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9400fec22dc2ede7d08a258589a1cb4f | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shahabadi | Shāhabadī | Shāhabadī
The name of Sāhabadī is intimately connected with this phase; another well-known painter is Manohar. The intensity and richness associated with their atelier began to fade toward the close of the 17th century, and a wave of Mughal influence began to affect the school in the opening years…
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9411ef9caf295ea45da61402077a43c3 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shahpur-Bakhtiar | Shahpur Bakhtiar | Shahpur Bakhtiar
Shahpur Bakhtiar, (born 1914, Shahr Kord, Iran—died August 6, 1991, Suresnes, near Paris, France), Iranian politician, the last prime minister (January 4–February 11, 1979) under Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.
Bakhtiar studied law at the Sorbonne in Paris and fought in the French army during World War II. After the war he returned to Iran, where he became a leading figure in the nationalist struggle led by Mohammad Mosaddeq’s National Front, serving as deputy labour minister in Mosaddeq’s short-lived government (1951–53). After Mohammad Reza was forcibly returned to power as shah of Iran in 1953, Bakhtiar established a private law practice. In the following years he was imprisoned for opposition political activities and rose to deputy chief of the reorganized National Front.
In January 1979 the shah, seeking to forestall an Islamic fundamentalist revolution, named him prime minister. Bakhtiar accepted the position only on condition that the shah leave the country. He tried to implement moderate reforms, but, after the Islamic fundamentalist Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran from exile in France on February 1, Bakhtiar’s government and power quickly evaporated. He went into hiding and by April had reached France, where he established the exile National Movement of the Iranian Resistance. In 1991 Bakhtiar, who had escaped at least two previous assassination attempts, was found stabbed to death in his home in a Paris suburb.
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c419d8b9e72192f637f8a9e78cf9075c | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shahu | Shahu | Shahu
…power revived under Shivaji’s grandson Shahu. He confided power to the Brahman Bhat family, who became hereditary peshwas (chief ministers). He also decided to expand northward with armies under the peshwas’ control. In Shahu’s later years the power of the peshwas increased. After his death (1749) they became the effective…
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5f2557f65daecfd1e239c18e3931c078 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shai-Agassi | Shai Agassi | Shai Agassi
Shai Agassi, (born April 19, 1968, Ramat Gan, Israel), Israeli entrepreneur who, after founding a number of technology companies, became known for Better Place, which sought to establish an infrastructure for electric automobiles.
Agassi graduated (1990) from Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) with a degree in computer science. In 1992 he founded TopTier Software, an information-portal provider. He also started several other businesses, including software companies Quicksoft (as cofounder) and TopManage. In 2001 TopTier was bought by SAP, a leading German software company, for $400 million. The following year Agassi joined the SAP executive board and became president of SAP’s Products and Technology Group. Known as a persuasive visionary with a command of the facts, he was invited (2005) to join the Forum of Young Global Leaders, organized by the World Economic Forum (Davos, Switzerland), and his involvement with the group led to his interest in climate change, especially in the area of transportation.
In 2007 Agassi left SAP and launched Better Place (originally named Project Better Place), a company that developed battery-exchange stations and recharging spots for electric cars so as to spur the public to replace their gasoline-powered cars. Agassi’s business plan positioned Better Place as a service company that would provide drivers with access to an electric-charging infrastructure on a subscription basis. By 2009 Better Place had agreements to install systems in a number of countries, including Israel, Denmark, and the United States (Hawaii and California). In 2012, however, Agassi stepped down as CEO of Better Place, and the company filed for bankruptcy the following year.
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cba357f0c62e37532f48d4f543051465 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shalmaneser-IV | Shalmaneser IV | Shalmaneser IV
Shalmaneser IV (c. 783–773) fought against Urartu, then at the height of its power under King Argishti (c. 780–755). He successfully defended eastern Mesopotamia against attacks from Armenia. On the other hand, he lost most of Syria after a campaign against Damascus in 773. The…
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752e500ef3f8ecae16e0273a0ff6bcf2 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shamash-eriba | Shamash-eriba | Shamash-eriba
The second, Shamash-eriba, was conquered by Xerxes’ son-in-law, and violent repression ensued: Babylon’s fortresses were torn down, its temples pillaged, and the statue of Marduk destroyed. This latter act had great political significance: Xerxes was no longer able to “take the hand of” (receive the patronage of)…
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e6b8ce501b9ff4b76a9d34b58c720209 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shamil-Basayev | Shamil Basayev | Shamil Basayev
…by the notorious rebel warlord Shamil Basayev, who previously had been blamed for the takeover of a Moscow theatre in 2002 that ended in the deaths of some 130 hostages; the assassination of Akhmad Kadyrov, the pro-Moscow president of Chechnya, in May 2004; and countless other acts of terrorism and…
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d7cd4795920e46c5692688f22f2a370b | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shang-Kexi | Shang Kexi | Shang Kexi
Shang Kexi, Wade-Giles romanization Shang K’o-hsi, (born 1604, Haicheng, Liaoning province, China—died October 1676, Guangzhou, Guangdong province), Chinese general whose attempt to retire in 1673 resulted in large-scale rebellion.
Originally a Ming dynasty general, Shang transferred his loyalty in 1634 to the Manchu kingdom of Manchuria, which was encroaching on China from the northeast. By 1644, when the Manchus conquered China and proclaimed the Qing dynasty (1644–1911/12), Shang was one of the leading Qing generals. In 1649 he was given the title pingnan wang (“prince who pacifies the south”) and was sent to conquer the southern province of Guangdong. When he completed this task, he was made governor of the area with full civil and military authority.
In 1673 Shang successfully petitioned the emperor for permission to retire, and preparations were made to bring Guangdong under central control. Wu Sangui, another Qing general who also had been made governor of a southern province, became alarmed. Fearing his power also would be restricted, Wu rebelled and was joined by a third southern general.
Shang remained loyal, but his eldest son put his father under arrest and joined the rebels. (The ensuing war, known as the Revolt of the Three Feudatories, was not suppressed until 1681.) Unable to control his son, Shang attempted suicide. He failed, but his health was destroyed and he died soon after. Altogether, he had 32 sons, most of whom were loyal Qing officials—11 became generals and 3 became state councillors.
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af35766585f78ebc7e168fe9e9e8a903 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shang-Yang | Shang Yang | Shang Yang
Shang Yang, original name (Pinyin) Gongsun Yang or (Wade-Giles romanization) Kung-sun Yang, (born c. 390, Wei state, China—died 338 bce, China), Chinese statesman and thinker whose successful reorganization of the state of Qin paved the way for the eventual unification of the Chinese empire by the Qin dynasty (221–207 bce). Shang Yang believed that the integrity of a state could be maintained only with power and that power consisted of a large army and full granaries.
Entering into the service of Duke Xiao, head of the state of Qin, Shang Yang replaced the feudal division of the country with a system of centrally appointed governors. He instituted compulsory military service and a new system of land division and taxation and insisted on strict and uniform administration of the law. He unified the measures for length, capacity, and weight. He is also said to have forced all persons into “productive occupations,” such as farming or soldiering (but not commerce), and to have set up a system of mutual spying among the people. His reforms violated the interests of Duke Xiao and other nobles. When Duke Xiao died and Shang Yang fell into disgrace in 338 bce, he was tied to chariots and torn apart.
The work Shangjun shu (“Book of the Lord of Shang”) probably contains writings and ideas of Shang Yang, although the exact authorship of the book is in doubt. It is one of the major works of the highly pragmatic and authoritarian Legalist school of Chinese philosophy.
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f97ffc8f6eefb623c246fa70eac59569 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shannon-Wells-Lucid | Shannon Wells Lucid | Shannon Wells Lucid
Shannon Wells Lucid, née Shannon Matilda Wells, (born January 14, 1943, Shanghai, China), American astronaut who from 1996 to 2007 held the world record for most time in space by a woman and from 1996 to 2002 held the record for the longest-duration spaceflight by any U.S. astronaut.
Lucid was born in China as the daughter of Baptist missionaries and with her family spent several months in a Japanese prison camp near Shanghai during World War II. She received bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees from the University of Oklahoma; the Ph.D. was in biochemistry. She worked with the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation in Oklahoma City until her 1978 selection as one of the first six women to train as astronaut candidates for flights aboard the space shuttle.
Lucid first flew aboard the space shuttle in 1985 on a mission that deployed three communication satellites. She flew on three more space shuttle missions in 1989, 1991, and 1993, and then in 1996 rode the shuttle to the Russian space station Mir, where she spent 188 days, which was then a record for the longest-duration spaceflight by any U.S. astronaut. In all, Lucid spent a total of 223 days in space, then a record for most time in space by a woman.
In 2002 Lucid was named chief scientist of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), with responsibility for overseeing the scientific quality of all NASA programs and for external communication of NASA’s research objectives. She held that position until 2003, when she returned to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. She retired from NASA in 2012.
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a86799e40213ef91a1315f34003469aa | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shapur-I | Shāpūr I | Shāpūr I
Shāpūr I, Latin Sapor, Arabic Sābūr, (died ad 272), Persian king of the Sāsānian dynasty who consolidated and expanded the empire founded by his father, Ardashīr I. Shāpūr continued his father’s wars with Rome, conquering Nisibis (modern Nusaybin, Tur.) and Carrhae (Harran, Tur.) and advancing deep into Syria. Defeated at Resaina (now in Turkey) in 243, he was able, nevertheless, to conclude a favourable peace in 244. In 256 he took advantage of the internal chaos within the Roman Empire and invaded Syria, Anatolia, and Armenia; he sacked Antioch but was repulsed by the emperor Valerian. In 260, however, Shāpūr not only defeated Valerian at Edessa (modern Urfa, Tur.) but captured him and kept him a prisoner for the rest of his life. The capture of Valerian was a favourite subject of Sāsānian rock carvings (see photograph). Shāpūr does not appear to have aimed at a permanent occupation of the eastern Roman provinces; he merely carried off enormous booty both in treasure and in men. The captives from Antioch were forced to build the city of Gondēshāpūr, later famous as a centre of learning. Using the same captives, who excelled the Persians in technical skill, he built the dam at Shūshtar known from that time as the Band-e Qeyṣar, Dam of Caesar.
Shāpūr, no longer content to describe himself as “king of kings of Iran,” as his father had done, styled himself “king of kings of Iran and non-Iran”—that is, of non-Persian territories as well. He appears to have tried to find a religion suitable for all of the empire, showing marked favour to Mani, the founder of Manichaeism. Inscriptions show that he also founded Zoroastrian fire temples and sought to broaden the base of the newly revived Zoroastrian religion by the addition of material derived from both Greek and Indian sources.
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1f277dad4195372f4f68234fb13a0ddc | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shapur-II | Shāpūr II | Shāpūr II
Shāpūr II, byname Shāpūr The Great, (born ad 309—died 379), 10th king of the Sāsānian Empire of Persia, who withstood Roman strength by astute military strategy and diplomacy and brought the empire to the zenith of its power.
The name Shāpūr, meaning “son of a king,” was common in the Sāsānian period and was often given to sons other than princes. Numerical designations were not used to distinguish kings of the same name; instead, the family genealogy was cited. Thus, in one inscription, Shāpūr styles himself,
According to tradition, his father died before Shāpūr was born, and the child was proclaimed king by the Persian nobility at his birth in 309, in preference to his brothers. After a regency, he apparently took the realm into his own hands in 325 at the age of 16.
A contemporary account describes his appearance and courage in battle:
In 337 Shāpūr sent his forces across the Tigris River, the uneasy frontier, to recover Armenia and Mesopotamia, which his predecessors had lost to the Romans. Until 350 conflict raged in northern Mesopotamia, with neither side a clear-cut victor. Shortly after 337, Shāpūr took an important policy decision. Although the state religion of the Sāsānian Empire was Mazdaism (Zoroastrianism), Christianity flourished within its boundaries. The Roman emperor Constantine the Great had granted toleration to Christians in 313. With the subsequent Christianization of the empire, Shāpūr, mistrustful of a potential force of a fifth column at home while he was engaged abroad, ordered the persecution and forcible conversion of the Christians; this policy was in force throughout his reign.
In 358 he was ready for a second encounter with Rome and sent an ambassador to the emperor Constantius II, bearing presents and a letter wrapped in white silk. This letter read, in part,
When Constantius politely refused to hand over these lands, Shāpūr marched into northern Mesopotamia, this time with marked success. In 363, however, the emperor Julian led a huge army into Persia, creating havoc and advancing to the very gates of Ctesiphon on the Tigris, a major Sāsānian city. Julian was mortally wounded in a skirmish, and his successor, Jovian, was compelled to accept an ignominious 30 years’ truce and surrender of five Roman provinces.
Shāpūr then turned his attention to Armenia. He defeated its pro-Roman ruler and attempted to force Zoroastrianism on the country. The Romans, however, regained their influence in Armenia, and a precarious balance between Romans and Persians existed from about 374. For five years, Armenia was weakened by internecine strife, and one of Shāpūr’s last acts was to win it over by discreet gifts. Shāpūr’s death in 379 left Persia with its territory considerably augmented: he had pacified the eastern frontier and gained control over Armenia; the Persian Empire had never been stronger. But war with Rome had become habitual and eventually undermined the strength of the Sāsānians.
As did the other great rulers of his line, Shāpūr considered himself an heir of the great Achaemenid Empire and strove to renew its glory. Indeed, his letter to Constantius contains a distant echo of the wording of the inscriptions of Darius I the Great, the Achaemenid ruler, when he writes of his devotion to truth and righteousness. Shāpūr was called a god, and he lived up to this exalted status, becoming irascible, even violent, when individuals summoned to his presence appeared to pay insufficient respect to his awesome majesty.
The figure of Shāpūr survives. A large silver plate has a scene in relief that shows him hunting lions with bow and arrow, and countless silver coins portray his face in profile. At Bishāpūr in southwestern Iran, a tremendous rock-cut relief depicts him seated on a throne and witnessing a triumph of his army: in the top row he is flanked by nobles of the court, and the lower row contains soldiers who present captives and trophies of victory.
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7522bc69b1bbb90924157ffc162b399c | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sharad-Pawar | Sharad Pawar | Sharad Pawar
Sharad Pawar, in full Sharadchandra Govindrao Pawar, Sharadchandra also spelled Sharad Chandra, (born December 12, 1940, Baramati, India), Indian politician and government official, who in 1999 helped found the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and served as its president.
Pawar was one of 10 children born to a middle-class agricultural family in Baramati, southeast of Pune, in what is now Maharashtra state. He went to college in Pune, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in commerce. He became active in student politics while there. Pawar joined the youth wing of the Indian National Congress (Congress Party) and in 1964 became its president.
Mentored by Maharashtra senior politician Yashwantrao Chavan, Pawar was elected as a member of the Maharashtra state legislative assembly in 1967. It was the first of many elections he contested, all from the Baramati constituency. After being reelected to the assembly in 1972, he served in a number of ministry posts in the state government over the next several years.
Before the 1978 Maharashtra assembly elections, Pawar broke away from the Congress Party and helped form the Indian National Congress (Socialist), or Congress (S) Party. The new party was opposed to Indira Gandhi, who had stepped down as prime minister in 1977 and had formed the Congress (I) Party faction early in 1978. In the polling, a broad coalition of non-Congress (I) parties won a majority of seats and formed a government in the state, with Pawar as the chief minister. That government was dismissed in 1980 by the central government, after Gandhi had returned to power and to the prime minister’s office. Pawar became president of Congress-S in 1981.
In the 1984 national elections, Pawar contested and won a seat in the Lok Sabha (lower chamber of the national parliament), but he resigned from it the next year to became the leader of the opposition in the Maharashtra state assembly. In 1986 Pawar merged the Congress-S with the Congress (I) Party (the “I” was dropped in 1996), in a bid to counter the political rise of the right-wing Shiv Sena party in Maharashtra. He again served as the state’s chief minister for two terms in 1988–91 and for a fourth term in 1993–95.
In 1991 Pawar was again elected to the Lok Sabha, and he served as India’s defense minister (1991–93) under Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao. However, by the 1990s Pawar’s political influence had begun to drop amid allegations of corruption and administrative lapses. Congress lost the 1995 state assembly elections to a coalition of Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Pawar was elected to his third term in the Lok Sabha in 1996. The following year he attempted unsuccessfully to become president of Congress, losing the party’s internal poll to Sitaram Kesri. In the wake of the victory of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the 1998 national parliamentary elections, Pawar opposed the decision of Congress leaders to promote Sonia Gandhi (widow of Rajiv Gandhi) as party leader, insisting that anyone who could potentially become prime minister of India must be born in the country. In May 1999 Pawar, along with former speaker of the Lok Sabha Purno Sangma and Tariq Anwar, left the Congress Party and formed the NCP. Later that year, however, the NCP joined forces with Congress to form a coalition government in Maharashtra after neither party had won a majority of seats in state legislative elections.
