coonhound, black-and-tan, breed of large hound developed in the United States. It stands from 23 to 27 in. (58-69 cm) high at the shoulder and weighs from 70 to 85 lb (32-38 kg). The dense, short coat is coal black with tan markings above the eyes and on the muzzle, chest, and legs. The black-and-tan is descended from the old Virginia (American) foxhound and is bred especially for proficiency in hunting raccoons and opossums. It is a slow but methodical trailer, scenting with its nose to the ground much like a bloodhound. Once it has treed its quarry it gives voice until the hunter arrives. There are other varieties of coonhound closely related to the black-and-tan and also originally descended from the foxhound, e.g., the Walker, Trigg, redbone, bluetick, and Plott, but only the black-and-tan is recognized as a separate breed by the American Kennel Club. See dog.

carbon black, mixture of partially burned hydrocarbons. Carbon black is produced by partial combustion of natural gas. It is used as a black pigment for inks and paints, and is used in large amounts by the tire industry in the production of vulcanized rubber. Lampblack resembles carbon black, but is produced by burning liquid hydrocarbons, e.g., kerosene; it is often somewhat oily, is duller than carbon black, and may have a bluish undertone. It is sometimes used in making contact brushes for electrical apparatus.

bone black, solid black material, largely carbon, produced by heating animal bones to high temperatures in the absence of air so as to drive off volatile substances. Finely divided bone black is useful as a pigment; bone char, a similar material, is an important source of activated charcoal for use in refining and decolorizing sugar.

black-eyed bean or black-eyed pea: see cowpea.

black-eyed Susan or yellow daisy, North American daisylike wildflower (Rudbeckia hirta) of the family Asteraceae (aster family) with yellow rays and a dark brown center. It is a weedy biennial or annual and grows in dry places. The black-eyed Susan and the other rudbeckias are also called yellow coneflowers. The most widely cultivated is the golden glow (R. laciniata hortensia), a tall double-blossomed perennial. Black-eyed Susans are classified in the division Magnoliophyta, class Magnoliopsida, order Asterales, family Asteraceae.

black-and-tan coonhound: see coonhound, black-and-tan.

black widow, poisonous spider of the genus Latrodectus, found throughout North and South America and common in the SW United States. The name derives from the fact that the female, like those of many other spider species, may eat the male after mating. The adult is black with a red or reddish-orange hourglass-shaped marking on the lower abdominal surface. The female is somewhat less than 1/2 in. (1.3 cm) long, and the male is much smaller. The bite venom is a neurotoxin and may cause a severe reaction with intense local pain that spreads to other parts of the body. Occasional fatal cases, which result from respiratory paralysis, are usually limited to children. The most effective treatment is an antivenin. Black widow spiders are classified in the phylum Arthropoda, class Arachnida, order Araneae, family Theridiidae.

black whale, name for the black right whale and for the sperm whale.

black studies: see ethnic studies.

black snake, name for several snakes, not all closely related, that are black in color. In the United States the name is applied chiefly to the black racer and to the black rat snake (Elaphe obsoleta), both partly arboreal in their habits. The black rat snake, also called pilot black snake and mountain black snake, is found in the NE United States. Like other rat snakes (Elaphe species), it is a constrictor and a valuable destroyer of rats and mice. It has shiny, slightly keeled scales and reaches a length of 8 ft (2.4 m). The poisonous Australian black snake belongs to the cobra family and has a hood. The North American black snakes are classified in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Reptilia, order Squamata, family Colubridae.

black quarter: see blackleg.

black market, the selling or buying of commodities at prices above the legal ceiling or beyond the amount allotted to a customer in countries that have placed restrictions on sales and prices. Such trading was common during World War II wherever the demand and the means of payment exceeded the available supply. Most of the warring countries attempted to equalize distribution of scarce commodities by rationing and price fixing. In the United States black-market transactions were carried on extensively in meat, sugar, tires, and gasoline. In Great Britain, where clothing and liquor were rationed, these were popular black-market commodities. In the United States, rationing terminated at the end of the war, but a black market in automobiles and building materials continued while the scarcity lasted. In the decades following World War II, as the countries of Eastern Europe were trying to industrialize their economies, extensive black-market operations developed because of a scarcity of consumer goods. Black marketing is also common in exchange of foreign for domestic currency, typically in those countries that have set the official exchange value of domestic currency too high in terms of the purchasing power of foreign money. Black-market money activities also grow when holders of domestic currency are anxious to convert it into foreign currency through a fear that the former is losing its purchasing power as a result of inflation. See also bootlegging.

black lung: see pneumoconiosis.

black locust: see locust.

black light: see ultraviolet radiation.

black letter: see type.

black lead: see graphite.

black humor, in literature, drama, and film, grotesque or morbid humor used to express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox, and cruelty of the modern world. Ordinary characters or situations are usually exaggerated far beyond the limits of normal satire or irony. Black humor uses devices often associated with tragedy and is sometimes equated with tragic farce. For example, Stanley Kubrick's film Dr. Strangelove; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1963) is a terrifying comic treatment of the circumstances surrounding the dropping of an atom bomb, while Jules Feiffer's comedy Little Murders (1965) is a delineation of the horrors of modern urban life, focusing particularly on random assassinations. The novels of such writers as Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, Joseph Heller, and Philip Roth contain elements of black humor.

black hole, in astronomy, celestial object of such extremely intense gravity that it attracts everything near it and in some instances prevents everything, including light, from escaping. The term was first used in reference to a star in the last phases of gravitational collapse (the final stage in the life history of certain stars; see stellar evolution) by the American physicist John A. Wheeler.

Gravitational collapse begins when a star has depleted its steady sources of nuclear energy and can no longer produce the expansive force, a result of normal gas pressure, that supports the star against the compressive force of its own gravitation. As the star shrinks in size (and increases in density), it may assume one of several forms depending upon its mass. A less massive star may become a white dwarf, while a more massive one would become a supernova. If the mass is less than three times that of the sun, it will then form a neutron star. However, if the final mass of the remaining stellar core is more than three solar masses, as shown by the American physicists J. Robert Oppenheimer and Hartland S. Snyder in 1939, nothing remains to prevent the star from collapsing without limit to an indefinitely small size and infinitely large density, a point called the "singularity."

At the point of singularity the effects of Einstein's general theory of relativity become paramount. According to this theory, space becomes curved in the vicinity of matter; the greater the concentration of matter, the greater the curvature. When the star (or supernova remnant) shrinks below a certain size determined by its mass, the extreme curvature of space seals off contact with the outside world. The place beyond which no radiation can escape is called the event horizon, and its radius is called the Schwarzschild radius after the German astronomer Karl Schwarzschild, who in 1916 postulated the existence of collapsed celestial objects that emit no radiation. For a star with a mass equal to that of the sun, this limit is a radius of only 1.86 mi (3.0 km). Even light cannot escape a black hole, but is turned back by the enormous pull of gravitation.

