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communications satellite

(Encyclopedia)communications satellite artificial satellite that functions as part of a global radio-communications network. Echo 1, the first communications satellite, launched in 1960, was an instrumented inflat...

Oppenheimer, J. Robert

(Encyclopedia)Oppenheimer, J. Robert ŏpˈənhīˌmər [key], 1904–67, American physicist, b. New York City, grad. Harvard (B.A., 1925), Ph.D. Univ. of Göttingen, 1927. He taught at the Univ. of California and t...

hawk

(Encyclopedia)hawk, name generally applied to the smaller members of the Accipitridae, a heterogeneous family of diurnal birds of prey, such as the eagle, the kite, and the Old World vulture. Hawks belong to the sa...

boxing

(Encyclopedia)boxing, sport of fighting with fists, also called pugilism and prizefighting. Amateur boxing, while not free from debate, has in recent decades taken steps to ensure safety and objective judging. Th...

Polanski, Roman

(Encyclopedia)Polanski, Roman, 1933–, Polish-French film director, b. Paris. His family returned to Kraków, Poland, when he was three. His parents were imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps and his mother died ...

poultry

(Encyclopedia)poultry, domesticated fowl kept primarily for meat and eggs; including birds of the order Galliformes, e.g., the chicken, turkey, guinea fowl, pheasant, quail, and peacock; and natatorial (swimming) b...

intelligent design

(Encyclopedia)intelligent design, theory that some complex biological structures and other aspects of nature show evidence of having been designed by an intelligence. Such biological structures are said to have int...

Williams, Tennessee

(Encyclopedia)Williams, Tennessee (Thomas Lanier Williams), 1911–83, American dramatist, b. Columbus, Miss., grad. State Univ. of Iowa, 1938. One of America's foremost 20th-century playwrights and the author of m...

monsters and imaginary beasts

(Encyclopedia)monsters and imaginary beasts. The mythologies and legends of ancient and modern cultures teem with an enormous variety of monsters and imaginary beasts. A great number of these are composites of diff...

Saratoga campaign

(Encyclopedia)Saratoga campaign, June–Oct., 1777, of the American Revolution. Lord George Germain and John Burgoyne were the chief authors of a plan to end the American Revolution by splitting the colonies along ...