Following the 2004 national parliamentary elections, the NCP joined the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) as a coalition partner, and Pawar was appointed minister of agriculture. The NCP remained a part of the UPA, which was again successful in the 2009 parliamentary elections. Pawar retained his post in the Agriculture Ministry in the new administration and also became minister of consumer affairs, food, and public distribution; he later switched to the Ministry of Food Processing Industries. He chose not to run in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and, following an overwhelming BJP victory in the polls, stepped down from his post with the rest of the ousted UPA government.
Pawar’s ministerial stints were marked by several controversies. Among the accusations against him were that he was more interested in the affairs of the cricket world—he was president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India in 2005–08 and of the International Cricket Council in 2010–12—than in his government responsibilities. He was also criticized for promoting the political careers of his daughter, Supriya Sule, who served in the Rajya Sabha (upper chamber of the Indian parliament) in 2006–09 and was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2009, and his nephew, Ajit Pawar, who long was a prominent member of the Maharashtra state government.
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59d6f04281170ccf8523170f7a8239c6 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sharaf-ad-Din-Ali-Yazdi | Sharaf ad-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī | Sharaf ad-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī
Sharaf ad-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī, (born, Yazd, Iran—died 1454, Yazd), Persian historian, one of the greatest of 15th-century Iran.
Little about his early life is known. As a young man he was a teacher in his native Yazd and a close companion of the Timurid ruler Shāh Rokh (1405–47) and his son Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Sulṭān. In 1442/43 he became the close adviser of the governor of Iraq, Mīrzā Sulṭān Muḥammad, who lived in the city of Qom. His patron, however, attempted a revolt against the reigning Shāh Rokh, and Sharaf ad-Dīn was fortunate enough to be cleared of any complicity. He was granted permission to return to his native city, where he lived until his death. The work for which he is best known is the Ẓafernāmeh (1424/25; The Book of Victory). It is a history of the world conqueror Timur (Tamerlane; 1370–1405) and was probably based on the history of the same name by Nizam ad-Dīn Shami, a work written at Timur’s request.
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ad7bd73d6215b35d4f64ad7525ae2a22 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shaykh-Haydar | Shaykh Ḥaydar | Shaykh Ḥaydar
Shaykh Ḥaydar, also spelled Sheykh Ḥeydar, (died July 9, 1488, near Darband, on the foothills of the Elburz Mountains, Iran), one of the founders of the Ṣafavid state (1501–1736) in Iran.
Ḥaydar inherited the leadership of the Ṣafavid order, a Shīʿite Muslim movement centred on Ardabīl (now in northwest Iran). He was raised in the city of Amid, but when the Kara Koyunlu empire in western Iran disintegrated in 1467, Ḥaydar moved to Ardabīl, where he formally became the head of the Ṣafavid order. When Ḥaydar married ʿAlamshāh Begum, the daughter of the Ak Koyunlu ruler Uzun Ḥasan, he further strengthened the bonds that existed between the Ak Koyunlu dynasty and the Ṣafavid order.
Ḥaydar continued the policy of his father—a combination of extreme Shīʿite ideology with military activity—by conducting raids against the Christian Circassians of the north in 1483, 1487, and 1488. But his actions soon brought him into conflict with Yaʿqūb, the Ak Koyunlu ruler who was also Ḥaydar’s brother-in-law, with the result that the alliance between the order and that dynasty was weakened. Ḥaydar was killed in battle by Ak Koyunlu troops while he was leading an expedition to Circassian territory. Ḥaydar’s major achievement was the reliable military organization that he bequeathed to his sons.
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ac2de477ce97316eafd02772748c171c | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shehu-Shagari | Shehu Shagari | Shehu Shagari
Shehu Shagari, in full Alhaji Shehu Usman Aliyu Shagari, (born 1925, Shagari, Nigeria—died December 28, 2018, Abuja, Nigeria), Nigerian politician, president of Nigeria from 1979 to 1983.
Shagari’s great-grandfather founded the village from which the family took its name. Shagari was educated at Kaduna College and taught school briefly. As one of the few northerners to show an interest in national politics, he ran for office in 1954 and was elected to the federal House of Representatives. Thereafter he held several posts and was a member of every administration after Nigeria’s independence in 1960. After a military coup in 1966 ended civilian government, he retired to his hometown.
Gen. Yakubu Gowon appointed him federal commissioner for economic development in 1971, a position he took over from Chief Obafemi Awolowo. He faced Awolowo in 1979 and narrowly defeated him in presidential elections after the military government led by Olusegun Obasanjo allowed a return to civilian rule.
Nigeria was badly shaken by the international economic crisis of the early 1980s. Shagari took several steps to try to strengthen the economy—cutting the budget, calling in the International Monetary Fund, and expelling two million aliens (mostly Ghanaians) in 1983. He won the bitterly contested presidential elections in 1983, but the state of the economy and corruption in his administration worsened, and on December 31, 1983, a military coup led by Maj. Gen. Muhammad Buhari toppled the government, and Shagari was arrested. Shagari was cleared of personal corruption charges and released from detention in 1986 but was banned from participation in Nigerian politics for life.
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7a43099af119515e67a6d073f3066537 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shel-Silverstein | Shel Silverstein | Shel Silverstein
Shel Silverstein, in full Sheldon Allan Silverstein, (born September 25, 1930, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.—died May 10, 1999, Key West, Florida), American cartoonist, children’s author, poet, songwriter, and playwright best known for his light verse and quirky cartoons.
In the 1950s Silverstein drew for the military magazine Stars and Stripes while serving in Japan and Korea, and he also contributed to Playboy. He created the adult book of drawings Now Here’s My Plan: A Book of Futilities (1960) before turning to works for children. His first efforts, written under the name Uncle Shelby, included Uncle Shelby’s ABZ Book: A Primer for Tender Young Minds (1961) and Who Wants a Cheap Rhinoceros (1964). Among his memorable characters were the protagonist in Uncle Shelby’s Story of Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back (1963); the boy-man and tree in The Giving Tree (1964), his most famous prose work; and the partial circle in The Missing Piece (1976). Falling Up (1996) was the last illustrated collection published before his death in 1999. Runny Babbit: A Billy Sook (2015) and Runny Babbit Returns (2017) were released posthumously.
Silverstein, who was often compared to Dr. Seuss, used such locales as the land of Listentoemholler and the castle Now. His first major poetry collection, Where the Sidewalk Ends (1974), featured the popular title verse:
His pictures more than complemented his words. Accompanying “The Edge of the World” is the drawing of a small girl peering over the edge of a ledge so thin that a fire hydrant, a dog, a signpost, and a worm protrude halfway through. The cover of A Light in the Attic (1981) shows a boy with a windowed attic forming the top of his head. The words of another poem form the neck of a giraffe.
Silverstein often eschewed happy endings because children, he said, might otherwise wonder why they themselves were not comparably happy. He was credited for helping young readers develop an appreciation of poetry, and his serious verse reveals an understanding of common childhood anxieties and wishes. Silverstein also wrote one-act plays, sometimes working with David Mamet, as well as songs.
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f14889fd2a5ebeb6f7f96da1e61bffae | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shem | Shem | Shem
…persons of Noah’s three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, ancestors for three of the races of mankind and to account in some degree for their historic relations; and third, by its censure of Canaan, it offers a veiled justification for the later Israelite conquest and subjugation of the Canaanites. Noah’s…
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ffaebc2cc0e2542ec490a412d379b614 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sherira-ben-Hanina | Sherira ben Ḥanina | Sherira ben Ḥanina
He assisted his father, Sherira ben Ḥanina, in teaching and later as chief of court of the academy. A false accusation to the caliph by Jewish adversaries caused them both to be imprisoned briefly (997). When they were freed, Hai’s father appointed him gaon (998).
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d70e36f896796550756c6a2c4a411fec | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sherman-Poppen | Sherman Poppen | Sherman Poppen
…about in 1965, when engineer Sherman Poppen of Muskegon, Michigan—the widely acknowledged “father of the snowboard”—invented the prototype that paved the way for the modern board. The “Snurfer” got its snappy name from Poppen’s wife, who neatly combined the two words that described the contraption’s purpose: surfing on snow. Poppen’s…
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045bd0684094ee25eccb2af5e6258899 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shi-Miyuan | Shi Miyuan | Shi Miyuan
Shi Miyuan emerged as the dominant chief councillor. He came from a bureaucratic family background and understood the gentle approach and the importance of accommodating various kinds of bureaucrats in order to achieve a political balance. Promoting on merit and refraining from nepotism, he restored…
Shi Miyuan, the chief councillor who made Lizong emperor, created circumstances that forced the elder heir of Ningzong to commit suicide. This was damaging to the image of the court and to that of Shi himself. Mending political fences, he placed a few of the…
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0ae79c991a498650798cff422845c5ff | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shibasaburo-Kitasato | Shibasaburo Kitasato | Shibasaburo Kitasato
Emil von Behring and Shibasaburo Kitasato in 1890–92, and the results of this first large-scale trial amply confirmed its efficacy. (Tetanus antitoxin is a sterile solution of antibody globulins—a type of blood protein—from immunized horses or cattle.)
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374b1d9a0b31e8663dd471bab6b7b14a | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shiga-Naoya | Shiga Naoya | Shiga Naoya
Shiga Naoya, (born Feb. 20, 1883, Ishinomaki, Japan—died Oct. 21, 1971, Tokyo), Japanese fiction writer, a master stylist whose intuitive delicacy and conciseness have been epitomized as the “Shiga style.”
Born into an aristocratic samurai family, Shiga was taken by his parents to live with his paternal grandparents in Tokyo in 1885. In his youth he was influenced by the Christian educator Uchimura Kanzō, but Christianity itself made little lasting impression on him. After graduating from the Peers School in 1906, he entered the department of English literature at Tokyo Imperial University but left after two years without graduating. In 1910 he joined Mushanokōji Saneatsu, Arishima Takeo, Satomi Ton, and other friends of his Peers School days in founding the journal Shirakaba (“White Birch”), which gave rise to an important Japanese literary movement emphasizing individualism and Tolstoyan humanitarianism. The movement lasted until the early 1920s, but Shiga found its idealism incompatible with his more realistic approach to literature and moved away from the group. Through the years he refined his objective style, perceptively delineating the most sensitive reactions of his characters with subtle simplicity. He engaged in little abstract speculation, concentrating instead on a concrete, unsentimental depiction. Spurts of literary activity, which brought him a reputation as a fine short-story writer, were separated by long periods of inactivity, and he never earned a living from his writing.
Much of Shiga’s fiction is concerned with difficult family relationships, and his concern with the psychological involvements of his first-person heroes places some of his stories in the category of shishōsetsu (“I,” or autobiographical, fiction). Both the story Wakai (1917; “Reconciliation”) and his masterpiece, the long novel An’ya kōro (written in two parts between 1921 and 1937; A Dark Night’s Passing), describe the hero’s search for peace of mind in the face of family and personal conflict. The short story “Kinosaki nite” (1917; “At Kinosaki”) is a fine example of his sensitive, unsentimental treatment of his own state of mind. His writing career virtually ended with the completion of An’ya kōro.
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fb80fe522ad21ee2af826e54ea85e7a1 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shigemitsu-Mamoru | Shigemitsu Mamoru | Shigemitsu Mamoru
Shigemitsu Mamoru, (born July 29, 1887, Ōita, Japan—died Jan. 26, 1957, Yugawara), Japanese diplomat who served as minister of foreign affairs in various cabinets and was one of the signers of Japan’s surrender to the Allies at the end of World War II.
Shigemitsu, a graduate of Tokyo University, joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1911. By 1918 he held a position in the embassy in Poland and, while in Europe, attended the Paris Peace Conference. After serving in the embassy in Germany, he became consul general of Shanghai and in 1931 Japanese minister to China. In 1933 Shigemitsu became Japan’s vice-minister of foreign affairs. He later served as ambassador to the Soviet Union and to Great Britain.
In 1943 Shigemitsu was called to serve as minister of foreign affairs under Tōjō Hideki and later served in Prime Minister Koiso Kuniaki’s cabinet. During the war he favoured a number of conciliatory measures in hopes of gaining an early peace. On Sept. 2, 1945, as foreign minister in Higashikuni Naruhiko’s cabinet, Shigemitsu signed Japan’s unconditional surrender to the Allies. He was convicted of war crimes and was sentenced to seven years in prison; he was paroled in 1950.
In 1952 Shigemitsu became chairman of the Progressive Party and, later, assistant chairman of the Democratic Party. In 1954 Shigemitsu again served as minister of foreign affairs—this time in Hatoyama Ichirō’s cabinet.
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48a6023ccdf3c4036de77a218470bdc7 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shihab-al-Din-Ahmad-I | Shihāb-al-Dīn Aḥmad I | Shihāb-al-Dīn Aḥmad I
…of the Bahmanīs, whose ruler Aḥmad Shah Bahmanī moved the site of his capital from Gulbarga (now Kalaburagi) to Bidar about 1425. He rebuilt and extended the fort that still dominates the city’s layout. Bidar became an independent sultanate in 1531 under the Barīd Shāhī dynasty. The city was annexed…
…acts of the new sultan, Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad I (reigned 1422–36), was to move the capital from Gulbarga to Bidar, which was surrounded by more fertile ground and had become more centrally located now that some territory had been gained to the southeast, in Telingana. Perhaps, also, the move signified…
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56fda0c457940f8def4d7b17fa0ab71f | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shilkhak-In-Shushinak | Shilkhak-In-Shushinak | Shilkhak-In-Shushinak
Shilkhak-In-Shushinak campaigned vigorously, and for at least a short period his domain included most of Mesopotamia east of the Tigris River and reached eastward almost to Persepolis. This greatest period of Elamite conquest ended when Nebuchadrezzar I of Babylon (reigned c. 1119–c. 1098 bce) captured…
Shilkhak-In-Shushinak, brother and successor of Shutruk-Nahhunte’s eldest son, Kutir-Nahhunte, still anxious to take advantage of Assyrian weakness, campaigned as far north as the area of modern Kirkūk. In Babylonia, however, the 2nd dynasty of Isin led a native revolt against such control as the Elamites…
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4d9b3d4ffe82576d51195a58bd510b88 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shimada-Haruo | Shimada Haruo | Shimada Haruo
Shimada Haruo, a leading Japanese industrial relations scholar, has maintained that one cannot comprehend Japanese industrial and organizational practices without recognizing that Japanese managers regard human resources as the most critical asset affecting the performance of their enterprises. Therefore, management in large Japanese companies is…
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6d2d1bf4c478bafd07466fa7a0e4d1d4 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shimazu-Shigehide | Shimazu Shigehide | Shimazu Shigehide
Shimazu Shigehide, (born November 1745, Kagoshima, Satsuma province, Japan—died March 22, 1833, Edo [Tokyo]), Japanese lord of the great han, or feudal fief, of Satsuma. Shimazu’s strong leadership and his interest in Western studies put Satsuma in a position to play a leading role in Japanese affairs from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century.
Succeeding his father as head of Satsuma in 1755, Shigehide soon acquired an intense curiosity about Western affairs. He studied Dutch, the Dutch being the only Westerners then allowed into Japan, and patronized specialists in Western studies. In 1774 he founded a medical school, and he later also established institutes for the study of astronomy and mathematics, making Satsuma one of the most technically advanced areas of Japan.
Shigehide married his daughter to the shogun, the hereditary military dictator of Japan. The alliance enabled Shigehide to exercise great influence over the central government, but the cost of pursuing that kind of power brought Satsuma to the verge of financial ruin. He therefore ordered reforms that included cancellation of all debts to merchants and reassertion of strong central authority. These measures so strengthened Satsuma’s economy that it was able to take a leading role in the Meiji Restoration (1868), which overthrew the shogun and established a new Imperial government.