It is now believed that the origin of some black holes is nonstellar. Some astrophysicists suggest that immense volumes of interstellar matter can collect and collapse into supermassive black holes, such as are found at the center of some galaxies. The British physicist Stephen Hawking has postulated still another kind of nonstellar black hole. Called a primordial, or mini, black hole, it would have been created during the "big bang," in which the universe was created (see cosmology). Unlike stellar black holes, primordial black holes create and emit elementary particles, called Hawking radiation, until they exhaust their energy and expire. It has also been suggested that the formation of black holes may be associated with intense gamma ray bursts. Beginning with a giant star collapsing on itself or the collision of two neutron stars, waves of radiation and subatomic particles are propelled outward from the nascent black hole and collide with one another, releasing the gamma radiation. Also released is longer-lasting electromagnetic radiation in the form of X rays, radio waves, and visible wavelengths that can be used to pinpoint the location of the disturbance.

Because light and other forms of energy and matter are permanently trapped inside a black hole, it can never be observed directly. However, a black hole can be detected by the effect of its gravitational field on nearby objects (e.g., if it is orbited by a visible star), during the collapse while it was forming, or by the X rays and radio frequency signals emitted by rapidly swirling matter being pulled into the black hole. A small number of possible black holes have been detected. The first discovered (1971) was Cygnus X-1, an X-ray source in the constellation Cygnus. In 1994 astronomers employing the Hubble Space Telescope announced that they had found conclusive evidence of a supermassive black hole in the M87 galaxy in the constellation Virgo. The first evidence (2002) of a binary black hole, two supermassive black holes circling one another, was detected in images from the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory. Located in the galaxy NGC6240, the pair are 3,000 light years apart, travel around each other at a speed of about 22,000 mph (35,415 km/hr), and have the mass of 100 million suns each. As the distance between them shrinks over 100 million years, the circling speed will increase until it approaches the speed of light, about 671 million mph (1080 million km/hr). The black holes will then collide spectacularly, spewing radiation and gravitational waves across the universe.

black haw: see honeysuckle.

black gum, ornamental deciduous tree (Nyssa sylvatica family Nyssaceae) native to E North America. The leaves turn bright scarlet in the fall. The very tough wood was used for wheel hubs and other purposes. It is sometimes called sour gum, tupelo, and pepperidge, names also given other species of the genus, some native to Asia. This is the source of the popular tupelo honey. The genus Nyssa is probably derived from an ancestral dogwood and is included by some botanists in the family Cornaceae (dogwood family) of the division Magnoliophyta, class Magnoliopsida, order Cornales.

black fly, name for any of the flies of the family Simuliidae. The black fly is about 1/8 in. (3.2 mm) long and has large eyes, short legs, a stout, humped back, broad gauzy wings, and piercing-sucking mouthparts. The female inflicts a painful bite, sucking the blood of birds and mammals, including humans. Livestock and other large mammals may be bitten to death by swarms of black flies; the black fly problem of some subarctic regions is so severe as to make human settlement impossible. Some tropical African and American species carry the larvae of roundworms that in human hosts cause swellings of the skin and eyes and sometimes blindness. The eggs of black flies are commonly laid in masses on wet rocks, logs, and plants; the larvae live in fast flowing water, clinging to rocks by means of anal sucking disks and straining out organic matter by fanlike head organs. Pupation occurs underwater; the pupa accumulates a bubble of air in its case, enabling it to rise to the surface and emerge when mature. The Adirondack black fly, Simulium hirtipes, the white stockinged black fly, S. venustum, the buffalo gnat, S. pecuarum, and the turkey gnat, S. meridionale, are common species. Black flies are classified in the phylum Arthropoda, class Insecta, order Diptera, family Simuliidae. See insect.

black earth: see chernozem.

black codes, in U.S. history, series of statutes passed by the ex-Confederate states, 1865-66, dealing with the status of the newly freed slaves. They varied greatly from state to state as to their harshness and restrictiveness. Although the codes granted certain basic civil rights to blacks (the right to marry, to own personal property, and to sue in court), they also provided for the segregation of public facilities and placed severe restrictions on the freedman's status as a free laborer, his right to own real estate, and his right to testify in court. Although some Northern states had black codes before the Civil War, this did not prevent many northerners from interpreting the codes as an attempt by the South to reenslave blacks. The Freedmen's Bureau prevented enforcement of the codes, which were later repealed by the radical Republican state governments.

black body, in physics, an ideal black substance that absorbs all and reflects none of the radiant energy falling on it. Lampblack, or powdered carbon, which reflects less than 2% of the radiation falling on it, crudely approximates an ideal black body; a material consisting of a carpetlike arrangement of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes was reported in 2008 to have a reflectance of 0.045%. Since a black body is a perfect absorber of radiant energy, by the laws of thermodynamics it must also be a perfect emitter of radiation. The distribution according to wavelength of the radiant energy of a black body radiator depends on the absolute temperature of the black body and not on its internal nature or structure. As the temperature increases, the wavelength at which the energy emitted per second is a maximum decreases. This phenomenon can be seen in the behavior of an ordinary incandescent object, which gives off its maximum radiation at shorter and shorter wavelengths as it becomes hotter and hotter. First it glows in long red wavelengths, then in yellow wavelengths, and finally in short blue wavelengths. In order to explain the spectral distribution of black body radiation, Max Planck developed the quantum theory in 1901. In thermodynamics the principle of the black body is used to determine the nature and amount of the energy emitted by a heated object. Black-body radiation has served as an important source of confirmation for the big-bang theory, which holds that the universe was born in a fiery explosion c.13.7 billion years ago (according to current calculations). According to the theory, the explosion should have left a remnant black-body cosmic background radiation that is uniform in all directions and has an equivalent temperature of only a few degrees Kelvin. Such a uniform background, with a temperature of 2.7°K; (see Kelvin temperature scale), was discovered in 1964 by Arno A. Penzias and Robert L. Wilson, who were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978 for their work. Recent data gathered by the NASA satellite Cosmic Microwave Background Explorer (COBE) has revealed small temperature fluctuations in the radiation that are thought to be related to the "seeds" of stars and galaxies.

Ladysmith Black Mambazo, choral group formed in 1965 in Ladysmith, South Africa, led by Joseph Shabalala. The group, which sings with a precise yet free-flowing phrasing, has consisted of 8 to 12 members. Its lyrics, which generally reflect religious themes and everyday concerns, are sung mostly in Zulu, but also in English or Sotho. Their first internationally available album was Induku Zethu (1983). They achieved worldwide recognition and acclaim when they recorded with Paul Simon on his Graceland album (1986); Simon also produced their next album, the Grammy-winning Shaka Zulu (1987). Later releases include Two Worlds One Heart (1990) and Raise Your Spirit Higher (2004; Grammy). The group has also appeared in the drama The Song of Jacob Zulu (1993) and the musical Nomathembe (1995).

Garnett, Constance (Black): see Garnett, Richard.

