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tablature

(Encyclopedia)tablature tăbˈləcho͝or [key], in music, a generic system of musical notation indicating actions that the player must take, rather than “representing” the music itself that will result from tho...

Tancred, king of Sicily

(Encyclopedia)Tancred (Tancred of Lecce) tăngˈkrĭd;, lĕˈchā [key], b. 1130 or 1134, d. 1194, king of Sicily (1190–94), illegitimate son of Roger of Apulia and grandson of Roger II of Sicily. On the death of...

Southampton, Thomas Wriothesley, 1st earl of

(Encyclopedia)Southampton, Thomas Wriothesley, 1st earl of, c.1500–1550, lord chancellor of England. Appointed a clerk of the signet in 1530, he rose in the favor of Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII, who granted hi...

Space Force, United States

(Encyclopedia)Space Force, United States (USSF), military force that forms a separate service within the U.S. Dept. of the Air Force, est. Dec. 20, 2019, by act of Congress. The head of the Space Force is the Chief...

yard

(Encyclopedia)yard, abbr. yd, basic unit of length in the customary system of English units of measurement; all other units in the English system, such as the inch, foot, rod, and mile, are derived from it. Since 1...

separation

(Encyclopedia)separation, in law, either the voluntary agreement of husband and wife to live apart or a partial dissolution of the marriage relation by court order. The marriage bond remains, and remarriage of eith...

sidereal time

(Encyclopedia)sidereal time (ST), time measured relative to the fixed stars; thus, the sidereal day is the period during which the earth completes one rotation on its axis so that some chosen star appears twice on ...

short takeoff and landing aircraft

(Encyclopedia)short takeoff and landing aircraft (STOL), heavier-than-air craft, capable of rising from and descending to the ground with only a short length of runway, but incapable of doing so vertically. The pre...

Peter Damian, Saint

(Encyclopedia)Peter Damian, Saint dāˈmēən [key], Ital. Pietro Damiani, 1007?–1072, Italian reformer, Doctor of the Church, b. Ravenna. He became a Camaldolese monk at Fonte-Avellino (near Gubbio) and because ...

Kepler's laws

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Schematic representation of Kepler's second law: The areas ABF and A′B′F′ are equal and are swept out in equal intervals of time by a planet orbiting around the sun (at F). Kepler's laws...