|
airmail
airmail transport of mail by airplanes. Demonstration flights that showed the feasibility of carrying mail by air were made in Great Britain and in the United States in 1911. In the United States, after money for experimentation was appropriated by Congress in 1918, the first regular airmail servic...
Read more
|
|
inoculation
inoculation in medicine, introduction of a preparation into the tissues or fluids of the body for the purpose of preventing or curing certain diseases. The preparation is usually a weakened culture of the agent causing the disease, as in vaccination against smallpox; however, it may also be compo...
Read more
|
|
|
Nicias
Nicias , d. 413 BC, Athenian political leader and general. After Pericles' death he emerged as the primary rival of Cleon and his war party. He was a moderate democrat, not an oligarch, and he wanted peace with Sparta. In 421 he arranged the Peace of Nicias. When the expedition to Syracuse was urged...
Read more
|
|
|
Philip II
Philip II 1527-98, king of Spain (1556-98), king of Naples and Sicily (1554-98), and, as Philip I, king of Portugal (1580-98).
Philip's Reign
Philip ascended the Spanish throne on the abdication of his father, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V , who had previously made over to him Naples and ...
Read more
|
|
|
Gibbons v. Ogden
Gibbons v. Ogden case decided in 1824 by the U.S. Supreme Court. Aaron Ogden, the plaintiff, had purchased an interest in the monopoly to operate steamboats that New York state had granted to Robert Fulton and Robert Livingston. Ogden brought suit in New York against Thomas Gibbons, the defendant, ...
Read more
|
|
hydroponics
hydroponics growing of plants without soil in water to which nutrients have been added. Hydroponics has been used for over a century as a research technique, but not until 1929 were experiments conducted solely to determine its feasibility for growing commercial crops. There are now hydroponic home...
Read more
|
|
|
James Stuart Murray, 1st earl of
James Stuart Murray, 1st earl of , 1531?-1570, Scottish nobleman. An illegitimate son of James V by a daughter of the earl of Mar, he was, therefore, half brother of Mary Queen of Scots . Early a Protestant sympathizer, he joined the lords of the congregation in 1559 and was a leader of the opposit...
Read more
|
|
|
Hyman George Rickover
Hyman George Rickover 1900-1986, American admiral, b. Russia. In World War II he served as head of the electrical section of the navy's Bureau of Ships. After the war he was assigned (1946) to the atomic submarine project at Oak Ridge, Tenn., and helped convince the navy that nuclear sea power was ...
Read more
|
|
|
scutage
scutage , feudal payment, usually in cash, given in lieu of actual military service due from a vassal to an overlord. It applied especially to the vassals of the king. Scutage collection increased noticeably in the later 12th cent., no doubt partly because of the rise of a professional military clas...
Read more
|
|
|
skywriting
skywriting advertising medium in which aircraft spell out trade names and sales slogans in the sky by means of the controlled emission of thick smoke. The technique was first developed (1922) by J. C. Savage, a pioneer English aviator. Letters a mile high and a mile wide can be formed by the moveme...
Read more
|
