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Smith, William Wallace (American religious leader)
American religious leader who was president of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1958 to 1978....
Smith, Willie (American musician)
...were active in New York during 1913–19, such as James Reese Europe and his various orchestras, Earl Fuller’s Jass Band, Ford Dabney’s band, and the pianists James P. Johnson, Abba Labba, and Willie “The Lion” Smith....
Smith, Wilson (British scientist)
...study and classify them. The study of viruses confined exclusively or largely to humans, however, posed the formidable problem of finding a susceptible animal host. In 1933 the British investigators Wilson Smith, Christopher H. Andrewes, and Patrick P. Laidlaw were able to transmit influenza to ferrets, and the influenza virus was subsequently adapted to mice. In 1941 the American scientist......
Smith, Winston (fictional character)
fictional character, the protagonist of George Orwell’s cautionary novel Nineteen Eighty-four (1949). A minor bureaucrat in the civil service, Winston Smith lives a drab, conforming existence but wants to experience a meaningful life as an individual....
Smith, Zadie (British author)
British author known for her treatment of race, religion, and cultural identity and for her novels’ eccentric characters, savvy humour, and snappy dialogue. She became a sensation in the literary world with the publication of her first novel, White Teeth, in 2000....
Smith, Zilpha Drew (American social worker)
American social worker under whose guidance in the late 19th century Boston’s charity network was skillfully organized and efficiently run....
Smith-Barry, Robert (British officer)
Conversely, training made enormous strides during the war. At the RFC School of Special Flying at Gosport, Eng., Maj. Robert Smith-Barry introduced a curriculum based on a balanced combination of academic classroom training and dual flight instruction. Philosophically, Smith-Barry’s system was based not on avoiding potentially dangerous maneuvers—as had been the case theretofore...
Smith-Connally Anti-Strike Act (United States [1943])
(June 25, 1943), measure enacted by the U.S. Congress, over President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s veto, giving the president power to seize and operate privately owned war plants when an actual or threatened strike or lockout interfered with war production. Subsequent strikes in such plants seized by the government were prohibited. In addition, war-industry unions failing to give 30 days...
Smith-Helmholtz theorem (mathematics)
... and the product (hnu) is invariant for all the spaces between the lens surfaces, including the object and image spaces, for any lens system of any degree of complexity. This theorem has been named after the French scientist Joseph-Louis Lagrange, although it is sometimes called the Smith-Helmholtz theorem, after Robert Smith, an English scientist, and Hermann Helmholtz,......
Smith-Hughes Vocational Education Act (United States [1917])
...already been founded in the East, and by 1916 agriculture was being taught in more than 3,000 high schools. Federally aided programs of vocational agriculture education began with the passage of the Smith–Hughes Vocational Education Act in 1917. By the second half of the 20th century, an average of 750,000 high-school, young farmer, and adult farmer students were enrolled annually in......
Smith-Lever Act (United States [1914])
Congress passed the Smith–Lever Act in 1914, providing for, among other things, the teaching of improved agricultural practices to farmers. Thus the agricultural extension service—now recognized as an outstanding example of adult vocational education—was established....
Smithfield (North Carolina, United States)
Congress passed the Smith–Lever Act in 1914, providing for, among other things, the teaching of improved agricultural practices to farmers. Thus the agricultural extension service—now recognized as an outstanding example of adult vocational education—was established.......
Smithfield (Washington, United States)
city, capital of Washington, U.S., seat (1852) of Thurston county, on Budd Inlet and Capitol Lake (at the south end of Puget Sound), at the mouth of the Deschutes River, 29 miles (47 km) southwest of Tacoma. Laid out in 1851 as Smithfield, it became the site of a U.S. customs house and w...
Smithfield (area, London, United Kingdom)
area in the northwestern part of the City of London. It is famous for its meat market (the London Central Meat Market), one of the largest of its kind in the world. From 1133 until 1855 the site was used for the Bartholomew Fair, a cloth and meat market that later became known as a raucous entertainment centre. A weekly horse market was held there in the 1100s, and the site was ...
