War II evacuation of Dunkirk and issues of faith, contains 11 variations on Matt...
  • Dover, Ben (American engineer)
    U.S. engineer who conducted top secret research on advanced military aircraft while working at Lockheed Aircraft Corporation (now Lockheed Martin Corporation) under an alias, which he was required to adopt for security reasons. Rich, known as Ben Dover, helped develop more than 25 airplanes, notably the F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter-bombe...
  • Dover sole (fish)
    The well-known Dover sole (Solea solea) of Europe is a commercially valuable food fish. The Dover sole reaches a length of about 50 cm (20 inches) and is brown in colour, with darker blotches and a black spot on each pectoral......
  • Dover, Strait of (international waterway, Europe)
    narrow water passage separating England (northwest) from France (southeast) and connecting the English Channel (southwest) with the North Sea (northeast). The strait is 18 to 25 miles (30 to 40 km) wide, and its depth ranges from 120 to 180 feet (35 to 55 metres). Until the comparatively recent geologic past (c. 500...
  • Dover, Treaty of (England-France [1670])
    (1670), pact by which Charles II of England promised to support French policy in Europe in return for a French subsidy that would free him from financial dependence on Parliament....
  • Doves Press (English press)
    ...a field in which he rapidly won distinction. He established the Doves Bindery at Hammersmith, London (1893), confining himself thereafter to designing; and in 1900 he founded, with Emery Walker, the Doves Press. The restrained splendour of its books is unsurpassed. The Doves Bible (1903–05) is considered the masterpiece of the press. He and Walker designed an outstanding type, which was....
  • Doves Press Bible
    ...bookbinder Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson joined printer Sir Emery Walker in establishing the Doves Press at Hammersmith. Books from the Doves Press, including its monumental masterpiece, the 1903 Doves Press Bible, are remarkably beautiful typographic books. They have no illustrations or ornaments; the press instead relied upon fine paper, perfect presswork, and exquisite type and spacing to......
  • dovetail joint (carpentry)
    ...most machine-made joints follow the traditional patterns; most joints rely to a considerable extent on a combination of mechanical fit and glue for their strength. Common types of joints include the dovetail, used for joining two flat members together at right angles, as in the sides of a drawer; the dowelled joint, in which dowelling is employed to impart mechanical strength; and the mortise.....
  • dovetailing (weaving)
    ...for that reason. Second, it may be left open on the loom but sewed up afterward, as in European tapestries from the 14th to the 17th centuries and also in some later types. Third, the weaver may dovetail his wefts, passing from one side and from the other in turn over a common warp. This may be either “comb” dovetailing—single wefts alternating—or......
  • Dovizi da Bibbiena, Bernardo (Italian author)
    ...To the comedies of Ariosto and Machiavelli should be added a lively play, La Calandria (first performed 1513; The Follies of Calandro), by Cardinal Bernardo Dovizi da Bibbiena, and the five racy comedies written by Pietro Aretino. Giordano Bruno, a great Italian philosopher who wrote dialogues in Italian on his new cosmology and antihumanist......
  • Dovre Mountains (mountains, Norway)
    range in south-central Norway. Extending about 100 miles (160 km) from east to west and about 40 miles from north to south, the range is centred about 70 miles southeast of the town of Kristiansund. Composed mainly of layered metamorphic rocks (gneiss and schist), the mountains cover parts of the Sør-Trøndelag,...
  • Dovzhenko, Aleksandr (Soviet director)
    a motion-picture director who brought international recognition to the Soviet film industry during the 1930s. Emotional intensity and mystical symbolism often took precedence over narrative structure in his films, many of which concerned the Russian Civil War (1918–20) and the collectivization period (late 1920s to ea...
  • Dovzhenko, Aleksandr Petrovich (Soviet director)
    a motion-picture director who brought international recognition to the Soviet film industry during the 1930s. Emotional intensity and mystical symbolism often took precedence over narrative structure in his films, many of which concerned the Russian Civil War (1918–20) and the collectivization period (late 1920s to ea...