Edward the Black Prince, 1330-76, eldest son of Edward III of England. He was created duke of Cornwall in 1337, the first duke to be created in England, and prince of Wales in 1343. Joining his father in the campaigns of the Hundred Years War, he established his reputation for valor at the battle of Crécy (1346). It was apparently the French who called him the Black Prince, perhaps because he wore black armor; the name was not recorded in England until the 16th cent. In 1355 the prince led an expedition into Aquitaine, and in 1356 he defeated and captured John II of France in the battle of Poitiers. Edward became ruler of the newly created English principality of Aquitaine in 1363 and, with his wife Joan of Kent, maintained a brilliant court at Bordeaux. In 1367 he went to the support of Peter the Cruel of Castile and temporarily restored him to his throne by the victory of Nájera. However, the expenses of the war compelled Edward to levy a tax in Aquitaine that was protested by his nobles and by Charles V of France on their behalf. War with Charles resulted, and the prince, though ill, directed the capture and burning of Limoges (1370) with needless massacre of the citizens. By 1372 his bad health forced him to resign his principalities, leaving his brother, John of Gaunt, to attempt the impossible task of holding them for England. The aging Edward III had relaxed his hold on the government, and the Black Prince, aware that he would not live to succeed his father, tried to strengthen the hand of the clerical party against John of Gaunt so that the accession of his son (later Richard II) would be assured. To that end he supported (and possibly directed) the proceedings of the so-called Good Parliament of 1376, which, among other things, impeached two followers of John of Gaunt and removed Alice Perrers, the king's mistress, from court. The Black Prince died shortly thereafter.

Congressional Black Caucus, organization of African-American members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Founded in 1970, it addresses legislative concerns of African Americans and other minority citizens, such as employment, welfare reform, minority business development, and expanded educational opportunities. The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (est. 1976) conducts research on issues affecting African Americans, publishes a yearly report on key legislation, and sponsors issue forums, leadership seminars, and scholarships.

Black, Sir James, 1924-, Scottish pharmacologist, M.D. Univ. of St. Andrews, 1946. A professor at Kings College Medical School, he shared the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with George Hitchings and Gertrude Elion for his contributions to the area of drug treatment. He discovered important drugs that treat angina, gastric ulcers, hypertension, migraines, and other health problems.

Black, Max, 1909-88, American analytical philosopher, b. Baku, Russia (now Baky, Azerbaijan), grad. Cambridge, Ph.D. Univ. of London, 1939. He taught at the Univ. of Ill. (1940-46) before going to Cornell Univ. (1946). Influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, he wrote A Companion to Wittgenstein's Tractatus (1964). His concern with clear language was expressed in Language and Philosophy (1949), Models and Metaphors (1962), The Labyrinth of Language (1968), and Margins of Precision: Essays in Logic and Language (1970).

Black, Joseph, 1728-99, Scottish chemist and physician, b. France. He was professor of chemistry at Glasgow (1756-66) and from 1766 at Edinburgh. He is best known for his theories of latent heat and specific heat. He also laid the foundations of chemistry as an exact science in his investigations on magnesium carbonate, during which he discovered carbon dioxide, which he called "fixed air."

Black, Jeremiah Sullivan, 1810-83, American cabinet officer, b. Somerset co., Pa. Admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1830, Black became a successful lawyer. As U.S. Attorney General (1857-60) under President Buchanan he hired Edwin M. Stanton, later his successor, to clear up the involved land-title cases in California. Black was less successful, however, in enforcing unpopular legislation concerning slavery. It was his opinion that although the seceding Southern states could not be coerced, federal property in the South should be protected, and measures taken to resist armed rebellion. He replaced (Dec., 1860) Lewis Cass as Secretary of State and succeeded in persuading Buchanan to send supplies to Fort Sumter; he urged that the federal government take a strong stand against secession. Buchanan appointed him to the Supreme Court in Feb., 1861, but the Senate, with both Democrats and Republicans hostile to Black, refused to confirm him.

Black, James, 1823-93, American temperance leader. A Pennsylvania lawyer, he was active in state and national temperance work. His plan for a National Publication House was adopted by the National Temperance Convention (1865). In 1872, as presidential nominee of the Prohibition party, he gained some 5,000 votes.

Black, Hugo LaFayette, 1886-1971, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1937-71), b. Harlan, Clay co., Ala. He received his law degree from the Univ. of Alabama in 1906. He practiced law and held local offices before serving (1927-37) in the U.S. Senate. As Senator he ardently supported New Deal measures, conducted Senate investigations of merchant-marine subsidies (1933) and lobbying (1935), and sponsored (1937) the Wages and Hours bill. His appointment to the Supreme Court by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt met strong opposition from the public and in the Senate because of his earlier membership in the Ku Klux Klan. Black was, however, a staunch defender of civil liberties, and he became the leader of the activists on the Supreme Court, consistently opposing congressional and state violations of free speech and due process.

Black, Hugh, 1868-1953, Scottish-American theologian and author. After serving as a pastor in Paisley and Edinburgh, he emigrated to the United States in 1906 to begin a professorship of practical theology at Union Theological Seminary, New York City. His books include Culture and Restraint (1900), Christ's Service of Love (1907), The New World (1915), The Adventure of Being Man (1929), and Christ or Caesar (1938).

Black, Greene Vardiman, 1836-1915, American dentist, b. Scott co., Ill. Professor at Chicago College of Dental Surgery (now part of Loyola Univ.) from 1883 to 1889 and professor (from 1891) and dean (from 1897) at the Northwestern Univ. dental school, he made large contributions to dentistry as teacher, as originator of methods and instruments, and as author. His works include Formation of Poisons by Microörganisms (1884), Dental Anatomy (1891), and Operative Dentistry (1908). The Black method of preparing amalgam alloys for fillings is still in use.

Black Watch or Royal Highland Regiment, Scottish infantry regiment. The first companies were raised in 1725 to watch the rebellious Scottish highlands and keep the peace, and the regiment was formed 1739-40. It became known as the Black Watch because of the dark colors of the regimental tartan. It was for a time the 43d, but after 1749 it was the 42d regiment. In 2006 a military reorganization made the Black Watch the 3d Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland.

Black Warrior, navigable river, 178 mi (286 km) long, rising in N central Ala. and flowing generally SW to the Tombigbee River. The Black Warrior drains a coal- and cotton-producing area, but these industries have declined, specifically in Birmingham, Ala.

Black Warrior, merchant steamer that plied between New York City and Mobile, usually stopping at Havana, Cuba. Her seizure on Feb. 28, 1854, by Spanish authorities at Havana and the imposition of a $6,000 fine on the grounds that she had violated customs regulations nearly caused war between the United States and Spain. The South, anxious to secure Cuba, was ready for war, but the North refused to support the idea, and after the Black Warrior was released the excitement subsided.