Smithfield Fires (English history)
...reign was the belief not only that the old church of her mother’s day could be restored but also that it could be best served by fire and blood. At least 282 men and women were martyred in the Smithfield Fires during the last three years of her reign; compared with events on the Continent, the numbers were not large, but the emotional impact was great. Among the first half-dozen martyrs....
Smithfield ham (food)
...on peanuts and peaches. They are cured, then smoked over apple and hickory wood fires, and hung to age in the smokehouse. Perhaps the most widely known country hams of the United States are those of Smithfield, Va., which are processed from hogs fattened on acorns, nuts, and corn. The hams are cured in a dry mixture for 30–37 days, then spiced with black pepper, and cold smoked (at......
Smithies, Oliver (American scientist)
British-born American scientist who, with Mario R. Capecchi and Sir Martin J. Evans, won the 2007 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for developing gene targeting, a technology used to create animal models of human diseases in mice....
smithing (metalwork)
Fabrication and repair of metal objects by hot and cold forging on an anvil or with a power hammer or by welding and other means. Blacksmiths traditionally worked with iron (anciently known as “black metal”), making agricultural and other tools, fashioning hardware (e.g., hooks, hinges, handles) for the farm,...
SmithKline Beecham PLC (pharmaceutical company)
In 1990 Garnier made the move to SmithKline Beecham, a British-based pharmaceutical firm, where he was named president of the company’s North American business. He was elected to SmithKline Beecham’s board of directors in 1992 and was appointed chief operating officer of the company in 1995. In recognition of his accomplishments, Garnier was made a chevalier (knight) of the Legion of...
Smith’s Crossroads (Tennessee, United States)
city, seat (1899) of Rhea county, southeastern Tennessee, U.S. It lies on Richland Creek near the Tennessee River, 36 miles (58 km) northeast of Chattanooga. Originally called Smith’s Crossroads (c. 1820), it was renamed Dayton in the 1870s. The Rhea Coun...
Smith’s martesia (mollusk)
...long, commonly occurs in waterlogged timbers cast up on the beach and ranges from North Carolina to Brazil. M. pusilla and M. cuneiformis have similar habits and distribution. Smith’s martesia (M. smithi), which resembles a fat, gray pea, bores into rocks and mollusk shells in the Atlantic Ocean from New York to the Gulf of Mexico....
Smiths, the (British rock group)
one of the most popular and critically acclaimed English bands of the 1980s. The original members were lead singer Morrissey (original name Steven Patrick Morrissey; b. May 22, 1959Manchester, Eng.), guitarist Johnny Marr (original ...
Smithson, Alison (British architect)
British architect (b. June 22, 1928, Sheffield, Yorkshire, England--d. Aug. 16, 1993, London, England), with her husband, Peter, was in the forefront of New Brutalism, an architectural movement that stressed spartan functionality and a stark presentation of structure and materials, including exposed concrete and visible service conduits. She was born Alison Gill and studied at the University of Du...
Smithson, Alison; and Smithson, Peter (British architects)
British architects notable for their design for the Hunstanton Secondary Modern School, Norfolk (1954), which is generally recognized as the first example of New Brutalism, an approach to architecture that often stressed stark presentation of materials and structure....
Smithson, Alison Margaret (British architect)
British architect (b. June 22, 1928, Sheffield, Yorkshire, England--d. Aug. 16, 1993, London, England), with her husband, Peter, was in the forefront of New Brutalism, an architectural movement that stressed spartan functionality and a stark presentation of structure and materials, including exposed concrete and visible service conduits. She was born Alison Gill and studied at the University of Du...