  • Dovzhenko, Oleksander (Soviet director)
    a motion-picture director who brought international recognition to the Soviet film industry during the 1930s. Emotional intensity and mystical symbolism often took precedence over narrative structure in his films, many of which concerned the Russian Civil War (1918–20) and the collectivization period (late 1920s to ea...
  • dow (Arab sailing vessel)
    one- or two-masted Arab sailing vessel, usually with lateen rigging (slanting, triangular sails), common in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. On the larger types, called baggalas and booms, the mainsail is considerably bigger than the mizzensail. Bows are sharp, with a forward and upward thrust, and the sterns of the larger ...
  • Dow, Arthur Wesley (American artist and educator)
    ...by Alon Bement of Teachers College, Columbia University, in New York City. Bement acquainted her with the then-revolutionary thinking of his colleague at Teachers College, artist and art educator Arthur Wesley Dow. Dow believed in the Modernist idea that the subject of artists’ work should be their personal ideas and feelings and that these could be visualized most effectively through th...
  • Dow, Charles Henry (American journalist)
    American journalist who cofounded Dow Jones & Company, a financial news service, and The Wall Street Journal. His original contributions include the compilation in 1884 of the first average of selected U.S. stock prices that, with some modification, developed into what are known as the Dow Jo...
  • Dow Chemical Company (American company)
    American chemical and plastics manufacturer that is one of the world’s leading suppliers of chemicals, plastics, synthetic fibres, and agricultural products. Headquarters are in Midland, Mich....
  • Dow Corning (American company)
    ...chemical companies settled a class-action lawsuit out of court by agreeing to establish a $180 million fund for the use of veterans and the families of veterans exposed to Agent Orange. In 1995 Dow Corning (a joint venture of Dow Chemical and materials manufacturer Corning, Inc.) declared bankruptcy following an overwhelming number of lawsuits claiming that silicone breast implants......
  • Dow, Herbert H. (American chemist)
    pioneer in the American chemical industry and founder of the Dow Chemical Company....
  • Dow, Herbert Henry (American chemist)
    pioneer in the American chemical industry and founder of the Dow Chemical Company....
  • Dow Jones & Company (American company)
    American journalist who cofounded Dow Jones & Company, a financial news service, and The Wall Street Journal. His original contributions include the compilation in 1884 of the first average of selected U.S. stock prices that, with some modification, developed into what are known as the Dow Jones averages....
  • Dow Jones average (stock market)
    stock price average computed by Dow Jones & Company, Inc. The averages are among the most commonly used indicators of general trends in the prices of stocks and bonds in the United States. Dow Jones & Company, a financial news publisher founded by Charles Henry Dow...
  • Dow Jones Industrial Average (stock market)
    stock price average computed by Dow Jones & Company, Inc. The averages are among the most commonly used indicators of general trends in the prices of stocks and bonds in the United States. Dow Jones & Company, a financial news publisher founded by Charles Henry Dow...
  • Dow, Neal (American politician)
    American politician and temperance advocate whose Maine Law of 1851 presaged national prohibition in the United States....
  • Dow process (phenol)
    Benzene is easily converted to chlorobenzene by a variety of methods, one of which is the Dow process. Chlorobenzene is hydrolyzed by a strong base at high temperatures to give a phenoxide salt, which is acidified to phenol....
  • Dow process (magnesium)
    ...dehydrated artificial carnallite is produced by controlled crystallization from heated magnesium- and potassium-containing solutions. Partly dehydrated magnesium chloride can be obtained by the Dow process, in which seawater is mixed in a flocculator with lightly burned reactive dolomite. An insoluble magnesium hydroxide precipitates to the bottom of a ......
  • Dow Process Company (American company)
    In 1895 Dow founded the Dow Process Company to electrolyze brine for chlorine (producing caustic soda and sodium hypochlorite) at Navarre, Ohio, soon moving the company to Midland and creating the Dow Chemical Company (1897) to absorb the Midland Chemical and Dow Process. Dow’s......
  • Dowa Highlands (hills, Malaŵi)
    central Malaŵi, rectangular formation covering an area of about 360 square miles (930 sq km); they comprise rolling hills crowned by high ridges including the heights of Dowa (5,571 feet [1,698 m]) and Ntchisi peaks. The highlands are bounded on three sides by steep slopes, forming the Eastern (Great) Rift Valley wall to the east and ov...