Black Tom, part of Jersey City, N.J., also called Black Tom Island. In July, 1916, German saboteurs demolished U.S. munitions stores there; in Jan., 1917, they destroyed the Kingsland, N.J., munitions plant. Sued by the U.S. government in 1922 but vindicated in 1930 by an international claims commission, the German government, upon hearings in 1939, was ultimately ordered to pay $50 million in damages.

Black Sox scandal, episode in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox, the American League champions, were banned from baseball in 1921 for having conspired with gamblers to throw the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. The best-known of the "Black Sox" was Shoeless Joe Jackson. Because of the scandal, baseball club owners appointed Judge Kenesaw M. Landis as commissioner of baseball to clean up the sport. The immense, rising popularity of Babe Ruth is thought to have counteracted the damage done to professional baseball by the Black Sox.

Black Shirts, colloquial term originally used to refer to the members of the Fasci di combattimento, units of the Fascist organization founded in Italy in Mar., 1919, by Benito Mussolini. A black shirt was the most distinctive part of their uniform. The Black Shirts were mainly discontented ex-soldiers. Ultranationalist, they posed as champions of law and order and violently attacked Communists, socialists, and other radical and progressive groups. They broke up strikes, destroyed trade union headquarters, and drove socialist and Communist officials from office. In Oct., 1922, their activities culminated in the famous march on Rome, which brought Mussolini to power. Afterward, while the term "Black Shirts" continued to be used to refer to party militants in general, the name Fasci di combattimento designated the local party units.

Black Sea, inland sea, c.159,600 sq mi (413,360 sq km), between SE Europe and Asia, connected with the Mediterranean Sea by the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles. It is c.750 mi (1,210 km) from east to west, up to 350 mi (560 km) wide, and has a maximum depth of 7,364 ft (2,245 m). Its largest arm is the Sea of Azov, which joins it through the Kerch Strait. The Black Sea is enclosed by Ukraine on the north, Russia on the northeast, Georgia on the east, Turkey on the south, and Bulgaria and Romania on the west.

The Dnieper, Southern Buh, Dniester, and Danube rivers are its principal feeders; the Don and Kuban rivers flow into the Sea of Azov. The rivers flowing into the northern part of the Black Sea carry much silt and form deltas, sandbars, and lagoons along the generally low and sandy northern coast. The southern coast is steep and rocky. The Black Sea has two layers of water of different densities. The heavily saline bottom layer has little movement and contains hydrogen sulfide; it has no marine life. The top layer, much less saline and richer in fish, flows in a counterclockwise direction around the sea. There is little tidal action.

Pollution in the Black Sea has spurred surrounding nations to cooperate in instituting environmental safeguards; overfishing is also a significant problem and has altered the sea's ecosystem. The sea is subject to severe winter storms, and waterspouts are common in summer. Ice-free, it is the chief shipping outlet of the Ukraine and Russia; Odessa and Sevastopol in Ukraine and Novorossiysk in Russia are major ports. Other important ports are Constanţa in Romania; Varna and Burgas in Bulgaria; and Trabzon, Samsun, and Zonguldak in Turkey. The Black Sea region, especially in the S Crimea and W Caucasus, is a popular resort area.

History

The Black Sea was once part of a larger body that included the Caspian and Aral seas. In the Tertiary period, it was separated from the Caspian Sea and was linked to the Mediterranean Sea. Evidence suggests that more recently, about 7,600 years ago, at the end of a long dry period, it was flooded when the Mediterranean, having again become separate, broke through at the Bosporus, an event that may have scattered farmers from its shores into Europe and Asia. Some scientists have hypothesized that this event happened catastrophically and is the source of the biblical story of the Deluge.

The Pontus Euxinus [hospitable sea] of the ancients, the Black Sea was navigated and its shores colonized by the Greeks (8th-6th cent. B.C.) and later by the Romans (3d-1st cent. B.C.). Its importance increased with the founding of Constantinople (A.D. 330). In the 13th cent. the Genoese established colonies on the Black Sea, and from the 15th to the 18th cent. it was a Turkish "lake." The rise of Russia led to protracted dispute with the Ottoman Empire over control and use of the Bosporus and Dardanelles. In 1783, Russia annexed the Tatar Khanate of Crimea, which blocked its access to the sea, but the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Crimean War of 1856, frustrated Russia's expansionist ambitions, and Russia and its successor, the Soviet Union, retained limited influence in the region. In 1992, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Black Sea Economic Cooperation was established by nations surrounding the sea (not all members actually border the sea); it became a formal international organization in 1998. The six nations bordering the sea established the Black Sea Naval Cooperation Task Group in 2001 to promote cooperation on naval and environmental issues.

Black Rock Desert, arid region of lava beds and alkali flats, NW Nev., in Toiyabe National Forest, stretching c.70 mi (110 km) NE from Gerlach. The Jackson Mts. rise to the east; the Black Rock Range to the west. A land speed record was set there in 1983. The desert has been the site of the Burning Man festival, a self-styled temporary community and weeklong arts festival that attracts thousands, since 1991. Smoke Creek Desert, to the SW of Gerlach, is an extension of Black Rock.

Black River. 1 River rising in SE Mo. and flowing c.300 mi (480 km) SE, then SW to the White River near Newport, Ark. It is partly navigable. Clearwater Dam is on the river near Piedmont, Mo. 2 River of N N.Y., c.120 mi (190 km) long, rising in the Adirondack Mts. and flowing mainly N and W to Black River Bay, an inlet of Lake Ontario. Its falls provide power for factories and mills. 3 River, c.160 mi (260 km) long, rising in central Wis. and winding SW to the Mississippi River at La Crosse, Wis. It has been used to transport lumber, coal, and petroleum products. Big Manitou Falls, the highest falls in Wisconsin (165 ft/50 m), are in the river.

Black Prince: see Edward the Black Prince.

Black Panthers, U.S. African-American militant party, founded (1966) in Oakland, Calif., by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. Originally espousing violent revolution as the only means of achieving black liberation, the Black Panthers called on African Americans to arm themselves for the liberation struggle. In the late 1960s party members became involved in a series of violent confrontations with the police (resulting in deaths on both sides) and in a series of court cases, some resulting from direct shoot-outs with the police and some from independent charges. Among the most notable of the trials was that of Huey Newton for killing a policeman in 1967, which resulted in three mistrials, the last in 1971. Bobby Seale, one of the "Chicago Eight" charged and convicted of conspiracy to violently disrupt the Democratic National Convention of 1968 (conviction later overturned), was a codefendant in a Connecticut case charging murder of an alleged informer on the party. He was acquitted in 1971. A third major trial was of 13 Panthers in New York City accused of conspiring to bomb public places. They were also acquitted in 1971. The results of these trials were taken by many observers as confirmation of their suspicions that the Black Panthers were being subjected to extreme police harassment. Another incident that supported this view was the killing in a raid by Chicago police of Illinois party leader Fred Hampton and another Panther in 1969; review of this incident revealed that the two Panthers had been shot in their beds without any provocation. While controversy raged over the civil liberties issue, the Panthers themselves were riven with internal disputes. A major split took place, with Newton and Seale (who in 1972 announced their intention of abandoning violent methods) on the one side and Eldridge Cleaver (formerly the chief publicist for the party, who continued to preach violent revolution) on the other. Cleaver headed the so-called international headquarters of the party (until 1973) in Algeria. In 1974 both Seale and Newton left the party; the former resigned, and the latter fled to Cuba to avoid drug charges. During the late 1970s the party gradually lost most of its influence, ceasing to be an important force within the black community. The New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, founded in Dallas, Tex., in 1989, is not related to the old group.