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9e79773106a83704162f08d0d2c13ec7 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shimazu-Tadahisa | Shimazu Tadahisa | Shimazu Tadahisa
…the late 12th century by Shimazu Tadahisa (1179–1227), who adopted the surname of Shimazu after he was appointed governor of the southern portion of Kyushu. The clan prospered by taking advantage of trade with Korea and the Ryukyu Islands. By the 16th century the Shimazu had become the major power…
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2a897f2f3a52e88bd8b3feb4201016ac | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shimizu-Osamu | Shimizu Osamu | Shimizu Osamu
Shimizu Osamu is perhaps more successful nationalistically in his choral settings of Japanese and Ainu music, in which the style of vocal production and chordal references seems to be a more honest abstraction of Japanese ideals. Mamiya Michio combined traditional timbres with 12-tone compositional technique…
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dbee2097370aa3eae21a82557fa1a242 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shimomura-Kanzan | Shimomura Kanzan | Shimomura Kanzan
Shimomura Kanzan, original name Shimomura Seizaburō, (born April 10, 1873, Wakayama, Japan—died May 10, 1930, Tokyo), Japanese artist who contributed to the modernization of traditional Japanese painting.
Shimomura went to Tokyo in 1881 to study painting and became a pupil of Kanō Hōgai and Hashimoto Gahō. One of the first students to enter the Tokyo Fine Arts School, founded in 1889, Shimomura joined its staff upon graduation, only to leave the school when the principal and famous art critic, Okakura Kakuzō, was ousted. Shimomura then joined the Japan Fine Arts Academy established by Okakura and Hashimoto. He was known for his mastery of traditional Japanese and Chinese painting and for his keen sense of colouring. Among his representative works are “Ōhara Gokō” (1908; “The Emperor’s Visit to Ōhara”) and “Yorobōshi” (1915; “The Beggar Monk”).
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7637371e58b4c30d01973a67a73145bf | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shimon-Peres | Shimon Peres | Shimon Peres
Shimon Peres, original name Shimon Perski, (born August 16?, 1923, Wiszniew, Poland [now Vishnyeva, Belarus]; see Researcher’s Note—died September 28, 2016, Ramat Gan, Israel), Polish-born Israeli statesman, who served as both prime minister (1984–86 and 1995–96) and president (2007–14) of Israel and as leader of the Israel Labour Party (1977–92, 1995–97, and 2003–05). In 1993, in his role as Israeli foreign minister, Peres helped negotiate a peace accord with Yāsir ʿArafāt, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), for which they, along with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1994.
Peres immigrated with his family to Palestine in 1934. In 1947 he joined the Haganah movement, a Zionist military organization, under the direction of David Ben-Gurion, who soon became his political mentor. When Israel achieved independence in May 1948, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion appointed Peres, then only 24 years old, head of Israel’s navy. In 1952 he was appointed deputy director general of the Ministry of Defense, and he later served as director general (1953–59) and deputy defense minister (1959–65), during which service he stepped up state weapons production, initiated a nuclear research program, and established overseas military alliances, most notably with France. Peres resigned in 1965 to join Ben-Gurion in founding a new party, Rafi, in opposition to the succeeding prime minister, Levi Eshkol.
The Rafi Party was unsuccessful, and in 1967 Peres initiated merger negotiations between the Mapai (Ben-Gurion’s former party) and the Ahdut Avodah, a more leftist workers’ party, which led to the establishment of the Israel Labour Party, of which he became deputy secretary-general. He became defense minister in the Labour cabinet of Rabin in 1974.
In 1977 Peres became head of the Labour Party and, as such, was twice defeated (1977, 1981) by Menachem Begin of the Likud party as a candidate for prime minister before winning access to the post after the indecisive elections of 1984. In September 1984 Peres and Yitzhak Shamir, head of Likud, formed a power-sharing agreement, with Peres as prime minister for the first half of a 50-month term and Shamir as deputy prime minister and foreign minister; the roles were reversed for the second 25-month period. Under Peres’s moderate and conciliatory leadership, Israel withdrew its forces in 1985 from their controversial incursion into Lebanon. After similarly indecisive elections in 1988, the Labour and Likud parties formed another coalition government, with Peres as finance minister and Shamir as prime minister; this coalition lasted only until 1990, when Likud was able to form a government without Labour support.
In February 1992, in the first primary election ever held by a major Israeli party, Peres lost the Labour leadership to Rabin. When Labour won in the general elections in June and Rabin became prime minister of Israel in July, Peres was brought into the cabinet as foreign minister. After the Israel-PLO accord was signed in 1993, Peres handled the negotiations with the PLO over the details of the pact’s implementation. Following the assassination of Rabin in 1995, Peres took over as prime minister. In May 1996 he was narrowly defeated in his bid for reelection by Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud. Peres declined to seek reelection as leader of the Labour Party in 1997 but stayed active in politics, serving as foreign minister (2001–02), deputy prime minister (2001–02), and vice prime minister (2005) in the national unity government led by Likud’s Ariel Sharon. In 2003 Peres resumed the chair of the Labour Party but was unexpectedly defeated in the party’s leadership election in November 2005. A few weeks later he left the Labour Party to join the centrist party Kadima. From 2007 to 2014 Peres served as president of Israel, a largely ceremonial post.
In 2012 Peres was awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom. His books include the memoir Battling for Peace (1995) and Ben-Gurion: A Political Life (2011).
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c02feda13b960c6c859f3000b3e149f9 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shin-Maha-Thila-Wuntha | Shin Maha Thila Wuntha | Shin Maha Thila Wuntha
…the court of Ava, and Shin Maha Thila Wuntha and Shin Uttamagyaw, both of whom were of village stock and did not go to court but remained on in their village monasteries. Shin Maha Thila Wuntha, in the closing years of his life, turned to prose and wrote a chronicle…
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67ce8d089e0a1c6e58a2ed7d055e0dfc | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shing-bya-can | Shing-bya-can | Shing-bya-can
…rides a white lioness; (4) Shing-bya-can, the “king of virtue,” who resides in the southern quarter, is black and rides a black horse; (5) Dgra-lha skyes-gcig-bu, the “king of speech,” who resides in the western quarter, is red and rides a black mule.
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1d202e8aaaed034e45b9286d0bbe86e9 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shingei | Shingei | Shingei
Shingei, , also called Geiami, (died 1485, Japan), Japanese artist who represents the second generation of an extraordinary family of painters and art connoisseurs and who served the Ashikaga shoguns (a family of military dictators that ruled Japan, 1338–1573).
Shingei succeeded his father, Shinnō (Nōami), as curator of the Ashikaga art collection, but as an artist he followed Tenshō Shūbun (early to mid-15th century), the foremost suiboku (monochromatic ink painting) painter who, in turn, had been inspired by the Chinese landscape masters Hsia Kuei and Ma Yüan (active 12th century ad). Shingei’s most famous painting, “The Waterfall” (1480; in the Nezu Art Museum in Tokyo), is executed in the Tenshō Shūbun manner; but its pronounced stylization represents a significantly greater departure from the original Chinese landscape paintings. Shingei’s style was continued by his disciple Kei Shoki, for whom “The Waterfall” was painted as a parting gift.
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c79d4852bcd14037810b2c499963c327 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shirin-Ebadi | Shirin Ebadi | Shirin Ebadi
Shirin Ebadi, (born June 21, 1947, Hamadan, Iran), Iranian lawyer, writer, and teacher, who received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2003 for her efforts to promote democracy and human rights, especially those of women and children in Iran. She was the first Muslim woman and the first Iranian to receive the award.
Ebadi was born into an educated Iranian family; her father was an author and a lecturer in commercial law. When she was an infant, her family moved to Tehrān. Ebadi attended Anoshiravn Dadgar and Reza Shah Kabir schools before earning a law degree, in only three and a half years, from the University of Tehrān (1969). That same year she took an apprenticeship at the Department of Justice and became one of the first women judges in Iran. While serving as a judge, she also earned a doctorate in private law from the University of Tehrān (1971). From 1975 to 1979 she was head of the city court of Tehrān.
After the 1978–79 revolution and the establishment of an Islamic republic, women were deemed unsuitable to serve as judges because the new leaders believed that Islam forbids it. Ebadi was subsequently forced to become a clerk of the court. After she and other female judges protested this action, they were given higher roles within the Department of Justice but were still not allowed to serve as judges. Ebadi resigned in protest. She then chose to practice law but was initially denied a lawyer’s license. In 1992, after years of struggle, she finally obtained a license to practice law and began to do so. She also taught at the University of Tehrān and became an advocate for civil rights. In court Ebadi defended women and dissidents and represented many people who, like her, had run afoul of the Iranian government. She also distributed evidence implicating government officials in the 1999 murders of students at the University of Tehrān, for which she was jailed for three weeks in 2000. Found guilty of “disturbing public opinion,” she was given a prison term, barred from practicing law for five years, and fined, although her sentence was later suspended.
Ebadi helped found the Defenders of Human Rights Center, but it was closed by the government in 2008. Later that year her law offices were raided, and in 2009 Ebadi went into exile in the United Kingdom. However, she continued to agitate for reforms in Iran.
Ebadi wrote a number of books on the subject of human rights, including The Rights of the Child: A Study of Legal Aspects of Children’s Rights in Iran (1994), History and Documentation of Human Rights in Iran (2000), and The Rights of Women (2002). She also was founder and head of the Association for Support of Children’s Rights in Iran. Ebadi reflected on her own experiences in Iran Awakening: From Prison to Peace Prize, One Woman’s Struggle at the Crossroads (2006; with Azadeh Moaveni; also published as Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope) and Until We Are Free: My Fight for Human Rights in Iran (2016).
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6394da904ba3520315c89b98c1356a48 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shirley-Babashoff | Shirley Babashoff | Shirley Babashoff
Shirley Babashoff, (born January 31, 1957, Whittier, California, U.S.), American swimmer who won eight Olympic medals and was one of the first two women to win five medals in swimming during one Olympic Games (1976).
At the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Babashoff won silver medals in the 100- and 200-metre freestyle events and competed on the gold-medal-winning U.S. team in the 4 × 100-metre freestyle relay. At the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, she again won a gold medal in the 4 × 100-metre freestyle relay and added silver medals in four other events: the 200-metre, 400-metre, and 800-metre freestyle and the 4 × 100-metre medley relay.
Overall, Babashoff set six world records and was a member of five world-record-holding relay teams. Babashoff won the 1975 world championship in the 400-metre freestyle. Although she never won an individual Olympic gold medal, she is remembered for rivalries with the Australian Shane Gould and the East German Kornelia Ender. She was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1982 and the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 1987.
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47a151a29851cccb216af3fec8d9dda5 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shirley-Baker | Shirley Baker | Shirley Baker
…relied heavily on an Englishman, Shirley W. Baker, for advice regarding a new flag, which was first hoisted in 1866 and codified in the constitution of November 4, 1875. Like the British Red Ensign, three-quarters of the flag was plain red and there was a distinctive canton in the upper…
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88e998c32f644040ba717429872ecf1b | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shirukdukh | Shirukdukh | Shirukdukh
…third king of this line, Shirukdukh, was active in various military coalitions against the rising power of Babylon, but Hammurabi was not to be denied, and Elam was crushed in 1764 bc. The Old Babylon kingdom, however, fell into rapid decline following the death of Hammurabi, and it was not…
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c2f88ccece5019756db6c954f6728187 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shishaku-Saito-Makoto | Shishaku Saitō Makoto | Shishaku Saitō Makoto
Shishaku Saitō Makoto, (born Nov. 13, 1858, Mizusawa, Japan—died Feb. 26, 1936, Tokyo), Japanese naval officer and statesman who was prime minister of Japan (1932–34) and twice governor-general of Korea (1919–27, 1929–31).
Saitō graduated from the Japanese Naval Academy in 1879 and went to the United States for study in 1884, remaining there for some years as naval attaché to the Japanese legation. After serving as vice-minister and chief of naval administration, Saitō was naval minister from 1906 to 1914. In 1912 he was made an admiral.
As governor-general of Korea (1919–27), Saitō is credited with promoting the civilian rather than the previously military administration of that Japanese colony. He received the title of viscount in 1925. In 1927 Saitō attended a disarmament conference in Geneva as a member of the plenipotentiary committee. Upon his return he resigned from the governorship and became privy councillor to the emperor. From 1929 to 1931 he resumed the post of governor-general of Korea, but in 1932, on the assassination of Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi, Saitō was made prime minister of Japan. In that capacity, he took the controversial steps of recognizing the Japanese-controlled state of Manchukuo (in Manchuria) and withdrawing from the League of Nations. After financial scandal forced Saitō and his Cabinet to resign, he became the lord keeper of the privy seal. Saitō was assassinated by a group of young army officers during the abortive military revolt of Feb. 26, 1936.
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b3194a6941bb45d4325cf91872fc773b | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shitao | Shitao | Shitao
Shitao, Wade-Giles romanization Shih-t’ao, original name Zhu Rueji, (born c. 1638–1641, Guilin, Guangxi province, China—died probably before 1720), Chinese painter and theoretician who was, with Zhu Da, one of the most famous of the Individualist painters in the early Qing period.
Like Zhu, Shitao was of the formerly imperial Ming line and became a Buddhist monk; but unlike Zhu he seems to have led a life typical of his class and birth. Although he spent most of his life in Jiangsu and Anhui, he traveled extensively throughout China, and he knew a wide variety of learned individuals both inside and outside the Manchu court. He thus was very much the traditional Chinese gentleman, with little of the eccentricity that marked his older contemporary Zhu.
His work, however, is as diverse in both style and interest as his life was; it merits the term Individualist for the extraordinarily expressive range of the paintings. He excelled in all genres, including landscape, bird-and-flower painting, and figure painting. In distinct contrast to his contemporaries known as the orthodox masters (e.g., The Four Wangs), he was far less tied to the imitation or inspiration of old masters; and, while he respected them, he saw ancient styles more as knowledge to be expanded upon than as material to be exploited. Shitao’s independent spirit is also found within his theoretical writings, such as the Huayu Lu (“Comments on Painting”); he speaks of “a style of no style” and the importance of “the single stroke.”
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de106b8db4a75cfdd05ae80a9d52936d | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shiv-Narayan-Agnihotri | Shiv Narayan Agnihotri | Shiv Narayan Agnihotri
Shiv Narayan Agnihotri, (born 1850, near Kanpur, India—died 1929, Lahore [now in Pakistan]), Hindu founder of a quasi-religious reform movement called Dev Samaj (“Divine Society”).
At the age of 16 Agnihotri entered the government-sponsored Thompson Engineering College in Roorkee, and in 1873 he took a position as a drawing master in the Government School of Lahore. He and his wife became active members of the Brahmo Samaj (literally, “Brahma Society,” also translated as “Society of God”), a Hindu reform movement founded in Bengal. In 1882 Agnihotri resigned his teaching position to work full-time for the Brahmo Samaj. Eventually, he resigned from the Brahmo Samaj to form a new society, the Dev Samaj, which he ruled as guru. The Dev Samaj was at first a theistic society, but later it reemerged as a movement dedicated to social reform, insisting on strict ethical conduct by its members and advocating the social integration of castes and the education of women, among other ideals. Although it denied the existence of traditional gods, it emphasized the semidivinity of Agnihotri himself, asserting that he had attained the highest possible plane of existence and that eternal bliss could not be attained without his guidance.
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8c2342c547ff75891d46af7d8285c08e | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sho-Tai | Shō Tai | Shō Tai
…king of the Ryukyu Islands, Shō Tai, the title of vassal king and in the following year took over the island’s foreign affairs. In reprisal for the massacre of shipwrecked Ryukyuans by Taiwanese tribesmen in 1871, the Tokyo government sent a punitive expedition to Taiwan. Meanwhile, the Japanese sent an…
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5796637b680a7d391356498b92fde6bb | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shohei-Imamura | Shohei Imamura | Shohei Imamura
…continued to be active, with Imamura Shohei making Unagi (1997; The Eel) and Kenzo Sensei (1998; Dr. Akagi) and Oshima Nagisa directing Gohatto (1999; Taboo). An important newcomer to film in the late 1980s was Kitano Takeshi, a popular television figure who began to write, direct, edit, and star as…
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f134a8903d440b04a4c32bae056ff6ed | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shokado-Shojo | Shōkadō Shōjō | Shōkadō Shōjō
Shōkadō Shōjō, , original name Nakanuma Shikibu, (born 1584, Yamato Province, Japan—died Nov. 3, 1639, Japan), Japanese calligrapher and painter, one of the “three brushes” of the Kan-ei era.