Smithson, Forrest (American athlete)
The Olympic Games have, of course, produced numerous fascinating stories, some inspiring, some tragic, and some, such as the tale of Forrest Smithson, a bit befuddling. Smithson’s enduring and endearing legend maintains that the U.S. hurdler protested the scheduling of competition on Sundays by leaping over the barriers with a Bible in hand. The fact that Smithson was the victor of the......
Smithson, James (British scientist)
English scientist who provided funds for the founding of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C....
Smithson, Peter (British architect)
British architect (b. Sept. 18, 1923, Stockton-on-Tees, Durham, Eng.—d. March 3, 2003, London, Eng.), with his wife, Alison, was among the foremost proponents of the New Brutalism style of architecture, which stressed a new respect for the functionality of materials. Smithson met fellow architecture student Alison Gill at the University of Durham; they were married in 1949. The newly create...
Smithson, Peter Denham (British architect)
British architect (b. Sept. 18, 1923, Stockton-on-Tees, Durham, Eng.—d. March 3, 2003, London, Eng.), with his wife, Alison, was among the foremost proponents of the New Brutalism style of architecture, which stressed a new respect for the functionality of materials. Smithson met fellow architecture student Alison Gill at the University of Durham; they were married in 1949. The newly create...
Smithson, Robert (American sculptor and writer)
American sculptor and writer associated with the Land Art movement. His large-scale sculptures, called Earthworks, engaged directly with nature and were created by moving and constructing with vast amounts of soil and rocks....
Smithsonian Agreement (1971)
On Dec. 17 and 18, 1971, representatives of the Group of Ten met at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and agreed on a realignment of currencies and a new set of pegged exchange rates. The dollar was devalued in terms of gold, while other currencies were appreciated in terms of the dollar. On the whole, the dollar was devalued by nearly 10 percent in relation to the other Group of......
Smithsonian American Art Museum (museum, Washington, District of Columbia, United States)
first federal art collection of the United States, housing the world’s largest collection of American art. The Washington, D.C., museum showcases more than 40,000 works of art, representing 7,000 American artists. Featured permanent collections i...
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (observatory, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States)
American astrophysicist who, as director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Washington, D.C., for almost four decades, engaged in a career-long campaign to demonstrate that the Sun’s energy output varies and has a measurable effect on the Earth’s weather....
Smithsonian Institution (institution, Washington, District of Columbia, United States)
research institution founded by the bequest of James Smithson, an English scientist. Smithson, who died in 1829, had stipulated in his will that should his nephew and heir himself die without issue, his remaining assets would pass to the United States and be used to found the Smithsonian Institution. The n...
Smithsonian Institution: Year In Review 1995
On June 28, 1995, following over a year of public controversy, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum, the most attended museum in the world, opened its Enola Gay exhibit, which featured a section of the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, in August 1945...
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (Panama)
a collection of scientific facilities in Panama that is primarily devoted to ecological studies. Although located on Panamanian territory, the institute has been operated by the American Smithsonian Institution since 1946 and was originally established as a biological reserve in 1923. A 1997 contract with the government of P...
smithsonite (mineral)
zinc carbonate (ZnCO3), a mineral that was the principal source of zinc until the 1880s, when it was replaced by sphalerite. It is ordinarily found in the oxidized zone of ore deposits as a secondary mineral or alteration product of primary zinc minerals. Notable deposits are at...
Smithton (Tasmania, Australia)
town, northwestern Tasmania, Australia, at the mouth of the Duck River on Duck Bay. The site was included in a grant made to the Van Diemen’s Land Company in 1825. White settlement began in earnest in the 1850s, and from 1907 Smithton was the centre of Circular Head municipality. On the Bass Highway...
Smithton (Missouri, United States)
city, seat of Boone county, near the Missouri River, central Missouri, U.S., midway between St. Louis and Kansas City. It was originally established (1819) as Smithton, but an inadequate water supply forced its move in 1821, when it was laid out and renamed Columbia. The rerouting of Boone’s Lick Trail (1822) stimulated its growth. In 1839 the town’s residents pledged $117,900 for th...