Black Muslims, African-American religious movement in the United States, split since 1976 into the American Muslim Mission and the Nation of Islam. The original group was founded (1930) in Detroit by Wali Farad (or W. D. Fard), whom his followers believed to be "Allah in person." When Farad disappeared mysteriously in 1934, Elijah Muhammad assumed leadership of the group, first in Detroit and then in Chicago. Under his leadership, the black nationalist and separatist sect (then called the Nation of Islam) expanded, mainly among poor blacks and prison populations. Although the group numbered only about 8,000 when Muhammad took over, it grew rapidly in the 1950s and 60s, particularly as a result of the preaching of one of its ministers, Malcolm X. Tension between Muhammad and Malcolm developed, however, and Malcolm's subsequent suspension (1963) and assassination (1965), possibly by Muhammad's followers, caused great dissension in the movement. When Muhammad died in 1975, his son, Wallace D. Muhammad (later Warith Deen Mohammed) took over, preaching a far less inflammatory version of Islam. He aligned the organization with the international Islamic community, moving toward Sunni Islamic practice, and opened the group (renamed the World Community of Islam in the West and later the American Society of Muslims) to individuals of all races. In 1977 a group of Black Muslims, led by Louis Farrakhan, split off from the organization, disillusioned by the son's integrationist ideals and lack of allegiance to his father's brand of Islam. They named themselves the Nation of Islam and sought to follow in the footsteps of Elijah Muhammad. In the late 1990s the Nation of Islam began to embrace some traditional Islamic practices, and Farrakhan and Muhammad publicly declared an end to the rivalry between their groups in 2000. W. Deen Mohammed resigned as head of the American Society of Muslims in 2003.

Black Mountains: see Appalachian Mountains; Mitchell, Mount.

Black Monday, Oct. 19, 1987, in U.S. history, day of financial panic. The Dow Jones Average fell 508.32 points, a drop of 22.6%, the largest since 1914. The point decline as well as the volume, 604.33 million shares, exceeded previous records. Among the possible causes were investors' anxiety about U.S. international trade and federal deficits, U.S. criticism of West Germany's economic policies, the cascading effect of the automatic computerized selling of stocks, and the drop in stock-index futures triggered by computerized trading programs. Stocks throughout the world joined the slide. By mid-1988 the stock market had recovered, and the U.S. economy was largely unaffected by the crash.

Black Kettle, d. 1868, chief of the southern Cheyenne in Colorado. His attempt to make peace (1864) with the white men ended in the massacre of about half his people at Sand Creek. Despite this treachery on the part of the whites, he continued to seek peace with them, and in 1865 he signed the Treaty of the Little Arkansas. The government ignored its guarantees, and Black Kettle tried again to negotiate, signing the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867. The Cheyenne might have retired to the reservation provided for them, had it not been for Gen. George Armstrong Custer. On Nov. 27, 1868, Custer and his 7th Cavalry attacked Black Kettle's camp on the Washita River without warning and killed the chief and hundreds of Native Americans.

Black Isle, peninsula, 18 mi (29 km) long and up to 9 mi (14.5 km) wide, Highland, N Scotland, extending into Moray Firth. It has some of the best farmland in N Scotland, producing grain and potatoes. Cattle are also raised.

Black Hole of Calcutta: see Kolkata.

Black Hills, rugged mountains, c.6,000 sq mi (15,540 sq km), enclosed by the Belle Fourche and Cheyenne rivers, SW S.Dak. and NE Wyo., and rising c.2,500 ft (760 m) above the surrounding Great Plains; Harney Peak, 7,242 ft (2,207 m) above sea level, is the highest point in the Black Hills and in South Dakota. The mountains received their name from the heavily forested slopes that appear black from afar. Native Americans, white settlers, and railroad companies depended on wood from the Black Hills for fuel and building material. Gold was discovered in the hills in 1874 by an expedition led by Gen. George Custer, and the resulting gold rush drove out the indigenous population. White settlements grew rapidly after 1876, chiefly in such mining towns in South Dakota as Custer, Deadwood, Lead, Spearfish, and Rapid City, the largest city in the Black Hills. Gold is still mined in the area. Other important minerals found in the hills are uranium, feldspar, mica, and silver. The Black Hills are a major recreational area of the northern plains and a principal tourist spot. Most of the slopes are in two national forests. Wind Cave National Park, Jewel Cave National Monument, and Custer State Park are attractions. The 6,000 ft (1,829 m) Mt. Rushmore, with its gigantic open-air sculpture of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and T. Roosevelt, is famous throughout the world (see Mount Rushmore National Memorial).

Black Hawk War, conflict between the Sac and Fox and the United States in 1832. After the War of 1812, whites settling the Illinois country exerted pressure on the Native Americans. A treaty of 1804, which had no real claim to validity, provided for removal of the Sac and Fox W of the Mississippi. A Native American leader, Black Hawk (1767-1838), who was born in the Sac village near the site of present Rock Island, Ill., and who had fought for the British in the War of 1812, denounced the treaty and resisted removal. Years of intermittent skirmishing followed. In 1831 the whites used force to impose a new treaty that compelled the Native Americans to retire from their lands. In Apr., 1832, Black Hawk, with some 400 braves and their families, returned to Illinois. Not receiving the support he expected, he admitted defeat, but when one of the peaceful emissaries he sent was shot down in cold blood, the outraged Black Hawk successfully attacked a larger white force, then retired into what is now Wisconsin. A large force of volunteers was gathered under Gen. Henry Atkinson. The last battle of the war took place on the Bad Axe River, where Black Hawk was attacked by these troops and a Sioux war party. Trapped, he displayed a white flag, but this was ignored and almost all of his band, including women and children, were wiped out. Black Hawk himself escaped, surrendered to the Winnebago, was turned over for imprisonment, and was released in 1833 to return to the pitiful remnant of his tribe and his family in Iowa. Lorado Taft's colossal statue (1911) near Oregon, Ill., has come to be known as the Black Hawk Monument.

Black Hand, symbol and name for a criminal and terroristic secret society, and especially associated with the Mafia and the Camorra. The Black Hand flourished in Sicily in the late 19th cent., and in the United States it was especially active in New York City at the beginning of the 20th cent. It is estimated that at one time 90% of New York City's Italian population was blackmailed by letters threatening death and marked with a black hand. Famous incidents associated with the Black Hand include the murder (1890) in New Orleans of chief of police Daniel Hennessy and the shooting (1909), in Palermo, Italy, of Lt. Joseph Petrosino of the New York City police.