He was a priest and respected theologian of the Shingon sect of Buddhism, who declined high office and retired to the Takinomoto-bō, a small temple on the slope of Otoko-yama (Mt. Otoko) south of Kyōto, to devote himself to calligraphy, painting, poetry, and the tea ceremony. In 1637 he moved to another small mountain retreat, the Shōkadō (Pine Flower Temple), whence his name and the name of his school of followers, the Shōkadō school. His major achievement was to revivify calligraphy by reviving the traditional sō (“grass”) writing style—a rapid, cursive script that originated in China and was practiced by a 9th-century Japanese Shingon saint Kōbō Daishi. Using the sō script, Shōkadō inscribed 16 love poems on a six-panelled folding screen covered with gold leaf (Kimiko and John Powers Collection, U.S.). As a painter, he worked in both the Yamato-e (Japanese painting) style and in monochromatic ink after the manner of the 13th-century Chinese monk-artists Mu-ch’i Fa-ch’ang and Yin-t’o-lo.
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70fa69b6e538f4c826a7f66921c4f72b | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sholem-Aleichem | Sholem Aleichem | Sholem Aleichem
Sholem Aleichem, pseudonym of Sholem Rabinovitsh, Sholem also spelled Shalom or Sholom, (born February 18, 1859, Pereyaslav, Russia [now Pereyaslav-Khmelnytskyy, Ukraine]—died May 13, 1916, New York, New York, U.S.), popular author, a humorist noted for his many Yiddish stories of life in the shtetl. He is one of the preeminent classical writers of modern Yiddish literature.
Drawn to writing as a youth, he became a private tutor of Russian at age 17. He later served in the Russian provincial town of Lubny (now in Ukraine) as a “crown rabbi” (official record keeper of the Jewish population; despite the word rabbi, it was not a religious position). While at Lubny he began writing in Yiddish, though he earlier composed his articles in Russian and Hebrew. Between 1883, when his first story in Yiddish appeared, and his death, he published more than 40 volumes of novels, stories, and plays in Yiddish. (He also continued to write in Russian and Hebrew.) A wealthy man through marriage, he used part of the fortune he and his wife inherited to encourage Yiddish writers and edit the annual Di yidishe folks-bibliotek (1888–89; “The Jewish Popular Library”) and lost the rest of it in business.
His works were widely translated, and he became known in the United States as “the Jewish Mark Twain.” He began a period of wandering in 1906, established his family in Switzerland, and lectured in Europe and the United States. After the loss of his wife’s inheritance, however, his many projects and extended travels began to take a toll on his health.
English translations from his Verk (14 vol., 1908–14) include Wandering Stars (2009), translated by Aliza Shevrin; The Letters of Menakhem-Mendl and Sheyne-Sheyndl and Motl, the Cantor’s Son (2002), translated by Hillel Halkin; and Stempenyu: A Jewish Romance (1913, reprinted 2007), translated by Hannah Berman. He was the first to write in Yiddish for children. Adaptations of his work were important in the founding of the Yiddish Art Theatre in New York City, and the libretto of the musical Fiddler on the Roof (1964; film 1971) was adapted from a group of his Tevye the Dairyman stories, which have been translated many times over. The Best of Sholem Aleichem, a collection of tales edited by Irving Howe and Ruth R. Wisse, was published in 1979.
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d008053cf5df0151cd74ab0e1d05a94c | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shomu-emperor-of-Japan | Shōmu | Shōmu
Shōmu, in full Shōmu Tennō, personal name Obito, (born 701, Yamato [near Nara], Japan—died June 21, 756, Nara), 45th emperor of Japan, who devoted huge sums of money to the creation of magnificent Buddhist temples and artifacts throughout the realm; during his reign Buddhism virtually became the official state religion.
He ascended the throne in 724, taking the reign name Shōmu. In 729 his consort, a member of the powerful Fujiwara family, was declared empress, shattering the precedent that all empress consorts had to be princesses of the blood. Shōmu and his wife were both devout Buddhists, and he attempted to create a Buddhist structure throughout the country that would parallel the existing nationwide state bureaucracy. To this end he lavished huge sums of money on existing temples and monasteries and in 741 ordered the founding of a branch monastery and nunnery in each province. In addition, every temple was given a scripture (sutra), which the emperor himself copied out.
The Tōdai Temple in the capital city of Nara was erected as the central temple. Rebuilt on a smaller scale nine centuries later, its Great Buddha Hall (Daibutsuden) is still the largest wooden building in the world. The original hall was 288 feet (88 metres) long, 169 feet (51.5 metres) wide, and 156 feet (48.5 metres) high and housed a huge bronze image of Vairocana (Birushana Butsu), the universal Buddha, which Shōmu had made as a protector of the central government. Begun in 743, the approximately 53-foot- (16-metre- ) high seated figure utilized 500 tons of copper, tin, lead, and gold gilding. Marred by later repairs, the statue is not considered a great work of art, but it is one of the two largest bronze figures in the world. Shōmu dedicated it in his celebrated speech of 752 in which he declared himself the slave of the Three Precious Things—the Buddha, Buddhist law, and the church. The ritual objects used in this dedication ceremony, together with the emperor’s personal effects, were placed in the large log-built imperial storehouse called the Shōsō Repository (Shōsō-in). These well-preserved artifacts provide a unique account of 8th-century Japan. Although Shōmu’s building program depleted the imperial treasury, the Nara period is considered one of the richest cultural periods in Japanese history.
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65e8b92945440ff8051d36b75a96f377 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shonda-Rhimes | Shonda Rhimes | Shonda Rhimes
Shonda Rhimes, (born January 13, 1970, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.), American writer and producer who was best known for creating such popular TV series as Grey’s Anatomy (2005– ) and Scandal (2012–18).
Rhimes grew up in a Chicago suburb. After graduating from Dartmouth in 1991, she initially had dreams of becoming a novelist but ultimately attended film school at the University of Southern California. In 1998 she wrote and directed the short film Blossoms and Veils. The following year she penned the HBO TV movie Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, starring Halle Berry as the singer and actress who was the first black woman to be nominated for a best actress Oscar. Rhimes next wrote screenplays for the feature films Crossroads (2002), a vehicle for pop singer Britney Spears, and The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004), a romantic comedy starring Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews.
Rhimes subsequently turned her focus to TV series. Her first foray was a show about war correspondents, but only the pilot episode was made. Her breakthrough came when she created Grey’s Anatomy. The drama, which focuses on the professional and personal lives of surgeons, debuted in 2005 and was an immediate hit. In addition to its compelling story lines, the show garnered attention for its diverse cast, strong female characters, and interracial relationships, all of which became hallmarks of Rhimes’s series. In 2007 she created Private Practice, a spin-off of Grey’s Anatomy that ran until 2013. Another spin-off, Station 19, premiered in 2018. Both shows were produced by ShondaLand, which Rhimes had established in 2005.
In 2012 Rhimes debuted the TV series Scandal, a drama starring Kerry Washington as Olivia Pope, a Washington, D.C., political fixer who is also having an affair with the U.S. president (played by Tony Goldwyn). With its sometimes over-the-top, always fast-paced plots, the show was another huge success. It also marked the first time in some four decades that a network drama featured an African American woman in the lead role. Scandal ended in 2018. ShondaLand also had a hit with the legal drama How to Get Away with Murder (2014–20), starring Viola Davis. The success of these series was especially remarkable given the overall decline in viewers of network TV and helped make Rhimes one of the most powerful people in television. She later produced such shows as The Catch (2016–17), about a female investigator (Mireille Enos); Still Star-Crossed (2017), a Shakespearean-inspired drama that is set after the deaths of Romeo and Juliet; and For the People (2018–19), a legal drama. All these shows aired on ABC, but in 2017 Rhimes signed a production deal with Netflix. Her first project for the media-streaming company was the series Bridgerton (2020– ), based on historical romance novels by Julia Quinn.
In 2015 Rhimes published the self-help book Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand in the Sun, and Be Your Own Person.
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fe484aa2a6476f8f2d4c4660a8ea0ff3 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shridhara | Shridhara | Shridhara
Shridhara, (flourished c. 750, India), highly esteemed Hindu mathematician who wrote several treatises on the two major fields of Indian mathematics, pati-ganita (“mathematics of procedures,” or algorithms) and bija-ganita (“mathematics of seeds,” or equations).
Very little is known about Shridhara’s life. Some scholars believe that he was born in Bengal, while others believe that he was born in South India. All three of Shridhara’s extant works—the partially preserved Patiganita, Ganitasara (“Essence of Mathematics”), and Ganitapanchavimashi (“Mathematics in 25 Verses”)—belong to pati-ganita, but, according to Bhaskara II (1114–c. 1185), he wrote at least one book on bija-ganita.
Patiganita consists of versified mathematical rules, without proofs, and examples arranged under the two headings parikarman (“basic operations”) and vyavahara (applied or “procedural mathematics”). The first part treats arithmetic operations (including the calculation of squares, square roots, cubes, and cubic roots) for both integers and fractions, reductions of fractions, and proportions. The second part presents mixture problems and various series before it breaks off in the midst of rules for plane figures. The topics of the remaining sections are ditches, brick piling, timber sawing, heaped-up grain, shadows, and zero, according to the table of contents given at the beginning of the work.
Shridhara composed Ganitasara and Ganitapanchavimashi as epitomes of a larger work, which may or may not have been Patiganita. He extended Aryabhata’s list (c. 499) of names of the first 10 decimal places to 18 places; the new list was inherited by most Hindu mathematicians after him. The topics treated by him included combinations of tastes (combinatorics involving the six tastes of bitter, sour, sweet, salty, astringent, and hot), geometric progressions, geometric expressions of arithmetic progressions (by means of trapeziums called “series figures”), the problem of the “Hundred Fowls,” and the “Cistern Problem.” He gave the first correct formulas in India for the volume of a sphere and of a truncated cone. He used two approximations for π, the traditional Jain value of Square root of√10 as well as 22/7. Bhaskara II cites Shridhara’s rule for quadratic equations that allows two solutions of a single equation, in so far as they are positive, probably from Shridhara’s lost work on bija-ganita.
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a3fbd0b2e12ad95d8d9a636255b7b11a | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shripati | Shripati | Shripati
Shripati, (flourished c. 1045, Rohinikhanda, India), Indian astronomer-astrologer and mathematician whose astrological writings were particularly influential.
Shripati wrote various works in the first two of the three branches of astral science (jyotihshastra)—namely, mathematics (including astronomy), horoscopic astrology, and natural astrology (divination). For the first branch, he wrote Ganitatilaka (“The Ornament of Mathematics”) and the astronomical works Siddhantashekhara (“The Crest of Established Doctrines”), Dhikotidakarana (“Procedure Giving Intellectual Climax”), and Dhruvamanasa (“Permanent Mind”). Siddhantashekhara is modeled on Brahma-sphuta-siddhanta, a work by Brahmagupta (598–c. 665), and includes two chapters on mathematics; as one of the few surviving documents from this period, it sheds important light on the state of Indian algebra between Brahmagupta and Bhaskara II (1114–c. 1185).
For horoscopic astrology, Shripati wrote Jatakakarmapaddhati (“Way to the Computation of Nativity”), Jyotisharatnamala (“A Jewel Necklace of Astral Science”), and possibly Daivajnavallabha (“A Lover of Fortune-Tellers”). Jyotisharatnamala was modeled on Jyotisharatnakosha, an astrological work by the 8th-century Indian astronomer-astrologer Lalla. The two works ascribed with certainty to Shripati were highly influential on the development of astrology in India, and many commentaries were written on them.
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5d9a19835147e6890f35aa8264e52c3a | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shu-ilishu | Shu-ilishu | Shu-ilishu
…Ur, and under his successor, Shu-ilishu, a statue of the moon god Nanna, the city god of Ur, was recovered from the Elamites, who had carried it off. Up to the reign of Lipit-Ishtar (c. 1934–c. 1924), the rulers of Isin so resembled those of Ur, as far as the…
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a61d0c7360310f5b54f2f03f97840c03 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shubun | Shūbun | Shūbun
Shūbun, , also called Tenshō Shūbun, (born 14th century?, Ōmi Province, Japan—died 1444–48?, Kyōto), priest-painter who was a key figure in the development of monochromatic ink painting (suiboku-ga) in Japan.
His career represents an intermediate stage between the early suiboku-ga artists, who followed their Chinese models quite closely, and the later masters, many of them his pupils, who handled their materials in a thoroughly Japanese manner. Shūbun was affiliated with the Shōkoku-ji, a temple in Kyōto that was also the home of his painting teacher, Josetsu, and, later, of his most outstanding student, Sesshū. Shūbun became a professional painter around 1403, the year he went to Korea. After returning to Japan in the following year, he became the director of the court painting bureau, which had been established by the Ashikaga shoguns (family of military dictators who ruled Japan from 1338 to 1573), and, as such, used his influence to promote ink painting to the status of the official painting style.
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68f33bf2f76b7e8c6a985083bc61a72b | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shuja-al-Dawlah | Shujāʿ-al-Dawlah | Shujāʿ-al-Dawlah
Shujāʿal-Dawlah received back Avadh, with a guarantee of its security, in return for paying the troops involved and a cash indemnity. These two were to be buffers between the company and the Marathas and possible marauders from the north.
…handed Allahabad and Kora to Shujāʿ al-Dawlah of Avadh in return for a subsidy and a treaty. The following year he found himself assisting the nawab of Avadh to crush the Afghan Rohillas in the Ganges–Yamuna Doab (this stroke was the first item in the indictment at his impeachment, but…
The third nawab, Shujāʿ-al-Dawlah, resided there and built a fort over the river in 1764; the mausoleums for him and his wife are located in the city. In 1775 the capital of Oudh was moved to Lucknow, and in the 19th century Faizabad fell into decay.
… (Buxar) had already been won; Shujāʿ al-Dawlah, the nawab of Oudh (Ayodhya), was in flight, and the emperor had joined the British camp. But there was a political and military vacuum between Bengal and Delhi (the Mughal capital), and the whole Bengal administration was in chaos.
He took refuge with Shujāʿ al-Dawlah, nawab of Oudh (Ayodhya), and after his father’s assassination in 1759 he proclaimed himself emperor. With the intention of seeking to capture Delhi, he demanded tribute from Bihar and Bengal and thereby came into conflict with the East India Company. After Shujāʿ al-Dawlah’s…
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935ba7073693d02ea8708143847c1e6b | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shuja-ibn-Mana | Shujāʿ ibn Mana | Shujāʿ ibn Mana
…(1232; British Museum) made by Shujāʿ ibn Mana. The ewer features representational as well as abstract design, depicting battle scenes, animals, and musicians within medallions. Mosul metalworkers also created pieces for eastern Christians. A candlestick of this variety (1238; Museum of Decorative Arts, Paris), attributed to Dāʾūd ibn Salamah of…
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34991e489bef2406814c6824df99397e | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shunzong | Shunzong | Shunzong
…by the brief reign of Shunzong, an invalid monarch whose court was dominated by the clique of Wang Shuwen and Wang Pei. They planned to take control of the palace armies from the eunuchs but failed.
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4fd57001e061ed73fe13c5cbc40caeb4 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shutruk-Nahhunte | Shutruk-Nahhunte | Shutruk-Nahhunte
…opened with the reign of Shutruk-Nahhunte I (c. 1160 bc). Two equally powerful and two rather less impressive kings followed this founder of a new dynasty, whose home was probably Susa, and in this period Elam became one of the great military powers of the Middle East. Tukulti-Ninurta died about…
The Elamite kings Shutruk-Nahhunte and Kutir-Nahhunte invaded Mesopotamia and succeeded in securing a large number of ancient monuments (such as the Victory Stele of Naram-Sin and the stele bearing the law code of Hammurabi). Shilkhak-In-Shushinak campaigned vigorously, and for at least a short period his domain included most…
…fight, facing the conqueror King Shutruk-Nahhunte of Elam (c. 1185–c. 1155). Cruel and fierce, the Elamites finally destroyed the dynasty of the Kassites during these wars (about 1155). Some poetical works lament this catastrophe.
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361475fa2e0fe5b8f44936ca26c0901b | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Si-Lawlor | Si Lawlor | Si Lawlor
…won by the American sailor Si Lawlor. A series of single-handed races, sponsored by the London Observer, began in 1960 and was held quadrennially thereafter. It was in these races that Francis Chichester (later Sir Francis Chichester) attracted attention. Interest in sailing around the world was greatly stimulated by his…
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9f8d9a986a57845f4b7cb7eb0ef491e3 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Si-Votha | Si Votha | Si Votha
…1861 by Norodom’s half brother Si Votha, was put down with the aid of Thai troops. At this point the French, who had been ceded much of Cochinchina (southern Vietnam), sought to assert Vietnamese claims to Cambodian tribute, seeing the adjacent Cambodian provinces as future colonial possessions. The French forced…
…to prevent his younger half-brother Si Votha from seizing the throne. He forced Si Votha out of Oudong, but the Thais recalled him to Bangkok and hastily installed the more compliant Norodom on the throne.