Smithville (Indiana, United States)
city, seat (1873) of Wayne county, east-central Indiana, U.S. It is located on the East Fork of Whitewater River, 67 miles (108 km) east of Indianapolis at the Ohio border. Settled in 1806 by migrating North Carolina Quakers, it was first called Smithville and in 1818 amalgamated with neighbouring Coxborou...
Smits, Rik (American basketball player)
...in their first 13 years in the league. In 1987 the team drafted shooting guard Reggie Miller, who would go on to become the Pacers’ career scoring leader. Miller was joined on the team by centre Rik Smits in 1988, and in 1989–90 Indiana began a streak of seven consecutive postseason berths. The team reached the conference finals in 1993–94 and 1994–95, losing in seve...
SMK (political party, Georgia)
...and at Columbia University in New York City. From 1993 to 1995 he worked for a New York law firm. Saakashvili returned to Georgia in 1995 at the invitation of Zurab Zhvania, then chairman of the Union of Citizens of Georgia (SMK), and was elected to parliament in November 1995 on the SMK ticket. From 1995 to 1998 he served as chairman of parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs and lobbie...
SMM (United States space laboratory)
...mirror outside the prime focus to reflect the light back through a hole in the primary mirror. Notable is the fact that the Gregorian design was adopted for the Earth-orbiting space observatory, the Solar Maximum Mission (SMM), launched in 1980....
smock (clothing)
loose, shirtlike garment worn by women in the European Middle Ages under their gowns. The smock eventually developed into a loose, yoked, shirtlike outer garment of coarse linen, used to protect the clothes; it was worn, for example, by peasants in Europe. Modern smocks are loose, lightweight, sleeved garments, often worn to protect the clothes while working. ...
smog (atmosphere)
community-wide polluted air. Although the term is derived from the words smoke and fog, it is commonly used to describe the pall of automotive or industrial origin that lies over many cities, and its composition is variable (see ). The term was probably first used in 1905 by H.A. Des Voeux to describe atmospheric conditions over many British...
Smohalla (American Indian leader)
North American Indian prophet, preacher, and teacher, one of a series of such leaders who arose in response to the menace presented to Native American life and culture by the encroachment of white settlers. He founded a religious cult, the Dreamers, that emphasized traditional Native American values....
Smoholler (American Indian leader)
North American Indian prophet, preacher, and teacher, one of a series of such leaders who arose in response to the menace presented to Native American life and culture by the encroachment of white settlers. He founded a religious cult, the Dreamers, that emphasized traditional Native American values....
smoke (gas)
Smoke balloons, without onboard fire, became popular for fairs and exhibitions as parachutes were perfected. In particular, the standard grand climax of many celebrations at the turn of the 20th century was to have a trapeze artist ascend for hundreds of metres below a balloon belching black smoke before jumping from the trapeze to parachute back to Earth....
Smoke (novel by Turgenev)
novel by Ivan Turgenev, published in Russian in 1867 as Dym. Set in Baden-Baden, Germany, it combines a sensitive love story with political satire....
smoke chamber (mechanism)
...formed by setting back the masonry at the top of the throat to the line of the back wall of the flue; its function is to deflect downdrafts that might otherwise blow smoke out into the room. The smoke chamber narrows uniformly toward the top; it slows down drafts and acts as a reservoir for smoke trapped in the chimney by gusts across the chimney top. The flue, the main length of the......
Smoke Creek Desert (desert, Nevada, United States)
...frequently encrusted with snowy-white saline matter. In Pershing county the desert is sometimes called the Granite Creek Desert, and a southwest extension lying north of Pyramid Lake is called the Smoke Creek Desert....
smoke detector
device used to warn occupants of a building of the presence of a fire before it reaches a rapidly spreading stage and inhibits escape or attempts to extinguish it. On sensing smoke the detectors emit a loud, high-pitched alarm tone, usually warbling or intermittent, and usually accompanied by a flashing light. There are two types of smoke detector: photoelectric and ionization....