Black Friday, Sept. 24, 1869, in U.S. history, day of financial panic. In 1869 a small group of American financial speculators, including Jay Gould and James Fisk, sought the support of federal officials of the Grant administration in a drive to corner the gold market. The attempt failed when government gold was released for sale. The drive culminated on a Friday, when thousands were ruined—the day is popularly called Black Friday. There was great indignation against the perpetrators. Several other days of financial panic have also been occasionally referred to as Black Friday.

Black Forest, Ger. Schwarzwald, mountain range, SW Germany, extending 90 mi (145 km) between the Rhine and Neckar rivers. Feldberg is the highest (4,898 ft/1,493 m) peak. The range is covered by dark pine forests and cut by deep valleys and small lakes. The Danube and Neckar rivers rise there. Lumbering and woodworking are important economic activities. Orchards and cattle are found in the valleys; grains are grown in the highlands. The Black Forest is famous for its clock and toy industries (cuckoo clocks, music boxes). It is a year-round resort area, known for its winter sports and mineral springs; Baden-Baden and Freiburg are the chief cities.

Black Death: see plague.

Black Country, highly industrialized region, mostly in Staffordshire but partly in Worcestershire and Warwickshire, W central England. It includes the cities of Dudley, Rowley Regis (see Warley), Tipton, Walsall, Wednesbury, West Bromwich, and Wolverhampton. From the mid-18th to the mid-19th cent. the area's resources—coal, iron, clay, and limestone—made iron smelting and the manufacture of iron products the main industries. The black smoke from the factories gave the region its name. Since the iron and coal mines have been depleted, regional industries use iron, steel, brass, and copper from other localities to manufacture metal products. These include hardware, tubes, boilers, machinery and machine tools, home appliances, and road and rail vehicles. There are also chemical and constructional-engineering industries.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, 30,300 acres (12,272 hectares), W central Colorado, in the Rocky Mts. The park embraces the most spectacular stretch of the 53-mi (85-km) long Black Canyon, which is named for the sheer, dark-colored walls carved by the unspoiled Gunnison River. The narrow canyon is so deep (as much as 2,660 ft/811 m) that its bottom is in the shadows for most of the day. At the bottom, ancient Proterozoic rocks are exposed; wildlife in the park includes black bears, cougars, bobcats, golden eagles, peregrine falcons, and swifts. The area was designated a national monument in 1933 and became a national park in 1999.

Black Belt, term applied to several areas of Mississippi and Alabama, the heart of the Old South, which are characterized by black soil and excellent cotton-growing conditions. The Black Belt area was historically important as the nation's main cotton producer in the mid-1800s. Soil depletion, erosion, the boll weevil, and economic conditions combined to eliminate cotton from the region. Livestock, peanuts, and soybeans have become the area's chief crops.

Black Angus cattle: see Angus cattle.

Big Black Mountain, peak, 4,145 ft (1,263 m) high, E Ky., in the Cumberland Mts.; highest point in Kentucky.

Benedict the Black, Saint, d. 1589, Sicilian friar. Born a slave, he became a hermit and later a Franciscan lay brother. Although illiterate, his humility and extraordinary powers as spiritual director caused him to be made Superior. He has erroneously been called Benedict the Moor. He was canonized in 1807. Feast: Apr. 4.

or black-legged kittiwake

White oceanic gull (Rissa tridactyla) with pearl-gray mantle, black-tipped wings, black feet, and yellow bill. Kittiwakes nest on narrow cliff ledges along the North and South Atlantic coasts. The red-legged kittiwake (R. brevirostris) is found in the Bering Sea region.

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Type of Greek pottery that originated in Corinth circa 700 BC. The figures were painted in black pigment on the natural red clay ground. Finishing details were then incised into the black pigment, revealing the red ground. The great Attic painters (mid 6th century BC), most notably Exekias, developed narrative scene decoration and perfected the style. It continued to be popular until the advent of red-figure pottery (circa 530 BC).

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or black-eyed pea

Any of the cultivated forms of the annual legume Vigna unguiculata. The plants are believed to be native to India and the Middle East but in early times were cultivated in China. The compound leaves have three leaflets. The white, purple, or pale-yellow flowers usually grow in twos or threes at the ends of long stalks. The pods are long and cylindrical. In the southern U.S. the cowpea is grown extensively as a hay crop, as a cover or green-manure crop, or for the edible beans.

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Any of several black spiders in the genus Latrodectus with a venomous bite that is rarely fatal to humans. Black widow species are found worldwide, with three living in North America. In Australia it is called the redback. The females are shiny black, usually with a reddish hourglass-shaped design on the underside of the spherical abdomen and with a body about 1 in. (2.5 cm) long. The black widow preys on insects. The male, about one-fourth the female's size, is often killed and eaten by the female after mating (the source of its name).

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In the U.S., a dramatic movement encompassing plays written by, for, and about blacks. The first known play by an American black was James Brown's King Shotaway (1823). After the Civil War, blacks began to perform in minstrel shows, and musicals written, produced, and acted entirely by blacks appeared by circa 1900. The first real success of a black dramatist was Angelina W. Grimké's Rachel (1916). Theatre flourished during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and '30s, and by 1940 the American Negro Theater and the Negro Playwrights' Co. were firmly established. After World War II black theatre grew more progressive and militant, seeking to establish its own mythology, abolish racial stereotypes, and integrate black playwrights into the mainstream. Its strongest proponent, Amiri Baraka, established the Black Arts Repertory Theatre in 1965. In the 1980s and '90s the African American playwrights Charles Fuller and August Wilson won Pulitzer Prizes.

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Any of several species of all-black or nearly all-black snakes. Australian black snakes are in the elapid genus Pseudeschis. The black snake of Australian wetlands (P. porphyriacus) grows to an average length of 5 ft (1.5 m). If annoyed, it expands its neck, cobra fashion. Its venom is rarely fatal. Other Australian black snakes are the mulga snake (P. australis) and the spotted black snake (P. guttatus). North American black snakes include two species in the family Colubridae: the black racer and the pilot black snake (Elaphe obsoleta).

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Accumulation of fragments of durable, usually dark, heavy minerals (those with a density greater than that of quartz). These accumulations are found in streambeds or on beaches where stream flow and wave energy are sufficient to carry away low-density material but not the heavy minerals. Thus, heavy minerals resistant to weathering and abrasion concentrate in these areas, though they may be only minor constituents of inland rocks. Placer mining of such deposits yields magnetite, cassiterite, and zircon, as well as gold, platinum, and other rare metals.

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or pepper

Perennial, woody climbing vine (Piper nigrum) of the family Piperaceae, native to India; also, the hotly pungent spice made from its berries. One of the earliest spices known, pepper is probably the most widely used spice in the world today. It early became an important article of overland trade between India and Europe. The plant is cultivated throughout Indonesia and has been introduced into tropical areas elsewhere. It has broad, shiny leaves and dense, slender spikes of small flowers. The small berrylike fruits are called peppercorns. Seealso pepper.

