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Ahmed I

(Encyclopedia)Ahmed I äˈmĕd [key], 1589–1617, Ottoman sultan (1603–17), son and successor of Muhammad III to the throne of the Ottoman Empire. The chief event of his reign was the Treaty of Zsitvatorok (1606...

tall tale

(Encyclopedia)tall tale, extravagantly and humorously exaggerated story of the backwoods exploits of an American frontiersman. Originating in the 1820s, the genre remained popular well into the 20th cent. One of th...

Taussig, Helen Brooke

(Encyclopedia)Taussig, Helen Brooke, 1898–1986, American physician, b. Cambridge, Mass., M.D. Johns Hopkins Univ., 1927. She spent her entire career at Johns Hopkins, where she founded the field of pediatric card...

Waters, Ethel

(Encyclopedia)Waters, Ethel, 1896?–1977, African-American singer and actress, b. Chester, Pa. As a singer, she is noted for her sultry, sophisticated, and dramatic version of the blues, evinced in her interpretat...

Tworkov, Jack

(Encyclopedia)Tworkov, Jack, 1900–82, American painter, b. Bela, Russia (now Biała, Poland). His family immigrated to the United States in 1913 and settled in New York. He studied at Columbia (B.A., 1923) and la...

sailfish

(Encyclopedia)sailfish, common name for a marine game and food fish, genus Istiophorus, belonging to the family Istiophoridae and related to the marlin. It is named for its high, wide dorsal fin (or “sail”), co...

scallop

(Encyclopedia)scallop or pecten, marine bivalve mollusk. Like its close relative the oyster, the scallop has no siphons, the mantle being completely open, but it differs from other mollusks in that both mantle edge...

slate

(Encyclopedia)slate, fine-grained rock formed when sedimentary rocks such as shale are metamorphosed by great pressure. Slate splits into perfectly cleaved, broad thin layers; this characteristically regular and pl...

Spotswood, Alexander

(Encyclopedia)Spotswood, Alexander, 1676–1740, colonial governor of Virginia, b. Tangier, Morocco. Appointed in 1710, he was officially lieutenant governor under the nominal governorship of George Hamilton, 1st e...

silver chloride

(Encyclopedia)silver chloride, chemical compound, AgCl, a white cubic crystalline solid. It is nearly insoluble in water but is soluble in a water solution of ammonia, potassium cyanide, or sodium thiosulfate (“h...