Smoke on the Ground (work by Delibes)
...causes in the face of government censorship brought about his resignation in 1963. The plight of Castile also informed his novel Las ratas (1962; “The Rats”; Eng. trans. Smoke on the Ground)....
smoke shell (artillery)
World War I also saw the development of specialized projectiles to meet various tactical demands. Smoke shells, filled with white phosphorus, were adopted for screening the activities of troops; illuminating shells, containing magnesium flares suspended by parachutes, illuminated the battlefield at night; gas shells, filled with various chemicals such as chlorine or mustard gas, were used......
smoke signal
World War I also saw the development of specialized projectiles to meet various tactical demands. Smoke shells, filled with white phosphorus, were adopted for screening the activities of troops; illuminating shells, containing magnesium flares suspended by parachutes, illuminated the battlefield at night; gas shells, filled with various chemicals such as chlorine or mustard gas, were used.........
smoke tree (plant)
any of several plant species whose foliage suggests clouds of smoke. Dalea spinosa is a spiny, grayish green shrub, of the pea family (Fabaceae), native to arid regions of southwestern North America. It has sparse foliage and bears bluish viole...
Smoke-Free Air Act (2002, New York, New York, United States)
...in the polls just weeks before the November 6 election, Bloomberg won the mayor’s race. He immediately led redevelopment efforts, pushed for the passage of a controversial citywide smoking ban (the Smoke-Free Air Act of 2002), revitalized tourism, and erased the city’s budget deficit. Elected to a second mayoral term in 2005, Bloomberg promoted a ban on trans fat in foods, pursued...
Smokeholer (American Indian leader)
North American Indian prophet, preacher, and teacher, one of a series of such leaders who arose in response to the menace presented to Native American life and culture by the encroachment of white settlers. He founded a religious cult, the Dreamers, that emphasized traditional Native American values....
smokehouse (device)
Whether done on a commercial or a home scale, the smoking technique involves hanging the meat or placing it on racks in a chamber designed to contain the smoke. Commercial smokehouses, usually several stories high, often use steampipes to supplement the heat of a natural sawdust fire. Hickory sawdust is the preferred fuel. Whatever the size of the smoking operation, it is imperative that a......
smokejack (device)
The earliest device for extracting rotary mechanical energy from a flowing gas stream was the windmill (see above). It was followed by the smokejack, first sketched by Leonardo da Vinci and subsequently described in detail by John Wilkins, an English clergyman, in 1648. This device consisted of a number of horizontal sails that were mounted on a vertical shaft and driven by the hot air rising......
smokeless powder (explosive)
Several nations began to achieve success with smokeless powder of nitrated cellulose and usually some nitroglycerin. With greater striking power available, armour-piercing projectiles became more formidable. These were originally solid shot designed simply to punch through armour plate. In the 1890s, better steel and fuses made it possible to add an explosive charge. The resulting......
smokeless tobacco
...cancer, laryngeal cancer, oral cancer, and esophageal cancer. When a regular tobacco user successfully quits, the risk of cancer decreases, though not to the level of someone who has never smoked. Smokeless tobacco users, meanwhile, repeatedly expose the oral mucosa to toxins and have a substantially increased risk of getting head and neck cancers, though the risk depends in part on the period....
smoker (mask)
Standard tools of the beekeeper are: the smoker to quell the bees; a veil to protect the face; gloves for the novice or the person sensitive to stings; a blunt steel blade called a hive tool, for separating the frames and other hive parts for examination; the uncapping knife, for opening the cells of honey; and the extractor, for centrifuging the honey from the cells....