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U.S. political and social movement aimed at developing economic power and community and ethnic pride among African Americans. It was proclaimed by Marcus Garvey in the early 20th century, when many U.S. black nationalists hoped for the eventual creation of a separate black nation in Africa. In the 1960s and '70s, Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X preached the ideal of black nationalism as an alternative to assimilation into the predominantly white culture of the U.S.

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Epiphyte (Tillandsia usneoides) in the pineapple family, found in southern North America, the West Indies, and Central and South America. It often hangs in large, beardlike, silvery-gray masses from trees and other plants and even on telephone poles, but it is not parasitic or structurally intertwined with its host. It takes in carbon dioxide and rainwater or dew for photosynthesis through tiny, hairlike scales that cover its threadlike leaves and long, threadlike stems. It absorbs nutrients from dust and solvents in rainwater, or from decaying organic matter around its aerial roots. Stalkless yellow flowers appear rarely. Spanish moss is sometimes used as a filler in packing boxes and upholstery, and around potted plants or floral arrangements.

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or black mica

Silicate mineral in the common mica group. It is abundant in metamorphic rocks, in pegmatites, and in granites and other igneous rocks. Biotite is a layer silicate structure in which aluminum and silicon occur in infinitely extending Si-Al-O sheets that alternate with potassium-rich and magnesium- (and iron-) containing sheets.

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Trading in violation of publicly imposed regulations such as rationing laws, laws against the sale of certain goods, and official rates of exchange among currencies. Black-market activity is common in wartime, when scarce goods and services are often strictly rationed (see rationing). Black-market foreign-exchange transactions flourish in countries where convertible foreign currency is scarce and foreign exchange is tightly controlled.

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or Gothic script or Old English script

Style of alphabet used in handwriting throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. It features uniform vertical strokes that end on the baseline, angular lines instead of smooth curves and circles, and the overlapping of convex forms. Black letter and roman were the dominant letter shapes of medieval typography. The only extant work known to have been printed by Johannes Gutenberg, the 42-line Bible (1450s), was set in black-letter type. Roman type largely superseded it in the Renaissance, though black letter persisted in Germany well into the 20th century. Today black letter is often used for diplomas, Christmas cards, and liturgical writings.

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or plumbago or black lead

Mineral allotrope of carbon. It is dark gray to black, opaque, and very soft. Its layered structure, with rings of six atoms arranged in widely spaced parallel sheets, gives it its slippery quality. It occurs in nature and is used (mixed with clay) as the “lead” in pencils. It is also used in lubricants, crucibles, polishes, arc lamps, batteries, brushes for electric motors, and nuclear reactor cores.

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Humour marked by the use of morbid, ironic, or grotesquely comic episodes that ridicule human folly. The term came into common use in the 1960s to describe the work of novelists such as Joseph Heller, whose Catch-22 (1961) is an outstanding example; Kurt Vonnegut, particularly in Slaughterhouse Five (1969); and Thomas Pynchon, in V (1963) and Gravity's Rainbow (1973). A film exemplar is Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (1963). The term black comedy has been applied to some playwrights in the Theatre of the Absurd, especially Eugène Ionesco.

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Cosmic body with gravity (see gravitation) so intense that nothing, not even light, can escape. It is suspected to form in the death and collapse of a star that has retained at least three times the Sun's mass. Stars with less mass evolve into white dwarf stars or neutron stars. Details of a black hole's structure are calculated from Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity: a “singularity” of zero volume and infinite density pulls in all matter and energy that comes within an event horizon, defined by the Schwarzschild radius, around it. Black holes cannot be observed directly because they are small and emit no light. However, their enormous gravitational fields affect nearby matter, which is drawn in and emits X rays as it collides at high speed outside the event horizon. Some black holes may have nonstellar origins. Astronomers speculate that supermassive black holes at the centres of quasars and many galaxies are the source of energetic activity that is observed. Stephen W. Hawking theorized the creation of numerous tiny black holes, possibly no more massive than an asteroid, during the big bang. These primordial “mini black holes” lose mass over time and disappear as a result of Hawking radiation. Although black holes remain theoretical, the case for their existence is supported by many observations of phenomena that match their predicted effects.

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Rare species of marten (Martes pennanti, family Mustelidae) found in northern forests of North America. The fisher is related to weasels and is similarly shaped. It has a bushy tail, tapered muzzle and low, rounded ears. Adults are usually 20–25 in. (50–63 cm) long, excluding the 13–17-in. (33–43-cm) tail, and weigh 3–15 lb (1.4–6.8 kg). Fishers hunt on the ground and in trees, attacking various rodents and other animals; they also eat fruits and sometimes nuts. It has been trapped for its valuable brownish black fur.

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(born Feb. 17, 1890, East Finchley, Middlesex, Eng.—died July 29, 1962, Adelaide, S.Aus., Austl.) British statistician and geneticist. As statistician for an agricultural research institute, he investigated the linkage of genes for different traits. To avoid unintentional bias in selection of materials used in experiments, he introduced the principle of randomization. It states that before an experimental effect can be attributed to a given cause or treatment, the experiment must be repeated on control units of the material and that all material used in experiments must be selected at random from the whole population it intends to represent. He also developed the concept of the analysis of variance, a statistical procedure used to design experiments that answer several questions at once.

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(born Feb. 27, 1867, Saugerties, N.Y., U.S.—died April 29, 1947, New Haven, Conn.) U.S. economist best known for his work in the field of capital theory. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University. As a professor at Yale (1892–1935), he examined the relationship between changes in the quantity of money and the general level of prices. He also promoted the concept of the “compensated dollar”—a dollar of constant purchasing power, defined in terms of an index of commodity prices rather than in terms of a given weight of gold. Seealso price index.

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(born Feb. 17, 1890, East Finchley, Middlesex, Eng.—died July 29, 1962, Adelaide, S.Aus., Austl.) British statistician and geneticist. As statistician for an agricultural research institute, he investigated the linkage of genes for different traits. To avoid unintentional bias in selection of materials used in experiments, he introduced the principle of randomization. It states that before an experimental effect can be attributed to a given cause or treatment, the experiment must be repeated on control units of the material and that all material used in experiments must be selected at random from the whole population it intends to represent. He also developed the concept of the analysis of variance, a statistical procedure used to design experiments that answer several questions at once.

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(born Feb. 27, 1867, Saugerties, N.Y., U.S.—died April 29, 1947, New Haven, Conn.) U.S. economist best known for his work in the field of capital theory. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University. As a professor at Yale (1892–1935), he examined the relationship between changes in the quantity of money and the general level of prices. He also promoted the concept of the “compensated dollar”—a dollar of constant purchasing power, defined in terms of an index of commodity prices rather than in terms of a given weight of gold. Seealso price index.