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8049c43cc14c4d95743ae6da1924427b | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Siddhartha-Mukherjee | Siddhartha Mukherjee | Siddhartha Mukherjee
Siddhartha Mukherjee, (born July 21, 1970, New Delhi, India), Indian-born American oncologist and writer celebrated for his effort to demystify cancer with his Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (2010). The work was published to wide acclaim and later formed the basis of the American film documentary Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies (2015).
Mukherjee attended St. Columba’s, a Roman Catholic school in New Delhi, afterward traveling to the United States, where in 1993 he received a B.S. in biology from Stanford University. He studied as a Rhodes scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford, completing a D.Phil. in immunology in 1996 before returning to the United States for medical studies at Harvard University. After earning an M.D. in 2000, Mukherjee trained in internal medicine and oncology as a fellow at Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital.
From 2009, as an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University, Mukherjee investigated hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), the precursors of the cellular components of blood. Dysregulated activation of HSCs from a quiescent state was suspected of contributing to the development of various blood malignancies. Mukherjee’s team worked to identify and characterize genes that regulate HSC quiescence and to identify molecules that could serve as novel targets for anticancer drugs. He and his collaborators discovered compounds that were capable of blocking the activity of leukemia stem cells and found that osteoblasts (bone-forming cells that regulate HSC function) play a critical role in encouraging the development of leukemia in the bone marrow.
Mukherjee conceived of the idea to write The Emperor of All Maladies after realizing that despite decades of research, cancer remained an enigmatic disease. In the book Mukherjee traced cancer from its earliest recorded history to its fate in the modern era of targeted therapy. The book was celebrated for its eloquent and moving portrayal of patients affected by the disease, particularly descriptions of how their determination to survive was fundamental to furthering the understanding of cancer. The work was listed among the All-Time 100 Nonfiction Books (Time magazine’s picks for the top 100 nonfiction works in English since 1923). Shortly after the book was published, film rights were obtained by Laura Ziskin, a film producer and a cofounder of the organization Stand Up to Cancer. American filmmakers Barak Goodman and Ken Burns later made the documentary, which consisted of three two-hour-long episodes.
In Mukherjee’s next major work, The Laws of Medicine: Field Notes from an Uncertain Science (2015), he outlined the little-known precepts that govern medicine and concluded that an understanding of those precepts can enhearten patients as well as the medical community. The Gene: An Intimate History (2016) plumbs the history of genetic research as well as that of Mukherjee’s own family, which had a history of mental illness.
For his contributions to science, Mukherjee was awarded the 2014 Padma Shri, one of India’s highest civilian honours.
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a311e1312abba00037f126b6897a4421 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sidney-Altman | Sidney Altman | Sidney Altman
Sidney Altman, (born May 7, 1939, Montreal, Que., Can.), Canadian American molecular biologist who, with Thomas R. Cech, received the 1989 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their discoveries concerning the catalytic properties of RNA, or ribonucleic acid.
Altman received a B.S. in physics in 1960 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After a brief period as a graduate student in the physics department at Columbia University, Altman changed his course of study and enrolled in the graduate program in biophysics at the University of Colorado. There he studied chemical compounds called acridines, focusing primarily on how these compounds affect the replication of bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria). Altman received a Ph.D. in biophysics in 1967. He then was awarded a fellowship to work at Harvard University, where he conducted research on bacteriophages under the guidance of American molecular biologist Matthew Stanley Meselson. In 1969 Altman became a researcher at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, Eng. There he worked with British biophysicist Francis Crick and South African biologist Sydney Brenner and embarked on the research that would later lead to his Nobel Prize-winning discoveries. Altman joined the biology faculty at Yale University in 1971, where he became a full professor in 1980 and was the department chairman from 1983 to 1985. Altman also served as dean of the undergraduate Yale College from 1985 to 1989. He took U.S. citizenship in 1984 but concurrently retained his Canadian citizenship.
Altman’s initial investigations into RNA concerned a small molecule called transfer RNA (tRNA), which carries amino acids to organelles called ribosomes, where the amino acids are linked into proteins. He isolated and characterized a precursor molecule in the biochemical pathway leading to the synthesis of tRNA and subsequently identified an enzyme called ribonuclease P (RNase P), which cleaved a specific bond within the precursor molecule. This enzymatic cleavage enabled the tRNA synthetic pathway to advance to the next step. During purification of RNase P, Altman discovered that there was an RNA segment within the enzyme and that this segment served as the active, or catalytic, portion of the enzyme.
Altman was working independently of Cech when both discovered the catalytic properties of RNA. The old belief was that enzymatic activity—the triggering and acceleration of vital chemical reactions within living cells—was the exclusive domain of protein molecules. Altman’s and Cech’s revolutionary discovery was that RNA, traditionally thought to be simply a passive carrier of genetic codes between different parts of the living cell, could also take on active enzymatic functions. This knowledge opened up new fields of scientific research and biotechnology and caused scientists to rethink old theories of how cells function. It also led to new hypotheses about the history of the emergence of RNA on Earth and the possibility that RNA was the molecule that gave rise to Earth’s first life forms.
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71cba1fde59b7d190c90137b733a84e7 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sidney-Bechet | Sidney Bechet | Sidney Bechet
Sidney Bechet, (born May 14, 1897, New Orleans—died May 14, 1959, Paris), jazz musician known as a master of the soprano saxophone.
Bechet began as a clarinetist at the age of six and by 1914 was a veteran who had worked in several semilegendary local bands, including those of Jack Carey and Buddy Petit. After working in New Orleans with Clarence Williams and King Oliver, pioneer jazz greats, he moved to Chicago and then, in 1919, to New York City. In that year he toured Europe with the Southern Syncopated Orchestra, becoming the first jazz musician ever to be praised by a distinguished classicist, the Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet. Through the 1920s he gradually concentrated on the soprano saxophone, working briefly with his great admirer Duke Ellington in 1925 before touring Europe again. Intermittently, he worked in the Noble Sissle band (1928–38) and from the late 1940s based himself in Paris, where by the time of his death he had attained the kind of eminence granted to such world-famed Parisians as Maurice Chevalier and Jean Cocteau.
Along with trumpeter Louis Armstrong, Bechet was one of the first musicians to improvise with jazz-swing feeling. He intelligently crafted logical lines atop the New Orleans-style ensemble, double-timing and improvising forcefully and with authority. Bechet produced a large, warm tone with a wide and rapid vibrato. It was his mastery of drama and his use of critically timed deviations in pitch (“note bending”) that had the greatest long-lasting influence, because they were absorbed by his disciple Johnny Hodges, Duke Ellington’s principal soloist from 1928 to 1970. With a style developed around Bechet’s expressive techniques, Hodges became one of the two or three most influential alto saxophonists in the first half of the century. Bechet’s autobiography, Treat It Gentle, was published in 1960.
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954dcd960d34c8f8fec8b082a9a2a5b0 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sidney-Frances-Bateman | Sidney Frances Bateman | Sidney Frances Bateman
Bateman made his stage debut in 1832 and acted in various repertory companies until 1849. Then he, his wife, Sidney Frances, and his two eldest daughters, Kate and Ellen, aged six and four, respectively, began to tour widely as stars. Later Ellen played Richard III,…
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7c8146b08ed1078eaaedfca15970f9e0 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sidney-Godolphin-Alexander-Shippard | Sir Sidney Godolphin Alexander Shippard | Sir Sidney Godolphin Alexander Shippard
Sir Sidney Godolphin Alexander Shippard, (born May 29, 1837, Brussels, Belg.—died March 29, 1902, London, Eng.), British colonial official in South Africa who served as administrator in the Bechuanaland Protectorate (now Botswana) from 1885 to 1895 and was closely associated with the empire builder Cecil Rhodes.
The scion of a naval family, Shippard was educated in the law, which he practiced later as an advocate in Cape Colony. In 1873 he was appointed attorney general of Griqualand West and four years later became recorder of the high court. From 1880 to 1885 he served as a Cape Supreme Court judge. When the British established a protectorate in Bechuanaland, he served as chief magistrate and administrator. He was knighted in 1887.
Shippard enthusiastically approved Rhodes’s plans to extend British influence northward into central Africa in order to forestall a possible advance there by the Germans or the Boers. He supported Rhodes on several crucial occasions. In 1888 he visited Lobengula, ruler of Matabeleland-Mashonaland (now in Zimbabwe), and persuaded Lobengula to grant to Rhodes’s agents the C.O. Rudd mineral concession, which led to the chartering of Rhodes’s British South Africa Company the following year. Shippard retired to England in 1895 and served as a director of the British South Africa Company until his death.
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fc6ece0e217c9f487f7416e4f29ac24d | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Siegfried-Sassoon | Siegfried Sassoon | Siegfried Sassoon
Siegfried Sassoon, (born Sept. 8, 1886, Brenchley, Kent, Eng.—died Sept. 1, 1967, Heytesbury, Wiltshire), English poet and novelist, known for his antiwar poetry and for his fictionalized autobiographies, praised for their evocation of English country life.
Sassoon enlisted in World War I and was twice wounded seriously while serving as an officer in France. It was his antiwar poetry, such as The Old Huntsman (1917) and Counterattack (1918), and his public affirmation of pacifism, after he had won the Military Cross and was still in the army, that made him widely known. His antiwar protests were at first attributed to shell shock, and he was confined for a time in a sanatorium, where he met and influenced another pacifist soldier-poet, Wilfred Owen, whose works he published after Owen was killed at the front. His autobiographical works include The Memoirs of George Sherston, 3 vol. (1928–36), and Siegfried’s Journey, 3 vol. (1945), and more of his poems were published as Collected Poems (1947) and The Path to Peace (1960). His later poetry was increasingly devotional.
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01d6b80fe353a8813b80e1a448ad523f | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sigmund-Romberg | Sigmund Romberg | Sigmund Romberg
Sigmund Romberg, (born July 29, 1887, Nagykanizsa, Austria-Hungary [now in Hungary]—died November 9, 1951, New York, New York, U.S.), Hungarian-born American composer whose works include several successful operettas.
Romberg was educated in Vienna as an engineer, but he also studied composition and became a skilled violinist and organist. In 1909 he went to New York City. There, as conductor of an orchestra in a fashionable restaurant, he started the practice, then rare, of playing music for dancing.
Employed as staff composer by the impresario Jacob Shubert, Romberg prepared scores for about 40 musical shows. His first outstanding operetta, Maytime, was produced in 1917. Blossom Time (1921), based on the life of Franz Schubert, featured songs derived from that composer’s works. There followed in the 1920s a series of operettas popular for their romantic plots and richly melodic songs. They include the operetta The Student Prince (1924; based on the German play Alt Heidelberg by Wilhelm Meyer-Förster), with the songs “Deep in My Heart” and “Drinking Song”; The Desert Song (1926), remembered for the title song and “One Alone”; and The New Moon (1928), with “Lover, Come Back to Me” (melody adapted in part from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s June: Barcarolle).
From 1929 Romberg wrote songs for motion pictures and in 1933 composed an operetta, Rose de France, produced in Paris. In 1942–43 he led a series of concerts, “An Evening with Sigmund Romberg.” His last successful work was a musical comedy, Up in Central Park (1945).
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5f94a7ad2a8af26ec8922a34e2d30002 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sigmund-Sternberg | Sir Sigmund Sternberg | Sir Sigmund Sternberg
Sir Sigmund Sternberg, (born June 2, 1921, Budapest, Hungary—died October 18, 2016, London, England), Hungarian-born British philanthropist and entrepreneur who was known for his efforts to foster connectedness between various religious faiths. He was the founder and president of the Sternberg Foundation, as well as the founder of the Sternberg Centre for Judaism.
The seeds of Sternberg’s interest in improving interfaith relations were sown during his childhood through his early awareness of the absence of dialogue between Roman Catholics and Jews. Owing to quota restrictions for Jews at the University of Budapest and to the rise of Nazism, he left Hungary for the United Kingdom in 1939. At the outbreak of World War II in September of that year, he was classified by the British government as a “friendly enemy alien”; Hungary was not at war with Britain but was not an ally. Because of this classification, he could not attend school and so began to work in metal recycling. He established his own business in that industry, became a member of the London Metal Exchange (1945), and was naturalized as a British citizen (1947).
Sternberg’s involvement in business, civic life, and charitable causes paved the way for his interfaith work. He formed a charitable organization, the Sternberg Foundation, in 1968, and in 1979 he joined the International Council of Christians and Jews, an umbrella organization created to fight anti-Semitism, racism, and xenophobia. In 1981 he founded the Sternberg Centre for Judaism, then Europe’s largest Jewish cultural centre. His many accomplishments included helping to arrange the first-ever papal visit to a synagogue (Rome, 1986), helping to establish diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Israel (1993), and assisting in the creation of the Three Faiths Forum to promote mutual understanding between Islam, Christianity, and Judaism (1997).
Sternberg was perhaps best known for his facilitation of the Geneva Declaration (1987), an agreement calling for the removal of a Carmelite convent that had been established in the mid-1980s at the site of the World War II Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz in Poland. Although the nuns’ intent was to pray for the camp’s victims, many considered their presence an intrusion in a setting where nearly two million Jews were killed during the Holocaust. Prior to Sternberg’s intercession in 1989, relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the Jewish people had deteriorated. Sternberg negotiated with Poland’s Józef Cardinal Glemp, who agreed to the move, which was completed in 1993.
Sternberg was the recipient of numerous honours. Following the bestowal of his knighthood in 1976 by Queen Elizabeth II, in 1985 he was named a Knight Commander of the Pontifical and Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great at the request of Pope John Paul II; he was only the second Jew so named in the United Kingdom. In 1998 Sternberg won the Templeton Prize for having “advanced public understanding of God and spirituality.” Sternberg was the second Jew—and the first Reform Jew—to receive the prize, which was established by Sir John Templeton in 1972 to recognize achievements related to humanity’s spiritual dimension. In 2008 Sternberg received the St. Mellitus Medal from the bishop of London, in recognition of his continued promotion of interfaith relations. That same year he accepted the Responsible Capitalism Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by British Foreign Secretary David Miliband.
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b834b48e6bc9f699a7423c05e2608dd2 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Silius-Italicus | Silius Italicus | Silius Italicus
Silius Italicus, in full Tiberius Catius Asconius Silius Italicus, (born c. ad 26, Patavium [now Padua, Italy]—died 102), Latin epic poet whose 17-book, 12,000-line Punica on the Second Punic War (218–201 bc) is the longest poem in Latin literature.
Silius was a distinguished advocate in his earlier years. He later took to public service and was a consul in 68, the year of Nero’s death. His association with the emperor Nero was a stain on his reputation that he later expunged through his successful governorship of Asia. He then retired from public life.
As a man of wealth, Silius was able to indulge his tastes as a patron of literature and the arts. He so venerated Virgil and Cicero that he bought and restored Virgil’s tomb at Neapolis (now Naples) and Cicero’s estate at Tusculum. His clients included Martial, who wrote several epigrams dedicated to him. The modern idea that Silius was a Stoic is based on a story about a man named Italicus told by the Stoic philosopher Epictetus. There is no evidence in Punica for the author’s Stoicism, but some find evidence for it in the manner in which he ended his life. Suffering from an incurable disease, Silius starved himself to death, according to Pliny the Younger.
Silius draws heavily on the historian Livy (Books 21–30) for his material. He recounts all six battles of the Second Punic War, imitating Virgil’s Aeneid in form and mythology. His Hannibal is drawn with some dramatic skill, stealing the place of hero from Scipio, and he describes at length in the centre of the poem Hannibal’s victory over two consular armies at Cannae. The epic has been harshly judged by critics and has been scarcely edited since the 18th century. Though the last three books show signs—as well they might—of fatigue, there are at least a half dozen magnificent pieces of verse, mostly in dramatic scenes of war. Recent years have seen more favourable treatment, and a critical edition of the Latin text was made by Joseph Delz (1987).
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10f317c606c5e3d6f426a533e68092e9 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Silvestro-Lega | Silvestro Lega | Silvestro Lega
…his usually socially conscious scenes; Silvestro Lega (1826–95), who combined a clearly articulated handling of colour patches with a poetic feeling for his subject; and Raffaello Sernesi (1838–66) and Giuseppe Abbati (1836–68), both of whom also used colour in a highly original manner.