Smokey Joe’s Cafe (song by Leiber and Stoller)
...the Robins; instead of singing the usual ballads and rhythm pieces, they sang novelty songs by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller (Riot in Cell Block No. 9 and Smokey Joe’s Cafe). In 1955, with a change in personnel (most notably the loss of Richard Berry, who would later write the rock classic Louie, Louie), they beca...
Smokies, the (mountains, North Carolina-Tennessee, United States)
western segment of the high Appalachian Mountains in eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina, U.S. The Great Smokies lie between Knoxville, Tenn. (just to the west), and Asheville, N.C. (just to the east), blending into the Blue Ridge escarpment to the east in North Carolina. They...
smoking (tobacco)
the act of inhaling and exhaling the fumes of burning plant material. A variety of plant materials are smoked, including marijuana and hashish, but the act is most commonly associated with tobacco as smoked in a cigarette, cigar, or pipe. Tobacco contains nicotine, a...
smoking (food preservation)
in food processing, the exposure of cured meat and fish products to smoke for the purposes of preserving them and increasing their palatability by adding flavour and imparting a rich brown colour. The drying action of the smoke tends to preserve the meat, though many of the chemicals present in wood smoke (e.g., form...
smoking ban (law)
...led to much stronger bans. Since 2000 many cities, states, and regions worldwide, including New York City in 2003, Scotland in 2006, Nairobi in 2007, and Chicago in 2008, have implemented complete smoking bans in restaurants, taverns, and enclosed workplaces. A ban introduced in 2011 in China, which was home to one-third of the global smoking population, barred smoking in hotels, restaurants,.....
smoking cessation (behaviour)
The starting point for “kicking the habit” is awareness of the harm smoking can cause. For example, after the U.S. surgeon general’s report in 1964 brought to public awareness a link between smoking and cancer, smoking rates in the United States dropped precipitously. By 2000 the smoking rate was about one-half that of 1960. Furthermore, strong antismoking warnings and......
smoking: Year In Review 1994
The World Health Organization (WHO), seeing smoking as the most preventable cause of ill health worldwide, edged in 1994 a little closer to its objective of a smoke-free world, while it dropped the year 2000 as the target date. WHO predicted that if current trends continued unchecked, tobacco would eventually kill some 500 million people. In advanced countries...
smoky bat (mammal family)
either of two bat species found in the Central and South American tropics and classified as a family unto themselves. Amorphochilus schnablii is the smoky bat, whereas Furipterus horrens is also commonly called the thumbless bat. Small and delicately built, both species range in size from about ...
smoky bat (mammal species)
either of two bat species found in the Central and South American tropics and classified as a family unto themselves. Amorphochilus schnablii is the smoky bat, whereas Furipterus horrens is also commonly called the thumbless bat. Small and delicately built, both species range in size from about 3.7 to 5.8 cm (1.5 to 2.3 inches), have tails about 2.4 to 3.6 cm (1 to......
Smoky Hill River (river, United States)
river formed by two headstreams (North and South forks) that rise north of Cheyenne Wells, Cheyenne county, in eastern Colorado, U.S., and flow east into Kansas, continuing past Wallace to unite near Russell Springs. The main stream then continues in a generally eastward direction to Ellsworth, bending north at Lindsborg and northeast at Salina; it then flows past Solomon and Abilene to join the ...
Smoky Mountains (mountains, North Carolina-Tennessee, United States)
western segment of the high Appalachian Mountains in eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina, U.S. The Great Smokies lie between Knoxville, Tenn. (just to the west), and Asheville, N.C. (just to the east), blending into the Blue Ridge escarpment to the east in North Carolina. They...
smoky quartz (mineral)
very common coarse-grained variety of the silica mineral quartz that ranges in colour from nearly black through smoky brown. No distinct boundary exists between smoky and colourless quartz. Its abundance causes it to be worth considerably less than either amethyst or citrine. Heating bleaches the stone, the colour sometimes passing through yellow; these yellow pieces are often s...