  • Dōwakai (Japanese organization)
    ...Kaihō Dōmei (Buraku Liberation League). Its leftist orientation, however, alienated more conservative burakumin leaders. Thus in 1960 a rival national organization, Dōwakai (Society for Integration), was founded; it came to be led by Liberal Democratic politicians, some of whom were elected to the national Diet. A third organization, the Zenkoku Buraku Kaihō.....
  • Dowd, Charles F. (American educator)
    Local mean solar time depends upon longitude; it is advanced by four minutes per degree eastward. In 1869 Charles F. Dowd, principal of a school in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., proposed the use of time zones, within which all localities would keep the same time. Others, including Sir Sandford......
  • Dowd, Maureen (American reporter and columnist)
    American reporter and Pulitzer Prize-winning op-ed columnist for The New York Times. Dowd was well-known for her sardonic, humorous, and disputatious writing style....
  • Dowd, Michael Delaney, Jr. (American television personality and singer)
    American television personality and singer (b. Aug. 11, 1925, Chicago, Ill.—d. Aug. 11, 2006, Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.), was the laid-back host of the daytime The Mike Douglas Show (1961–82), which featured musical acts, top celebrities of the day, and politicians, including seven U.S. presidents. Douglas’s nonconfrontational interviewing style appealed to his more than...
  • Dowd, Tom (American recording engineer)
    ...In 1953 they brought in Wexler as a partner, and he and Ertegun were instrumental in moving rhythm and blues forward. Atlantic hired jazz musicians as studio players and, owing to its engineer, Tom Dowd, paid particular attention to the sound quality of their recordings. It introduced some of the top female names in rhythm and......
  • Dowden, Edward (Irish critic)
    Irish critic, biographer, and poet, noted for his critical work on Shakespeare....
  • Dowding, Hugh Caswall Tremenheere Dowding, 1st Baron (British air chief marshal)
    British air chief marshal and head of Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain (1940) in World War II; he was largely responsible for defeating the German Air Force in its attempt to gain control of British skies in preparation for a German invasion of England....
  • dowel pin (tool)
    Hardened and precisely shaped dowel pins are used to keep machine components in accurate alignment; they are also used as location guides for adjacent machine parts and to keep the two sections of a punch and die in alignment....
  • dowelled joint (carpentry)
    ...a combination of mechanical fit and glue for their strength. Common types of joints include the dovetail, used for joining two flat members together at right angles, as in the sides of a drawer; the dowelled joint, in which dowelling is employed to impart mechanical strength; and the mortise and tenon, used to join a horizontal member with the vertical member of a frame....
  • dower (law)
    ...what he has, an interest limited by his life. Hence, his conveyee receives an estate limited by the life of the conveyor (estate pur autre vie). Common-law dower and curtesy are types of life estates....
  • Dowie, John Alexander (American religious leader)
    U.S. evangelist and faith healer who founded the Christian Catholic Church and the City of Zion....
  • dowitcher (bird)
    any of three species of shorebirds belonging to the genus Limnodromus, family Scolopacidae. The dowitcher has a chunky appearance and a long bill like a snipe and, in breeding plumage, has reddish underparts, giving rise to the alternative names red-breasted snipe and robin snipe (given also to the knot). It has a wh...
  • Dowiyogo, Bernard (Nauruan politician)
    Nauruan politician (b. Feb. 14, 1946, Nauru—d. March 9, 2003, Washington, D.C.), served six times (1976–78, 1989–95, 1996, 1998–99, 2000–01, 2003) as president of the Pacific islet nation of Nauru. Dowiyogo was twice removed from office by a no-confidence vote—once, in 1996, after only 15 days—and in January 2003 he was replaced as president for two...
  • Dowlaiswaram (India)
    town, northeastern Andhra Pradesh state, southern India, on the Godavari River delta. Dowlaiswaram is located at the source of the great delta, and a dam 2 miles (3 km) long crosses the river at this point, supplying canals for irrigation. Rice fields, gardens, and villages are scattered over the deltaic region that surrounds the mainly agri...