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1a5164221a99e234a5a5710b992fc8be | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Silvia-queen-consort-of-Sweden | Silvia | Silvia
Silvia, original name in full Silvia Renate Sommerlath, (born Dec. 23, 1943, Heidelberg, Ger.), queen consort of Sweden (1976– ), wife of King Carl XVI Gustaf.
Silvia was born in Heidelberg, Ger., to a Brazilian mother and German father. When she was three years old, her family moved to São Paulo, where she spent much of her childhood. After they returned to West Germany in 1957, Silvia completed her schooling, receiving a degree in Spanish in 1969 from the Munich School of Interpreting. Following graduation she worked at the Argentine consulate in Munich and served as hostess at the 1972 Olympic Games, where she met Carl Gustaf, who was then crown prince of Sweden. After a courtship spanning some four years—during which time Carl Gustaf was enthroned (1973)—the couple married on June 19, 1976. They had three children: Crown Princess Victoria (b. July 14, 1977), Prince Carl Philip (b. May 13, 1979), and Princess Madeleine (b. June 10, 1982).
As queen, Silvia directed much of her energy toward organizations serving the needs of children. She was especially involved in efforts to end the sexual exploitation of children. In July 2007 she caused controversy when, during a rare television interview, she denounced Sweden’s weak child pornography laws and called on the Riksdag (parliament) to take action. Many Swedes, even those who agreed with her motivation, questioned whether it was appropriate for the queen to speak out on the issue, especially in light of the Swedish royalty’s status from the 1970s as figureheads with no executive power. Silvia was also involved in the World Childhood Foundation, an organization she founded (1999) that was dedicated to improving living conditions for youths around the world. Her other initiatives included the promotion of resources for dementia patients and the disabled.
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e409eac746d9758e872046b37816aae9 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Silvio-Mayorga | Silvio Mayorga | Silvio Mayorga
…1962 by Carlos Fonseca Amador, Silvio Mayorga, and Tomás Borge Martínez as a revolutionary group committed to socialism and to the overthrow of the Somoza family. Over the next 10 years the FSLN organized political support among students, workers, and peasants. By the mid-1970s its attacks on the Nicaraguan National…
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8627a2262db73b9383a3ae5b12d9326e | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Simanas-Daukantas | Simanas Daukantas | Simanas Daukantas
Simanas Daukantas, (born Oct. 28, 1793, Kalviai, Lithuania—died Dec. 6 [Nov. 24, old style], 1864, Papilė, Lithuania, Russian Empire), historian who was the first to write a history of Lithuania in Lithuanian and a pioneer of the Lithuanian national renaissance.
Daukantas studied languages and literature at the University of Vilnius (at Vilnius, former capital of Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire; 1816–18) and then philosophy, law, and history. He received his master of law degree in 1825. After 10 years as a translator in the office of the governor general in Riga, Latvia, where he had access to the archives, he went to St. Petersburg in 1835 to take a post in the senate office and archives, where he was able to study important Lithuanian state documents. He retired because of ill health in 1850.
Daukantas’ two main historical works are Būdas senovės lietuvių, kalnėnų ir žemaičių (1845; “The Character of the Lithuanians, Highlanders, and Samogitians”) and Istorija žemaitiška (written before 1838 and first published in serial form in a U.S. Lithuanian newspaper, 1891–96; “History of Samogitia”). Because he was concerned with uplifting and instilling national pride in the Lithuanian people, he idealized his nation’s past. The importance of his works lies in their influence on the Lithuanian national movement, as well as in the quality of his writing.
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9d12634b1d1489c0a990fd201640f97b | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Simon-Bolivar/Bolivia | Bolivia | Bolivia
Bolívar was now president of Gran Colombia and dictator of Peru. Only a small section of the continent—Upper Peru—was still defended by royalist forces. The liberation of that region fell to Sucre, and in April 1825 he reported that the task had been accomplished. The new country chose to be called Bolivia, a variation on the Liberator’s name. For that child of his genius, Bolívar drafted a constitution that showed once more his authoritarian inclinations: it created a lifetime president, a legislative body consisting of three chambers, and a highly restricted suffrage. Bolívar was devoted to his own creation, but, as the instrument of social reform that he had envisaged, the constitution was a failure.
Bolívar had now reached the high point of his career. His power extended from the Caribbean to the Argentine-Bolivian border. He had conquered severe illness, which during his sojourn in Peru had made him practically an invalid for months at a time. Another of his favourite projects, a league of Hispanic American states, came to fruition in 1826. He had long advocated treaties of alliance between the American republics, whose weakness he correctly apprehended. By 1824 such treaties had been signed and ratified by the republics of Colombia, Peru, Mexico, the United Provinces of Central America, and the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata. In 1826 a general American congress convened in Panama under Bolívar’s auspices. Compared with Bolívar’s original proposals, it was a fragmentary affair, with only Colombia, Peru, Central America, and Mexico sending representatives. The four countries that attended signed a treaty of alliance and invited all other American countries to adhere to it. A common army and navy were planned, and a biannual assembly representing the federated states was projected. All controversies among the states were to be solved by arbitration. Only Colombia ratified the treaty, yet the congress in Panama provided an important example for future hemispheric solidarity and understanding in South America.
Bolívar was aware that his plans for hemispheric organization had met with only limited acceptance. His contemporaries thought in terms of individual nation-states, Bolívar in terms of continents. In the field of domestic policy he continued to be an authoritarian republican. He thought of himself as a rallying point and anticipated civil war as soon as his words should no longer be heeded. Such a prophecy, made in 1824, was fulfilled in 1826.
Venezuela and New Granada began to chafe at the bonds of their union in Gran Colombia. The protagonists in each country, Páez in Venezuela and Santander in New Granada, opposed each other, and at last civil war broke out. Bolívar left Lima in haste, and most authorities agree that Peru was glad to see the end of his three-year reign and its liberation from Colombian influence. In Bogotá, Bolívar found Santander upholding the constitution of Cúcuta and urging that Páez be punished as a rebel. Bolívar, however, was determined to preserve the unity of Gran Colombia and was therefore willing to appease Páez, with whom he became reconciled early in 1827. Páez bowed to the supreme authority of the Liberator, and in turn Bolívar promised a new constitution that would remedy Venezuelan grievances. He declared himself dictator of Gran Colombia and called for a national convention that met in April 1828. Bolívar refused to influence the elections, with the result that the liberals under the leadership of Santander gained the majority.
Bolívar had hoped that the constitution of Cúcuta would be revised and presidential authority strengthened, but the liberals blocked any such attempts. A stalemate developed. Arguing that the old constitution was no longer valid and that no new one had taken its place, Bolívar assumed dictatorial powers in Gran Colombia. A group of liberal conspirators invaded the presidential palace on the night of September 25, and Bolívar was saved from the daggers of the assassins only by the quick-wittedness of Manuela Sáenz. Although the attempt on his life failed, the storm signals increased. Bolívar’s precarious health began to fail. Peru invaded Ecuador with the intention of annexing Guayaquil. Once more Sucre saved Ecuador and defeated the Peruvians at Tarqui (1829). A few months later one of Bolívar’s most-honoured generals, José María Córdoba, staged a revolt. It was crushed, but Bolívar was disheartened by the continued ingratitude of his former adherents. In the fall of 1829 Venezuela seceded from Gran Colombia.
Reluctantly, Bolívar realized that his very existence presented a danger to the internal and external peace of the nations that owed their independence to him, and on May 8, 1830, he left Bogotá, planning to take refuge in Europe. Reaching the Atlantic coast, he learned that Sucre, whom he had trained as his successor, had been assassinated. Bolívar’s grief was boundless. The projected trip to Europe was canceled, and, at the invitation of a Spanish admirer, Bolívar journeyed to his estate near Santa Marta. Ironically, his life ended in the house of a Spaniard, where, toward the end of 1830, he died of tuberculosis.
Bolívar is regarded by many as the greatest genius the Latin American world has produced. He was a man of international renown in his own day, and his reputation has steadily increased since his death. There are few figures in European history and none in the history of the United States who display the rare combination of strength and weakness, character and temperament, prophetic vision and poetic power that distinguish Simón Bolívar. As a consequence, his life and his work have grown to mythical dimensions among the people of his continent.
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f5470341af30b56d20cccf69150c7caf | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Simon-de-Colines | Simon de Colines | Simon de Colines
Simon de Colines, (born 1480—died 1546), French printer who pioneered the use of italic types in France. He worked as a partner of Henri Estienne, the founder of an important printing house in Paris.
Estienne died in 1520, and Colines married his widow and was in charge of the press until Estienne’s son Robert I entered the business in 1526, by which time Colines had set up his own shop nearby. In 1528 he began to use italic type. Colines published many Greek and Latin classics. Although he was not a scholar himself, he extended the range of the Estienne firm’s learned and scientific works to include the natural sciences, cosmology, and astrology. He is credited with the design of italic and Greek fonts and of a roman face for St. Augustine’s Sylvius (1531), from which the Garamond types were derived. In 1525 he published the notable Grandes Heures de Simon de Colines, with decorations by Geoffroy Tory.
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f1a0de32fa20fcb7a2d3acc000ee34de | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Simon-Le-Moyne | Simon Le Moyne | Simon Le Moyne
The Jesuit missionary Father Simon Le Moyne in 1654 was the first European to note the site’s brine springs (later the basis of a salt industry). A mission and Fort Sainte Marie de Gannentaha were established nearby in 1655–56, but Indian hostility and the swampy location (notorious for summer…
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0c1a14349e69c42530d3f4aad3889d96 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Simon-Magus | Simon Magus | Simon Magus
Simon Magus, (Latin), English Simon the Magician, or The Sorcerer, (flourished 1st century ad), practitioner of magical arts who probably came from Gitta, a village in biblical Samaria. Simon, according to the New Testament account in Acts of the Apostles 8:9–24, after becoming a Christian, offered to purchase from the Apostles Peter and John the supernatural power of transmitting the Holy Spirit, thus giving rise to the term simony (q.v.) as the buying or selling of sacred things or ecclesiastical office. Later references in certain early Christian writings identify him as the founder of post-Christian Gnosticism, a dualist religious sect advocating salvation through secret knowledge, and as the archetypal heretic of the Christian Church.
Having been revered by the people of northern Palestine as possessing vast preternatural powers, Simon Magus manifested his own admiration for the power of Christian evangelization when, in the New Testament story, he requested Baptism from Philip the Deacon. The biblical account concludes with Simon’s repentance and apparent reconciliation with Christianity after his condemnation by St. Peter.
The 2nd-century theologian Justin Martyr relates that Simon visited Rome at the time of the emperor Claudius (41–54) and was there deified by followers fascinated with his miracle working. Archaeological finds reputed to have confirmed Simon’s divinization have not proved genuine.
Other Christian documents of the 3rd century state that Simon Magus, in the role of false Messiah, had further confrontations with St. Peter at Rome. According to legend, on challenging the Apostle before the emperor Nero (54–68), Simon fell to his destruction from atop the Roman Forum in an attempt to demonstrate his occult ability to fly. Still other sources portray him as the individual responsible for the eclectic fusion of Stoicism and Gnosticism, known as “The Great Pronouncement.”
Simon’s quasi-Trinitarian Gnostic teaching, wherein he, with the title “the Great Power of God,” appeared to the Jews as a mediating, suffering “Son of God,” to the Samaritans as “Father,” and to the pagan world as “Holy Spirit,” is contained in the early Christian writings known as the Clementine literature. The mythic form of these documents raises doubts as to whether the biblical Simon Magus and the Simon of later apocryphal sources are the same.
In the 2nd century a Simonian sect arose that viewed Simon Magus as the first God, or Father, and he was sometimes worshipped as the incarnation of the Greek god Zeus. His consort Helen was regarded by his followers as the earthly manifestation of Athena.
In the Simonian creation myth, the first thought (Ennoia) was produced from the Father’s mind in order to create the angels, who in turn created the visible universe. These angels, however, imprisoned the first thought out of jealousy, placing her in a human body so that she could not return to the Father. She was thus doomed to pass from body to body, the most recent being that of Helen. In order to redeem his first thought, the Father descended in human shape as Simon and offered salvation to human beings if they would recognize him as the first God.
The Simonian doctrine of salvation differed from that of the other Gnostic groups, for it promised redemption within the temporal order, whereas other Gnostics could conceive of salvation as attainable only by escaping their earthly prison.
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b73ee6da9b1885f8c3c62533489fd8a0 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Simon-Ushakov | Simon Ushakov | Simon Ushakov
Simon Ushakov, (born 1626, Moscow, Russia—died June 25, 1686, Moscow), iconographer, portrait painter, builder of monuments, designer, cartographer, book illustrator, theoretician, and teacher who was the most distinguished Russian artist of the 17th century. He was for many years the head of the Imperial Icon Painting Workshop in the Kremlin Armory.
Ushakov lived during an era of great changes, and, like the masters of the Renaissance, he worked in a wide range of media. At the same time, he was representative of traditional Muscovite piety and an admirer of monasticism. One of the icons he painted was celebrated for its healing powers, and—according to the hagiography of Saint Hyllarion, who was related to Ushakov—miracles occurred in Ushakov’s Moscow home near the Church of the Trinity in Nikitniki.
Ushakov worked under the tsar’s patronage from an early age and at 22 became the head of the silver workshop of the Kremlin Armory, where he created ecclesiastic paraphernalia, furniture for the imperial household, and coins. He also drew maps and painted icons and frescos, and in 1664 he became head of the icon painting workshop. He was accorded nobility and riches (including an estate near Moscow).
In addition to a multitude of frescoes for the churches of the Kremlin and palace buildings, icons for the imperial family, and portraits of them, Ushakov painted icons for his local church, the aforementioned Church of the Trinity in Nikitniki, throughout his life. He also worked at times for other churches, monasteries, and private patrons. In the spirit of the reforms of Patriarch Nikon, who strove to bring the Russian church in line with the traditions of Greek Orthodoxy, Ushakov in his icons chose to reflect the countenances of Greek icons, many of which had been brought from the Orthodox east, and of old Russian icons that had been painted in the Greek style. Ushakov believed, like many other icon painters, that the saints in icons should look revived and illuminated, and indeed, critics agree that he did manage to fill his icons with feeling and light. But he did this while uniting traditional Byzantine formulas (flattened figures in hieratic poses) with the chiaroscuro and perspective of Western painting, as was also done in the Greco-Italian iconography that Ushakov favoured. This style, however, ultimately worked counter to his intentions. By inspiring his icons with life and strength, Ushakov was unable to withstand the secularization of his iconography.
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af8ff780cb395afbc6ab0f65aee71da8 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Simone-Boccanegra | Simone Boccanegra | Simone Boccanegra
…resulted in the election of Simone Boccanegra (1301–63), descendant of Guglielmo’s brother Lanfranco, as the first Genoese doge. Deposed in 1344, Simone fled with his family to Pisa, returning to office in 1356 with the aid of the Visconti, the rulers of Milan. According to tradition, he was poisoned at…
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37716dc660b97f10bc1f3bf710d8cac3 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Simone-Martini | Simone Martini | Simone Martini
Simone Martini, (born c. 1284, Siena, Republic of Siena [Italy]—died 1344, Avignon, Provence, France), important exponent of Gothic painting who did more than any other artist to spread the influence of Sienese painting.
Simone was very possibly a pupil of Duccio di Buoninsegna, from whom he probably inherited his love of harmonious, pure colours and most of his early figure types. To these he added a gracefulness of line and delicacy of interpretation that were inspired by French Gothic works that the young artist studied in Italy. He carried to perfection the decorative line of the Gothic style and subordinated volume to the rhythm of this line.
Simone’s earliest documented painting is the large fresco of the Maestà in the Sala del Mappamondo of the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena. The fresco depicts the enthroned Madonna and Child with angels and saints. This painting, which is signed and dated 1315 but was retouched by Simone himself in 1321, is a free version of Duccio’s Maestà of 1308–11. But the hierarchic structure of Duccio’s work has been replaced by a growing interest in illusionary perspective, and the abstract character and lack of setting of the earlier work has given way to concrete concepts: Simone’s Virgin, crowned and splendidly attired, is a Gothic queen who holds court beneath a Gothic canopy.