Smolensk (Russia)
city and administrative centre of Smolensk oblast (region), western Russia. The city stands on both banks of the Dnieper River, 260 miles (418 km) west of Moscow. Smolensk is one of the oldest and most historic of Russian cities, dating back to the 9th century, but the ravages of ...
Smolensk (oblast, Russia)
oblast (region), western Russia. The oblast lies mostly in the upper Dnieper River basin. The terminal moraines of the Smolensk-Moscow Upland lie east-west across the oblast, rising to 1,050 feet (320 m) and dividing the Dnieper, Volga, and Western Dvina basins. Easy portages between t...
Smolensk Cathedral (cathedral, Moscow, Russia)
...Sciences on Leninsky Prospekt. Also to the southwest, on the banks of the Moscow River, are the most important of the fortified monasteries, the 16th-century Novodevichy Convent, with its beautiful Smolensk Cathedral, whose tall bell tower (1690) dominates the churches and buildings within the crenellated walls and towers of the convent. The cathedral now houses the Novodevichy Convent Museum,....
Smolensk Upland (region, Russia)
ridge of high land, western Russia, running in a west-southwest to east-northeast direction across the Russian Plain from Orsha, southwest of Smolensk, to Yuryev-Polsky, northeast of Moscow, a distance of 420 miles (680 km). Marking the southern limit of the last glaciation, it consists of limestones in the east and glacial ...
Smolensk-Moscow Upland (region, Russia)
ridge of high land, western Russia, running in a west-southwest to east-northeast direction across the Russian Plain from Orsha, southwest of Smolensk, to Yuryev-Polsky, northeast of Moscow, a distance of 420 miles (680 km). Marking the southern limit of the last glaciation, it consists of limestones in the east and glacial ...
Smolenskaya Vozvyshennost (region, Russia)
ridge of high land, western Russia, running in a west-southwest to east-northeast direction across the Russian Plain from Orsha, southwest of Smolensk, to Yuryev-Polsky, northeast of Moscow, a distance of 420 miles (680 km). Marking the southern limit of the last glaciation, it consists of limestones in the east and glacial ...
Smolenskin, Peretz (Russian-Jewish author)
...religious reformer but later became absorbed by social problems, and in Mishnat Elisha ben Abuyah (1878; “The Opinions of Elisha ben Abuyah”) he preached Jewish socialism. Peretz Smolenskin created in six novels a kaleidoscope of Jewish life in which he rejected the westernized Jew as much as orthodox reactionaries did....
Smolensko-Moskovskaya Upland (region, Russia)
ridge of high land, western Russia, running in a west-southwest to east-northeast direction across the Russian Plain from Orsha, southwest of Smolensk, to Yuryev-Polsky, northeast of Moscow, a distance of 420 miles (680 km). Marking the southern limit of the last glaciation, it consists of limestones in the east and glacial ...
Smólikas Óros (mountain, Greece)
...an almost uncrossable zone in the south, about 50 miles (80 km) wide, deeply cut by winding rivers and composed of a mixture of limestone, slates, and sandstones. The range’s highest point, Mount Smólikas, 8,652 feet (2,637 metres) high, is found in the north....
Smollet, Tobias George (Scottish novelist)
Scottish satirical novelist, best known for his picaresque novels The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748) and The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1751) and his epistolary novel The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771)....
Smollett, Tobias (Scottish novelist)
Scottish satirical novelist, best known for his picaresque novels The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748) and The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1751) and his epistolary novel The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771)....
Smolny Convent (convent, Saint Petersburg, Russia)
...and Vasily P. Stasov, working in the Russian Baroque style, which combined clear-cut, even austere lines with richness of decoration and use of colour. To this period belong the Winter Palace, the Smolny Convent, and the Vorontsov and Stroganov palaces, among others; outside the city were built the summer palaces of Peterhof (now Petrodvorets) and of Tsarskoye Selo (now Pushkin). After a......