  • Dowland, John (English musician)
    English composer, virtuoso lutenist, and skilled singer, one of the most famous musicians of his time....
  • Dowlat-e Eslāmī-ye Afghānestān
    Country, south-central Asia....
  • Dowlatshāh (Muslim author)
    The last great centre of Islāmic art in the region of Iran was the Timurid court of Herāt, where Dowlatshāh (died 1494) composed his much-quoted biographical work on Persian poets. The leading figure in this circle was ʿAbd or-Raḥmān Jāmī (died 1492), who is sometimes considered the last and most comprehensive of the “seven masters...
  • Down (former county, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom)
    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 Arm...
  • Down (district, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom)
    district, Northern Ireland. Formerly within County Down, Down was established in 1973 as a district on Northern Ireland’s eastern coast, fronting Strangford Lough (inlet of the sea) and the Irish Sea. It is bordered by the dis...
  • down (sports)
    ...with Yale, both games ending in scoreless ties that bored spectators as much as they frustrated Yale’s players, Camp proposed a rule that a team must advance the ball 5 yards 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...
  • Down and Out in Paris and London (work by Orwell)
    Born Eric Arthur Blair, Orwell never entirely abandoned his original name, but his first book (Down and Out in Paris and London) appeared as the work of George Orwell (the surname he derived from the beautiful River Orwell in East Anglia). In time his nom de plume became so......
  • Down by Law (film by Jarmusch)
    ...His next movie, Stranger Than Paradise (1984), established his reputation as a new voice in independent film. Jarmusch continued to earn acclaim for films such as the offbeat comedies Down by Law (1986), Mystery Train (1989), and Night on Earth (1992). His later movies include Dead Man (1995), in which he offered his own take on the western genre; Year......
  • Down by the River (song by Young)
    ...Crazy Horse. When nascent FM radio played “Cinnamon Girl,” whose one-note guitar solo encapsulated Young’s sly sarcasm about established forms, and “Down by the River,” a long, raw-edged guitar blitzkrieg around lyrics about murder, the album made Young an icon....
  • down feather (feather)
    ...with a complex branch, the aftershaft, or afterfeather, that arises at the base of the vane. The aftershaft has the appearance of a second, smaller feather, growing from the base of the first. 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......
  • down hair (mammalian hair)
    ...either before or shortly after birth. During the first few months of infancy there grow fine, short, unpigmented 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......
  • Down Hearted Blues (recording by Smith)
    ...in Philadelphia, and it was there that she was first heard by Clarence Williams, a representative of Columbia Records. In February 1923 she made her first 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......
  • Down in My Heart (work by Stafford)
    ...outdoor work camps during World War II, and these experiences were the basis for his master’s 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 professo...
  • Down, John Langdon (British physician)
    ...by an extra chromosome on the chromosome 21 pair, giving the person a total of 47 chromosomes rather than the normal 46. British physician John Langdon Down first described the physical features of the disorder in 1866, and thus the disorder was later named for him. The physical and mental impacts of Down syndrome range from mild to......
  • down quark (physics)
    ...(s). Each carries a fractional value of the electron charge (i.e., a charge less than that of the electron, e). The up quark (charge 23e) and down quark (charge −13e) make up protons and neutrons and are thus the ones observed in ordinary matter. Strange quarks (charge......
  • Down Second Avenue (work by Mphahlele)
    novelist, essayist, short-story 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...
  • Down Stream (work by Huysmans)
    The 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’ best-known novel, relates the experiments in aesthetic decadence undertaken by the bored survivor of a noble line. The ambitious and controversial L...
  • Down syndrome (congenital disorder)
    congenital disorder caused by an extra chromosome on the chromosome 21 pair, giving the person a total of 47 chromosomes rather than the normal 46. British physician John Langdon Down first described the physical features of the disorder in 1866, and t...
  • Down There (work by Huysmans)
    ...Huysmans’ best-known novel, relates the experiments in aesthetic decadence undertaken by the bored survivor of a noble line. The ambitious and controversial Là-bas (1891; Down There) tells of the occultist revival that occurred in France in the 1880s. A tale of 19th-century satanists interwoven with a life of the medieval satanist ......