About 1317 the artist painted, in Naples, the highly spiritual altarpiece St. Louis of Toulouse Crowning His Brother, King Robert of Anjou. Two years later he composed for the church of Santa Caterina, Pisa, a colouristically magnificent Madonna polyptych. Perhaps in the middle of the 1320s he began the 10 scenes, full of chivalrous ideals, from the life of St. Martin of Tours in this saint’s chapel in the lower church of San Francesco, Assisi. His equestrian portrait (1328) representing Guidoriccio da Fogliano, general of the Sienese republic, was perhaps the first Sienese work of art that did not serve a religious purpose. It was also an important precedent for the numerous equestrian portraits of the Renaissance. On the other hand, the Annunciation triptych, painted for the Siena Cathedral (but now in the Uffizi, Florence), is deliberately unreal. Simone signed this work in 1333 with his brother-in-law, the Sienese painter Lippo Memmi, an associate for many years. The exquisite rhythm of the lines and dematerialized forms of Gabriel and Mary in the central portion of The Annunciation led a number of artists to imitation, but none of them achieved such vibrant contours and such spirited forms as did Simone in this great masterpiece.
In 1340 the painter settled at the papal court in Avignon, where he made the acquaintance of Petrarch. He executed for the poet a portrait (now lost) of his beloved Laura, a fact known from two of Petrarch’s sonnets in which Simone is eulogized.
Simone was the most important Sienese painter after Duccio. His influence in Siena was great in the 14th century and considerable in the 15th. His art was imitated by local painters in Naples, Pisa, Orvieto, Assisi, and Avignon.
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3a93751b1b7144ee6902ce3702b1526b | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sin-shar-ishkun | Sin-shar-ishkun | Sin-shar-ishkun
…throne, but his twin brother Sin-shar-ishkun did not recognize him. The fight between them and their supporters forced the old king to withdraw to Harran, in 632 at the latest, perhaps ruling from there over the western part of the empire until his death in 627. Ashur-etel-ilani governed in Assyria…
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458b77c058662e9a7239ec7f0b8ae841 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sin-shum-lisher | Sin-shum-lisher | Sin-shum-lisher
…about 633, but a general, Sin-shum-lisher, soon rebelled against him and proclaimed himself counter-king. Some years later (629?) Sin-shar-ishkun finally succeeded in obtaining the kingship. In Babylonian documents dates can be found for all three kings. To add to the confusion, until 626 there are also dates of Ashurbanipal and…
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3dc042e013eddbded19eda0df891a088 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sir-Alexander-John-Ball-1st-Baronet | Sir Alexander John Ball, 1st Baronet | Sir Alexander John Ball, 1st Baronet
Sir Alexander John Ball, 1st Baronet, (born July 22, 1757, Ebworth Park, Painswick, Gloucestershire, England—died October 25, 1809, Attard, Malta), rear admiral, a close friend of Admiral Lord Nelson, who directed the blockade of Malta (1798–1800) and served as civil commissioner (governor) of the island (1802–09).
Ball served under Admiral Sir George Rodney in the West Indies and was present at Rodney’s great victory over the French in the Battle of the Saints off Dominica (April 12, 1782). Promoted to captain in 1783, Ball did not receive his first command until 1790. On May 21, 1798, he saved Lord Nelson’s flagship from running ashore after being dismasted in a storm, and the two became close friends.
On February 9, 1799, while he was blockading Malta, the island’s legislature elected him president and commander in chief. After the French had surrendered Malta (September 1800), the British Admiralty withheld Ball from naval service despite Nelson’s plea in his favour. That year he was created a baronet and later became the de facto governor of Malta, where he remained the rest of his life. He was praised highly by the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who was his secretary on Malta in 1804.
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02ec2043f901dd611de33fdf78002c85 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sir-Arthur-Travers-Harris-1st-Baronet | Sir Arthur Travers Harris, 1st Baronet | Sir Arthur Travers Harris, 1st Baronet
Sir Arthur Travers Harris, 1st Baronet, byname Bomber Harris, (born April 13, 1892, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England—died April 5, 1984, Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire), British air officer who initiated and directed the “saturation bombing” that the Royal Air Force inflicted on Germany during World War II.
Harris was reared in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and educated in English public schools. He joined the 1st Rhodesian Regiment at the outbreak of World War I and served in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia). Following his return to England in 1915, he joined the Royal Flying Corps and eventually commanded various squadrons in France and at home. After the war he was given a regular commission in the Royal Air Force (RAF). Throughout the 1920s and ’30s, he served at several posts in Iraq, India, and Britain and in the Air Ministry.
Harris was made an air commodore in 1937, was named air vice-marshal in 1939, and rose to air marshal in 1941 and to commander in chief of the RAF Bomber Command in February 1942. A firm believer in mass raids, Air Marshal Harris developed the saturation technique of mass bombing—that of concentrating clouds of bombers in a giant raid on a single city, with the object of completely demolishing its civilian quarters. Conducted in tandem with American precision bombing of specific military and industrial sites by day, saturation bombing was intended to break the will and ability of the German people to continue the war. Harris applied this method with great destructive effect in Germany—most notably in the firebombings of Hamburg and Dresden. During the preparations for the Normandy Invasion in early 1944, Harris was subordinate to American commanders such as Dwight D. Eisenhower and Carl Spaatz and directed the destruction of transportation and communication centres in cities all across German-occupied France.
Harris retired in September 1945 and the following year was made marshal of the RAF. Soon after, he wrote his story of Bomber Command’s achievements in Bomber Offensive (1947). The morality and even the efficacy of saturation bombing came under severe question after the war, and, disappointed by such reappraisal of his war aims and methods, Harris lived for a time in South Africa, where from 1946 to 1953 he was managing director of the South African Marine Corporation. He was created a baronet in 1953.
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508a866b10d2b7db0e23977f6311a4da | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sir-Gilbert-Parker-Baronet | Sir Gilbert Parker, Baronet | Sir Gilbert Parker, Baronet
Sir Gilbert Parker, Baronet, in full Sir Horatio Gilbert Parker, Baronet, (born Nov. 23, 1862, Camden East, Ont., Can.—died Sept. 6, 1932, London), British novelist of popular adventure and historical romances whose most widely known work was The Seats of the Mighty (1896), a novel of the 17th-century conquest of Quebec.
From 1885 to 1889 Parker traveled widely in Australia and the South Seas, after which he settled in London and began writing his spirited stories and novels, in which he skillfully combined energetic action, vivid characterizations, and rich local colour with accuracy of historical detail. In politics Parker became a prominent imperialist and was a member of Parliament from 1900 to 1918. He was knighted in 1902, was made a baronet in 1915, and became a privy councillor in 1916. (His marriage resulted in no issue, and the baronetcy became extinct upon his death.)
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a82052df87d697f8c341e4e8c52b3eb2 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sir-Henry-Hughes-Wilson-Baronet | Sir Henry Hughes Wilson, Baronet | Sir Henry Hughes Wilson, Baronet
Sir Henry Hughes Wilson, Baronet, (born May 5, 1864, near Edgeworthstown, County Longford, Ire.—died June 22, 1922, London, Eng.), British field marshal, chief of the British imperial general staff, and main military adviser to Prime Minister David Lloyd George in the last year of World War I. While in the War Office as director of military operations (1910–14), he determined that Great Britain should support France in a war against Germany on the basis of French requirements, a policy not favoured by many British leaders.
A soldier from the early 1880s, Wilson rose to the command of the Staff College at Camberley, Surrey (1907–10). During this period he cultivated the friendship of his counterpart at the French war college, General (afterward Marshal) Ferdinand Foch—an association that may account for Wilson’s readiness to involve Great Britain in French strategy. He played a dubious part in the Curragh incident (March 1914), surreptitiously encouraging some British army officers who refused to lead troops against Ulster opponents of Irish Home Rule.
On the outbreak of World War I, the British government chose Wilson’s policy of fighting in France alongside French armies in preference to attacking the German invaders in Belgium, the strategy of the commander in chief, Field Marshal Earl Roberts. Wilson agreed with Roberts, however, on the necessity of military conscription (not instituted until 1916). The smooth mobilization of the standing army and its rapid movement to France in August 1914 may be credited largely to Wilson’s prewar planning.
Wilson himself soon went to France as assistant chief of the general staff. His only field command in the war (December 1915–December 1916) was marked by the loss to the Germans of a sector of Vimy Ridge, near Arras, by his IV Corps. In September 1917 he took over the Eastern Command, a position that enabled him to live in London and ingratiate himself with Lloyd George. As chief of the imperial general staff (from Feb. 18, 1918), he aided the prime minister in securing Foch’s appointment as supreme commander of the Allied armies on the Western Front.
Disagreeing with the government’s postwar Irish policy, Wilson, who had been promoted to field marshal and created a baronet (1919), was refused reappointment as chief of staff by Lloyd George. Wilson thereupon left the army and entered the House of Commons as a Conservative member for an Ulster constituency (all in February 1922). A flamboyant personage and an eloquent speaker on behalf of Anglo-Irish Unionism, he evoked the hatred of his nationalist countrymen and was assassinated on his doorstep by two members of the revolutionary Irish Republican Army. Wilson left no child, and the baronetcy became extinct upon his death.
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7e84894e4a92a5e9bfb10166b8b6cb25 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sir-Henry-ONeal-de-Hane-Segrave | Sir Henry Segrave | Sir Henry Segrave
Sir Henry Segrave, (born Sept. 22, 1896, Baltimore, Md., U.S.—died June 13, 1930, Lake Windermere, Westmorland, Eng.), American-born English automobile and motorboat racer who set three world land speed records.
Educated at Eton and Sandhurst, Segrave served with the Royal Air Force in World War I. During the war he became interested in automobile racing by a visit to the Sheepshead Bay, Long Island, N.Y., course. He won the French Grand Prix (1923) and the San Sebastian Grand Prix (1924) in Spain, in which he was the first racer to wear a crash helmet. He also won the 200-mile (322-kilometre) race at Brooklands in England (1921, 1925, and 1926) and competed in many hill climbs and speed trials from 1914 to 1927.
In 1926 he first broke the land speed record, driving a Sunbeam at 152.33 mile/h (miles per hour [245.15 km/h]). On March 29, 1927, at Daytona, Fla., driving a 1,000-horsepower Sunbeam with a World War I aero-engine, he became the first driver to exceed 200 mile/h (320 km/h) and established a new record of 203.79 mile/h (327.97 km/h). He set a third record of 231.44 mile/h (372.48 km/h) in March 1929.
Segrave began racing motorboats in 1927, winning the International Championship at Miami, Fla., in 1928. Immediately after setting a water speed record of 85.8 knots, he was fatally injured when his boat—traveling at a speed of more than 86 knots—broke apart, presumably after hitting a floating tree limb. His book, The Lure of Speed, was published in 1928. He was knighted in 1929.
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35a7582b9f3b7aaa0b99caf8eefd5b96 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sir-Isaac-Lyon-Goldsmid-1st-Baronet | Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, 1st Baronet | Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, 1st Baronet
Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, 1st Baronet, (born January 13, 1778, London, England—died April 27, 1859, London), financier, Britain’s first Jewish baronet, whose work for Jewish emancipation in that nation made possible the passage of the Jewish Disabilities Bill of 1859, granting basic civil and political rights to Jews.
Highly successful as a dealer in precious metals with Portugal, Brazil, and Turkey, Goldsmid became active in the cause of Jewish emancipation and social reform. After passage of the Act of 1829, providing civil rights for Roman Catholics in England, he sought and made possible the passage of a similar measure for Jews.
Goldsmid also worked for reform of the penal system and was one of the founders of University College, London, in 1826. In 1841 he was made the first Jewish baronet. His son, Sir Francis Henry Goldsmid (1808–78), worked with him for Jewish emancipation and was the first Jewish barrister in England.
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b7fa7dd89a4ecc98a54a6749699571a7 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sir-James-Sempill-of-Beltrees | Sir James Sempill | Sir James Sempill
Sir James Sempill, (born 1566—died February 1626, Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scot.), Scottish poet remembered for his satirical poem A picktooth for the Pope, or the packman’s paternoster (1630?), an antipapal dialogue between a peddler and a priest written in rhyming couplets. Born into a family of Scottish poets, he was reared with the young King James VI. He attended the University of St. Andrews and became Scottish ambassador to England (1599) and to France (1601). He was knighted in 1600.
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736d94da3692b64ee6d73ce3365542cc | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sir-John-Francis-Edward-Acton-6th-Baronet | Sir John Francis Edward Acton, 6th Baronet | Sir John Francis Edward Acton, 6th Baronet
Sir John Francis Edward Acton, 6th Baronet, (born June 1736, Besançon, Fr.—died Aug. 12, 1811, Palermo), commander of the naval forces of Tuscany and then of Naples who as prime minister of Naples allied that kingdom with England and Austria in the period of the French Revolution.
Finding the French Navy unappreciative of his skills, Acton, the son of an expatriate Englishman, joined the forces of Peter Leopold (later Holy Roman emperor Leopold II), grand duke of Tuscany, and distinguished himself by commanding a Tuscan squadron when Spain and Tuscany joined forces against Algeria (1774). In 1779 Peter Leopold’s brother-in-law Ferdinand IV of Naples invited Acton to reorganize the Neapolitan fleet, of which Acton soon became commander.
A favourite of Ferdinand’s wife, Maria Carolina, he rose rapidly, disposing of all rivals, becoming minister of the navy, of war, of finance, and finally prime minister with almost absolute powers. His English and Austrian alliances weakened the traditional ruling class and the clergy, which had close ties with Spain. In addition, he engaged Naples in a long struggle against the French Revolution, the liberal ideals of which he opposed.
When the French attacked Naples in 1798, Acton fled to Sicily with the King and Queen aboard the ship of Horatio Nelson, the British admiral. Naples was declared the Parthenopean Republic, but when Ferdinand regained control of Naples five months later, he instituted a reign of terror against those who had supported the French, for which Acton and Nelson must bear principal responsibility.
Acton stayed in power with only one brief interruption until the French attacked Naples again in 1806, and then he fled to Sicily with the royal family. He was the grandfather of the 1st Baron Acton, the renowned 19th-century historian.
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f63669c59f5f396f1b46e7988c1f7149 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sir-Josiah-Child-1st-Baronet | Sir Josiah Child, 1st Baronet | Sir Josiah Child, 1st Baronet
Sir Josiah Child, 1st Baronet, (born 1630, London, England—died June 22, 1699, London?), English merchant, economist, and governor of the East India Company.
The son of a London merchant, Child amassed a fortune as supplier of food to the navy. He also became a considerable stockholder in the East India Company. His speeches and writings supporting the East India Company’s claims to political power and its right to restrict any competition with its trade brought him to the notice of the other shareholders. He became a director of the company in 1677 and was elected governor of the East India Company in 1681, serving in that post for most of the decade. For a time he was virtually the sole decision maker for the company, directing policy as if it were his private business. He was often openly accused of using the company to aggrandize his social, economic, and political position. He received his baronetcy in 1678.
Child made some important contributions to economics, especially Brief Observations Concerning Trade and the Interest of Money (1668) and A New Discourse of Trade (1668, 1690). He viewed Dutch prosperity as deriving in part from a low-interest-rate policy and in part from a relatively liberal trade policy. Because of this, he advocated a reduction in England’s maximum rate of interest from 6 to 4 percent. Child had a mercantilist preference for a large population and supported government relief for the poor and the unemployed. He also advocated proprietary rights of trade between Great Britain and its colonies.
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1aebfdeb6436ae3f34179b6adb5212ff | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sir-Moses-Montefiore-Baronet | Sir Moses Montefiore, Baronet | Sir Moses Montefiore, Baronet
Sir Moses Montefiore, Baronet, in full Sir Moses Haim Montefiore, Baronet, (born October 24, 1784, Livorno [Italy]—died July 28, 1885, near Ramsgate, Kent, England), Italian-born businessman who was noted for his philanthropy and support of Jewish rights.
Scion of an old Italian Jewish merchant family, Montefiore was taken to England as an infant. As a young man, he accumulated such a fortune on the London stock exchange that he was able to retire in 1824. He subsequently helped found the Alliance Assurance Company, the Imperial Continental Gas Association (which pioneered gas lighting for homes), and the Provincial Bank of Ireland.
In 1837 he was elected sheriff of London, the second Jew so honoured, and in 1847 he became high sheriff of Kent. He was knighted in 1837 and became a baronet in 1846.