Smolny Institute (institution, Saint Petersburg, Russia)
...toward the end of the 18th century a pure Neoclassical style emerged under the architects Giacomo Quarenghi, Carlo Rossi, Andrey Voronikhin, and others. The Kazan and St. Isaac’s cathedrals, the Smolny Institute, the new Admiralty, the Senate, and the Mikhaylovsky Palace (now the State Russian Museum) are representative of the splendid buildings of this period....
Smolny Monastery (convent, Saint Petersburg, Russia)
...and Vasily P. Stasov, working in the Russian Baroque style, which combined clear-cut, even austere lines with richness of decoration and use of colour. To this period belong the Winter Palace, the Smolny Convent, and the Vorontsov and Stroganov palaces, among others; outside the city were built the summer palaces of Peterhof (now Petrodvorets) and of Tsarskoye Selo (now Pushkin). After a......
Smoltz, John (American baseball player)
...was revitalized in the 1990s under the leadership of general manager John Schuerholz and manager Bobby Cox. This new Braves team was led by the young pitching trio of Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and John Smoltz—each of whom won at least one Cy Young Award with the Braves—and hitters such as David Justice and Chipper Jones. During the 1990s and early 2000s, the Braves had one of the....
Smolyan (Bulgaria)
town, southern Bulgaria, on the Cherna River in the southeastern Rhodope Mountains. Its elevation, 3,300 feet (1,000 metres), makes it the highest town in Bulgaria. It is a local agricultural centre, with a timber industry and, more recently, mining. It is picturesquely located among forests, lakes, and hi...
Smon-lam chen-mo (Buddhist celebration)
(Tibetan: “Great Prayer”), most important Tibetan Buddhist celebration of the year, held annually as part of the New Year festivities in Lhasa at least up until 1959, when the People’s Republic of China abolished the government of the Dalai Lama...
Smoot, George F. (American physicist)
American physicist, who was corecipient, with John C. Mather, of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2006 for discoveries supporting the big-bang model....
Smoot, George Fitzgerald III (American physicist)
American physicist, who was corecipient, with John C. Mather, of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2006 for discoveries supporting the big-bang model....
Smoot, Reed (American senator)
...duties to protect American businesses and farmers, adding considerable strain to the international economic climate of the Great Depression. The act takes its name from its chief sponsors, Senator Reed Smoot of Utah, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Representative Willis Hawley of Oregon, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. It was the last legislation under which the......
Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act (United States [1930])
U.S. legislation (June 17, 1930) that raised import duties to protect American businesses and farmers, adding considerable strain to the international economic climate of the Great Depression. The act takes its name from its chief sponsors, Senator Reed Smoot of Utah, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Representat...
smooth azalea (plant)
Cultivated varieties have been bred from species that are native to the hilly regions of Asia and North America. Well-known North American kinds include the smooth, or sweet, azalea (R. arborescens), a fragrant white-flowering shrub 3 to 6 metres (about 10 to 20 feet) high; the flame azalea (R. calendulaceum), a shrub 0.5 to 2 metres (1.5 to 6.5 feet) high; and the pinxter flower......
smooth brome (plant)
Rescue grass (B. catharticus), a winter annual introduced from South America into the United States as a forage and pasture grass, and smooth brome (B. inermis), a perennial native to Eurasia and introduced into the northern United States as a forage plant and soil binder, are the economically important bromegrasses. The common weed chess (B. secalinus), sometimes known as......
smooth crabgrass (plant)
any of about 300 species of grasses in the genus Digitaria (family Poaceae), especially D. sanguinalis or the slightly shorter D. ischaemum (smooth crabgrass). D. sanguinalis has long hairs covering its leaves and has five or six spikelets, while D. ischaemum has no hair and only two or three spikelets. Both species are natives of Europe that became......
smooth dogfish (fish)
any of a number of small sharks of the family Triakidae, among them the well-known smooth dogfish. See dogfish....