  • down-the-line shooting (sport)
    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....
  • downburst (meteorology)
    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 60 metres per second, or 215 km per hour (200 feet per second, or 135 miles per hour). A microburst is smaller in......
  • downdraft (meteorology)
    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 descending cooler air. The vertical ascending current, called a thermal, may reach an altitude of 3 km (2 miles) or more.......
  • downdraw process (glassmaking)
    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, including oval bore shapes such as that of a thermometer. In......
  • Downer, Alexander John Gosse (Australian politician)
    Australian Liberal Party politician who led his party for a brief period in 1994–95 and served in the House of Representatives for nearly 24 years....
  • Downes, Sir Edward (British conductor)
    June 17, 1924Birmingham, Eng.July 10, 2009Zürich, Switz.British conductor who was a leading figure for decades at opera houses around the world. Downes was most noted for his long associations with the Royal Opera House (ROH) in London—initially as a french horn player (1945...
  • Downes v. Bidwell (law case)
    ...Farmers Loan & Trust Company, in which the income tax act of 1894 was struck down, and 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 (California, United States)
    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 subd...
  • Downey, June Etta (American psychologist)
    American psychologist and educator whose studies centred on the psychology of aesthetics and related philosophical issues....
  • Downey, Morton, Jr. (American talk show host)
    American television talk-show host (b. Dec. 9, 1933, New York, N.Y.—d. March 12, 2001, Los Angeles, Calif.), pioneered tabloid-style television as the abrasive host of The Morton Downey Jr. Show, which aired from 1987 to 1989. Downey worked as an actor, singer-songwriter, and record producer before breaking into radio as a talk-s...
  • Downey, Robert John, Jr. (American actor)
    American actor, considered one of Hollywood’s most gifted and versatile actors....
  • Downey, Robert, Jr. (American actor)
    American actor, considered one of Hollywood’s most gifted and versatile actors....
  • downhill skiing (winter sport)
    ski race for speed on an adjusted downhill course that is marked by gates formed by paired poles, set at least 8 m (26 ft) 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 and starting at one-minute intervals. The one who completes the course in the shortest time, without missi...
  • Downing, A. M. W. (British astronomer)
    Possibly Newcomb’s most far-reaching contribution 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...
  • Downing, Andrew Jackson (American horticulturalist and landscape architect)
    horticulturist, landscape gardener, and architect, the first great landscape designer in the United States....
  • Downing, Major Jack (fictional character)
    American editor and humorist, creator of the fictional Major Jack Downing....
  • Downing, Sir George (English diplomat)
    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....
  • Downing Street Declaration (United Kingdom-Ireland [1993])
    In 1993 the Irish and British governments signed a joint peace initiative (the Downing Street Declaration), in which they pledged to seek mutually agreeable political structures in Northern Ireland and between the two islands. In 1994 the IRA declared a cease-fire, and for the next 18 months there was considerable optimism that a new period of political cooperation between north and south had......
  • Downing Street memo (United Kingdom-United States history)
    ...media begin a series of stories that eventually forced Lott to step down as Senate majority leader. In Britain, bloggers forced Prime Minister Tony Blair to address the substance of the so-called Downing Street memo, which purportedly showed that the Bush administration had deliberately “juiced up” military intelligence to......
  • downlink (communications)
    ...of radio repeaters, called transponders, that link terrestrial radio transmitters to terrestrial radio receivers through an uplink (a link from terrestrial transmitter 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 ......
  • Downpatrick (Northern Ireland, United Kingdom)
    town and seat, Down district (established 1973), formerly in County Down, Northern Ireland. Downpatrick is located where the River Quoilé broadens into its estuary in Strangford Lough (inlet of the sea). The town takes its nam...
  • Downs (hills, England, United Kingdom)
    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 hill...
  • Downs, Anthony (American political scientist)
    ...Many believed they had found the key that would at last make political science truly scientific. In An Economic Theory of Democracy (1957), an early 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......
  • Downs, Battle of the (European history)
    ...Penington. By October 10 the Dutch fleet was strong enough to challenge the Spaniards, and on October 21 Tromp attacked Oquendo, and Penington’s efforts at protection were of little avail. 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...

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