An Orthodox Sefardic Jew (a Jew of Portuguese-Spanish descent), Montefiore is best remembered as a philanthropist and as a zealous fighter for the rights of oppressed Jews all over the world. Besides visiting such countries as Italy, Russia, and Romania on behalf of his co-religionists, he also made seven journeys to Palestine. During his first pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1827 he established a friendship with Muḥammad ʿAlī Pasha, sultan of Egypt. In 1840 Montefiore utilized this relationship when he helped secure the release of a number of Damascan Jews (Damascus was then part of ʿAlī’s domain) who had been falsely accused of using Christian blood for religious rites. That year he also persuaded the Turkish sultan to extend to Jews the maximum privileges enjoyed by aliens, privileges he persuaded a later sultan to reaffirm in 1863. In Russia he convinced Tsar Nicholas I to rescind a decree of 1844 that had ordered all Jews to withdraw from the western frontier areas of Russia. In addition he performed a great many private acts of charity, and he contributed a fortune to establish hospitals and charitable institutions in Palestine.
Montefiore made a final pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1875 and retired thereafter to his house, East Cliff Lodge, where he maintained a centre of religious observance and theological research. Though married, he died without issue, and the baronetcy became extinct.
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8fa3daee4176f11ad27a9fc37da6942e | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sir-Reginald-Myles-Ansett | Sir Reginald Myles Ansett | Sir Reginald Myles Ansett
Sir Reginald Myles Ansett, (born February 13, 1909, Inglewood, Victoria, Australia—died December 23, 1981, Mount Eliza, Victoria), Australian pilot and businessman who started his own airline and subsidiary services.
Ansett was educated at Swinburne Technical College (now Swinburne University), Victoria, and, starting with one £A50 car, built up a taxi fleet in western Victoria. He also learned to fly airplanes, and, when local transport regulations prevented him from extending his taxi business to Melbourne, he bought a small monoplane that could carry up to six passengers. Ansett founded Ansett Airways Ltd. (later Ansett Transport Industries Ltd.) in 1936 and built it into one of the major airlines in Australia. Ansett’s air transport business expanded rapidly, and by 1957 he was able to purchase Australian National Airways for over £A3 million. His other business interests included hotels, television, and road transport. Ansett was knighted in 1969. In 1979 his company was taken over by media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
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bd012482329249fcf2e309d76eec3068 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sir-Reginald-Wingate-1st-Baronet | Sir Reginald Wingate, 1st Baronet | Sir Reginald Wingate, 1st Baronet
Sir Reginald Wingate, 1st Baronet, in full Sir Francis Reginald Wingate, (born June 25, 1861, Port Glasgow, Renfrew, Scotland—died January 28, 1953, Dunbar, East Lothian), British general and imperial administrator, principal founder and governor-general (1899–1916) of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (from 1956 the independent Republic of Sudan).
Commissioned in the British artillery in 1880, Wingate was assigned to the Egyptian army in 1883. Six years later he became director of Egyptian military intelligence. He fought in several battles against adherents of al-Mahdī (Muḥammad Aḥmad, a nationalist rebel against the British-supported Egyptian overlordship of the Sudan), and on November 24, 1899, he defeated and killed the Khalifa ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad, successor to al-Mahdī. The next month he was appointed governor-general of the Sudan and sirdar (commander in chief) of the Egyptian army. Under his direction the Sudan developed a sound government, and, in part because of his influence, the country remained loyal to Great Britain and its allies in World War I. From June 1916 Wingate, in Khartoum, assisted Saudi rebels in Arabia against the rule of Turkey, with which Great Britain was at war. In January 1917 he was named British high commissioner for Egypt. Although his sympathy with the Egyptian Nationalist Party led to his dismissal in October 1919, subsequent British policy in Egypt generally followed his recommendations.
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3eca5679cafcea94914488ff4d5bd7df | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sir-William-de-Wiveleslie-Abney | Sir William de Wiveleslie Abney | Sir William de Wiveleslie Abney
Sir William de Wiveleslie Abney, (born July 24, 1843, Derby, Derbyshire, Eng.—died Dec. 3, 1920, Folkestone, Kent), a specialist in the chemistry of photography, especially noted for his development of a photographic emulsion that he used to map the solar spectrum far into the infrared.
Commissioned in the Royal Engineers (1861), he taught chemistry and photography at the School of Military Engineering at Chatham. He succeeded to various educational posts there and elsewhere.
In 1874 Abney made the first quantitative measurements of the action of light on photographic materials. In 1880 he discovered the photographic developing properties of hydroquinone. Elected to the Royal Society (1876), he also held posts with other learned societies and won various honours. He was knighted in 1900.
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9f3eedf996183f31206ba99d3edd7ba8 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sisowath | Sisowath | Sisowath
Sisowath, also spelled Sisovat, or Si Suvata, (born Sept. 7, 1840, Bătdâmbâng province, Cambodia—died 1927, Phnom Penh), king of Cambodia from 1904 until his death. He was a figurehead for the French colonial administration, which had secured the protectorate over Cambodia in a treaty signed by Sisowath’s half-brother Norodom in 1863.
With Norodom, Sisowath received his education under the surveillance of the Thai sovereign at Bangkok because Siam (Thailand), with Vietnam, had long held Cambodia in vassalage and chosen Cambodian sovereigns. Sisowath remained at Bangkok until his father, King Duong, died in 1860. He then went to Oudong, the old Cambodian capital just north of Phnom Penh, to prevent his younger half-brother Si Votha from seizing the throne. He forced Si Votha out of Oudong, but the Thais recalled him to Bangkok and hastily installed the more compliant Norodom on the throne.
When the French won partial control of Vietnam in 1862, they claimed a protectorate over Cambodia as well. Norodom was crowned with French consent, and Sisowath withdrew to Saigon, where he was subsidized by the French, who could threaten Norodom with the prospect of installing Sisowath in his place.
Sisowath remained in Saigon until 1867, when he was called to quell anti-French uprisings in Cambodia. He thereafter remained in Phnom Penh and gave his support to the French colonial regime. Norodom died in 1904, and the French placed Sisowath on the throne. In 1906 he visited the Colonial Exhibition at Marseille and toured France. Upon his death, he was succeeded by his son Monivong.
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3b5b39de159b4c0293aee4fe9717cbec | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Smokey-Joe-Williams | Smokey Joe Williams | Smokey Joe Williams
Smokey Joe Williams, byname of Joseph Williams, (born April 6, 1886?, Seguin, Texas, U.S.—died Feb. 25, 1951?, New York, N.Y.), American baseball player who was an early star of the Negro leagues.
Williams was a 6-foot 4-inch (1.93 metre) right-handed pitcher who combined a high-velocity fastball with very good control. Williams was occasionally called “Cyclone,” a nickname, like “Smokey,” derived from the speed of his pitch. He played between 1905 and 1932, in an era when record keeping was less than accurate and sometimes nonexistent. There is not even agreement on his birth and death dates (the dates cited here are from the Baseball Hall of Fame). The same uncertainty exists when attempting to document Williams’s career. Many of his important accomplishments were not recorded in newspapers but were simply passed by word of mouth. Nonetheless, many observers of Negro league baseball consider Williams the best black pitcher of all time, even superior to the legendary Satchel Paige.
During his 27-year career, Williams played with 11 teams, although most of his time was split between two clubs: the New York Lincoln Giants and the Homestead Grays. He began his career near his hometown, pitching for independent black baseball teams in San Antonio and Austin, Texas. He reportedly won 28 games in 1905 and 32 games in 1909. In 1912 Williams went to New York City to play with the Lincoln Giants and was with them off and on until 1925, when he joined the Homestead Grays. He remained with Homestead until he retired in 1932. In 1930 Williams recorded 27 strikeouts in a 12-inning game against the Kansas City Monarchs. In exhibition games that Williams pitched against teams composed of white major leaguers, he won 20 games and lost 7. Williams also played in Cuba for three winter seasons, winning 22 games and losing 15. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., in 1999.
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e0fb455012c1fe861da6380d60c67ac9 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sobhuza-II | Sobhuza II | Sobhuza II
Sobhuza II, byname Ngwenyama (siSwati language: “Lion”), (born July 22, 1899, Swaziland—died Aug. 21, 1982, Lobzilla Palace, near Mbabane, Swaziland), king of the Swazi from 1921 and of the Kingdom of Swaziland from 1967 to 1982.
His father, King Ngwane V, died when Sobhuza was an infant, and a queen regent ruled during his minority, while he was being educated in Swaziland and at the Lovedale Institute in Cape province, S.Af. He finally was installed as constitutional ruler of the Swazi on Dec. 22, 1921. At the time, Swaziland was one of Great Britain’s High Commission territories in southern Africa.
In 1967–68 Swaziland achieved independence from Great Britain, with a limited monarchy and an elected legislature. Less than five years later (in April 1973), using a private army that he had secretly raised and equipped, Sobhuza suspended the constitution, dissolved the legislature, outlawed political parties, and assumed supreme power to rule. A new parliament (Libandla) was established in 1979, but it was elected without political parties and its role was merely advisory.
Sobhuza prospered by the use of political and family alliances. His many marriages (at least 70) helped to bind the nation together by tying all important families to his own clan, the Dlamini, who constituted about one-quarter of the population. One history of the Swazi listed 67 sons of the king; some estimates suggest as many as 500 children.
Upon Sobhuza’s death, Swaziland was ruled by a regency for one of his sons, Makhosetive, who became King Mswati III in 1986.
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95771004f11c748e6fddb1dd70c53c07 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sofia-Gubaidulina | Sofia Gubaidulina | Sofia Gubaidulina
Sofia Gubaidulina, (born October 24, 1931, Chistopol, Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic [now Tatarstan, Russia]), Russian composer, whose works fuse Russian and Central Asian regional styles with the Western classical tradition.
During her youth, Gubaidulina studied music in the city of Kazan, the capital of her home republic. She had lessons at the Kazan Music Academy from 1946 to 1949, and from 1949 to 1954 she studied piano and composition at the Kazan Conservatory. She pursued composition at the Moscow Conservatory from 1954 to 1959. At first Gubaidulina’s works were rarely performed in the Soviet Union and were not recorded, and for a time she supported herself by writing music for movies, including scores for animated films. In 1975 she helped found a group that performed improvised pieces on rare Russian and Central Asian instruments. She first traveled to the West in 1985, and in 1992 she moved to Hamburg. Over the years, she gained notice through commissions from new music festivals, from institutions such as the Library of Congress and the International Bach Academy of Stuttgart, Germany, and from orchestras and individual musicians.
Gubaidulina’s works exhibit a number of dualities—the traditional combined with the avant-garde, the East juxtaposed with the West, and the soloist vis-à-vis the group. Except for her earliest compositions, her works are polytonal (set in more than one key at once) and are characterized by strongly accented rhythms. Her use of folk and other nonstandard instruments, sometimes in unusual combinations, often produced strikingly colourful timbres. At the same time, she employed a number of traditional genres, writing orchestral and choral works, concerti for various instruments, and string quartets and other chamber music.
Among the earliest of Gubaidulina’s works to gain widespread recognition was Offertorium, a violin concerto, which was composed in 1980. Her prominence as a composer increased during the ensuing years, and by the late 20th century she had become a well-established international figure. On April 29, 1999, the New York Philharmonic orchestra, under the direction of Kurt Masur, premiered her Two Paths, a work for two violas and orchestra; the two solo instruments represented the voices of the biblical Mary and Martha. On the same day, the NHK Symphony, the orchestra of the Japanese broadcasting system, premiered In the Shadow of the Tree, a composition featuring one soloist performing on three types of Asian zithers: the koto, bass koto, and zheng. Major orchestras worldwide continued to commission, premier, and perform her compositions in the early 21st century. Over the course of her career, Gubaidulina received numerous honours for her work, including the Japan Art Association’s Praemium Imperiale prize for music and two prestigious Koussevitzky International Recording Awards (1989, 1993) for new music.
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2acc07fffb056b7fdf32eace982ce379 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Solomon-ben-Abraham-Adret | Solomon ben Abraham Adret | Solomon ben Abraham Adret
Solomon ben Abraham Adret, Hebrew Rabbi Shlomo Ben Abraham Adret, acronym Rashba, (born 1235, Barcelona, Spain—died 1310, Barcelona), outstanding spiritual leader of Spanish Jewry of his time (known as El Rab de España [the Rabbi of Spain]); he is remembered partly for his controversial decree of 1305 threatening to excommunicate all Jews less than 25 years old (except medical students) who studied philosophy or science.
As a leading scholar of the Talmud, the rabbinical compendium of law, lore, and commentary, Adret received inquiries on Jewish law from all over Europe, and more than 3,000 of his responsa (replies) still remain. Besides providing cultural data on Adret’s time, his responsa strongly influenced the later development of authoritative codes of Jewish law, such as the Shulḥan ʿarukh (“The Well-Laid Table”) of the codifier Joseph Karo (1488–1575). Adret’s many other writings include commentaries on the Talmud and polemics defending it against attacks by non-Jews.
Late in life, Adret became embroiled in a quarrel between the followers of the medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides and the members of a conservative, antirationalist movement led by a zealot known as Astruc of Lunel, who believed that the followers of Maimonides were undermining the Jewish faith by, for example, interpreting the Bible allegorically. It was Astruc who induced Adret to issue his famous decree against the study of philosophy and science. Although the ban itself did not bring about an end to such studies, it precipitated among Jews in Spain and southern France a bitter controversy that continued during Adret’s last years.
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bdca440898c0b36cafb49e49b68ae82f | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Solomon-Burke | Solomon Burke | Solomon Burke
Solomon Burke, (born March 21, 1940, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died October 10, 2010, Haarlemmermeer, Netherlands), American singer whose success in the early 1960s in merging the gospel style of the African American churches with rhythm and blues helped to usher in the soul music era.
Born into a family that established its own church, Burke was both a preacher and the host of a gospel radio program by age 12. He began recording in 1955 but did not have his first national hit until 1961, with a rhythm-and-blues version of a country ballad, “Just out of Reach.” His recordings, most of which were produced in New York City, incorporated gospel-derived vocal techniques—shouted interjections, an exhortatory recitation, melisma, and rasping timbre. At Atlantic Records, under producer Bert Berns, Burke became one of the first rhythm-and-blues performers to be called a soul artist, based on his success with “Cry to Me” (1962), “If You Need Me” (1963), “Goodbye Baby (Baby Goodbye)” (1964), “Got to Get You off My Mind” (1965), and his last Top 40 pop hit, “Tonight’s the Night” (1965).
After the mid-1960s Burke continued to record but with lessening success, last placing a record on the rhythm-and-blues chart in 1978. He remained a popular performer on the blues festival and club circuit into the early 21st century, even enjoying a resurgence of critical attention in the 2000s. His 2002 album Don’t Give Up on Me won the Grammy Award for best contemporary blues album, and three of his subsequent releases—Make Do with What You Got (2005), Like a Fire (2008), and Nothing’s Impossible (2010)—were nominated in that category. He was traveling to the Netherlands for a performance in October 2010 when he died at Schiphol airport near Amsterdam. Burke was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.
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45f30290eb11ac5d3ea0d6b3964b29aa | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Somdet-Chao-Phraya-Si-Suriyawong | Somdet Chao Phraya Si Suriyawong | Somdet Chao Phraya Si Suriyawong
Somdet Chao Phraya Si Suriyawong, , original name Chuang Bunnag, (born Dec. 23, 1808—died Jan. 19, 1883, Rat Buri, Siam), leading minister under King Mongkut and regent during the minority of King Chulalongkorn, who exercised tremendous influence during a crucial period when the Siamese kings were modernizing the country and trying to maintain its independence.
Members of the Bunnag family had held important posts at the Siamese court since the founder of the family immigrated from Persia in 1605. Suriyawong’s father, Dit Bunnag, simultaneously held the kalahom (war and southern provinces) and phrakhlang (finance and foreign affairs) ministries in the reign of King Rama III. As a young court officer in the 1840s, Suriyawong was a close associate of the modernist prince Mongkut, and he and his father plotted to bring Mongkut to the throne in 1851. Suriyawong then succeeded his father as kalahom, and his younger brother Kham became phrakhlang. Suriyawong was largely responsible for concluding the treaties that opened Siam to the West, beginning in 1855. Relying on an extensive network of relatives in high positions, he was the most powerful official during Mongkut’s reign, and effectively ran the day-to-day business of government. On Mongkut’s death, he served as regent during the minority of King Chulalongkorn (1868–73). After Chulalongkorn came of age, Suriyawong became increasingly conservative, believing that sufficient accommodation to the West had taken place and that further reform was unnecessary, and he obstructed reform until his death.
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