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(born April 9, 1758, Dedham, Mass.—died July 4, 1808, Dedham, Mass., U.S.) U.S. essayist and Federalist politician. He graduated from Harvard College in 1774 and taught school for five years before turning to the law; he was admitted to the bar in 1781. Supporting the creation of a strong central government, Ames argued for ratification of the new U.S. Constitution at the Massachusetts constitutional convention. He became known for his uncompromising advocacy of the rights of property and his protective attitude toward commercial interests, which he defended in trenchant writing and commanding speech. In 1788 he defeated Samuel Adams for a seat in the first session of the U.S. House of Representatives; he was reelected three times. His eloquent support of the treaty negotiated by John Jay to preserve peace with England (1794) convinced the House to pass an enabling appropriation.

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(born April 9, 1758, Dedham, Mass.—died July 4, 1808, Dedham, Mass., U.S.) U.S. essayist and Federalist politician. He graduated from Harvard College in 1774 and taught school for five years before turning to the law; he was admitted to the bar in 1781. Supporting the creation of a strong central government, Ames argued for ratification of the new U.S. Constitution at the Massachusetts constitutional convention. He became known for his uncompromising advocacy of the rights of property and his protective attitude toward commercial interests, which he defended in trenchant writing and commanding speech. In 1788 he defeated Samuel Adams for a seat in the first session of the U.S. House of Representatives; he was reelected three times. His eloquent support of the treaty negotiated by John Jay to preserve peace with England (1794) convinced the House to pass an enabling appropriation.

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Any member of the insect family Simuliidae, comprising 300 species of small, humpbacked dipterans found worldwide. Usually black or dark gray, the blackfly has short mouthparts adapted for sucking blood. The females bite and are sometimes abundant enough to kill chickens and even cattle. Some species carry worms capable of causing human disease, including river blindness. In subarctic regions blackflies may be so numerous that human habitation is impossible.

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Laws, enacted in the former Confederate states after the American Civil War, that restricted the freedom of former slaves and were designed to assure white supremacy. They originated in the slave codes, which defined slaves as property. In some states these codes included vagrancy laws that targeted unemployed blacks, apprentice laws that made black orphans and dependents available for hire to whites, and commercial laws that excluded blacks from certain trades and businesses and restricted their ownership of property. Northern reaction to the laws helped produce Radical Reconstruction and passage of the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution, as well as creation of the Freedmen's Bureau. Many provisions of the black codes were reenacted in the Jim Crow laws and remained in force until the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

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Instrument that records the performance and condition of an aircraft in flight. Regulatory agencies require these devices on commercial aircraft to make possible the analysis of crashes or other unusual occurrences. They are housed in heavy steel within layers of insulation, protecting them against impacts and fires. The recording tape is also protected against inadvertent erasure and contact with seawater. It records airspeed, altitude, heading, vertical acceleration, and aircraft pitch. It also includes a separate device that records voice communication within the aircraft and by radio. Both recorders are carried in the tail of the aircraft.

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Theoretical surface that absorbs all radiant energy that falls on it, and radiates electromagnetic energy at all frequencies, from radio waves to gamma rays, with an intensity distribution dependent on its temperature. Because all visible light falling on such a surface is absorbed without reflection, the surface will appear black as long as its temperature is such that its emission peak is not in the visible portion of the spectrum. Seealso absorption.

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Forest-dwelling bear (Ursus americanus) that, despite reductions in population and range, is still the most common North American bear. The adult ranges from 5 to 6 ft (150–180 cm) in length and weighs 200–600 lbs (90–270 kg). It has various colour morphs but always a brown face and usually a white chest mark. It eats animals and vegetation, including pinecones, berries, and roots. It frequently raids campsites and seizes anything edible. Though it may be tamed and taught tricks, it often becomes dangerous when mature.

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Any of about six species (genus Micropterus) of slender freshwater fishes of the sunfish family; found in eastern North America. Two, the largemouth and smallmouth black basses, have been introduced into other countries and are prized as hard-fighting game fishes. Black basses are larger and longer-bodied than sunfishes and more predatory. The largemouth bass may grow to 32 in. (80 cm) long and weigh 22 lbs (10 kg); it lives in quiet weedy lakes and streams. The smallmouth bass, which usually grows to 5–6 lbs (2–3 kg), inhabits clear, cool lakes and running streams.

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or Black Arts movement

Period of artistic and literary development among black Americans in the 1960s and early '70s. Based on the cultural politics of black nationalism, the movement sought to create art forms capable of expressing the varieties of black experience in the U.S. Leading theorists included Amiri Baraka, Houston Baker (b. 1943), and Henry Louis Gates. Don L. Lee (b. 1942), known as Haki R. Madhubuti after 1973, was one of its most popular writers; other notable writers included Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Ntozake Shange (b. 1948). The movement also produced such autobiographical works as The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965; with Alex Haley), Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice (1968), and Angela Davis: An Autobiography (1974).

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(born June 14, 1924, Uddingston, Scot.) Scottish pharmacologist. Through studying interactions between receptors on cells and chemicals in the bloodstream that attach to them, Black developed the first of the beta-blocking drugs, to relieve angina pectoris. He used a similar approach to develop drugs for stomach and duodenal ulcers. He shared a 1988 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with George H. Hitchings and Gertrude Elion.

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(born June 14, 1924, Uddingston, Scot.) Scottish pharmacologist. Through studying interactions between receptors on cells and chemicals in the bloodstream that attach to them, Black developed the first of the beta-blocking drugs, to relieve angina pectoris. He used a similar approach to develop drugs for stomach and duodenal ulcers. He shared a 1988 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with George H. Hitchings and Gertrude Elion.

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(born June 15, 1330, Woodstock, Oxfordshire, Eng.—died June 8, 1376, Westminster, near London) Prince of Wales (1343–76). Son of Edward III, he apparently received his sobriquet because he wore black armour. He was one of the outstanding commanders of the Hundred Years' War, winning a major victory at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. He was prince of Aquitaine 1362–72; his rule there was a failure, for which he was largely to blame. He returned sick and broken to England and formally surrendered his principality to his father. He had no successor as prince of Aquitaine. Though the heir apparent, he never became king; his son became Richard II.

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Sea between Europe and Asia. Bordered by Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, and Romania, it has a maximum depth of 7,250 ft (2,210 m). The Black Sea proper has an area of 163,000 sq mi (422,000 sq km). It is connected with the Aegean Sea through the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, and with the Sea of Azov by Kerch Strait. It receives many rivers, including the Danube, Dniester, Bug, Dnieper, Kuban, Kinodotzinodotl, and Sakarya. The Crimean Peninsula (see Crimea) extends into it from the north. Created when structural upheavals in Asia Minor split off the Caspian basin from the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea gradually became isolated; salinity is now less than half that of the world's oceans. Though long popular for its resorts, it has suffered severe pollution in recent decades.

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Group of mountains in western South Dakota and northeastern Wyoming, U.S. Occupying about 6,000 sq mi (15,540 sq km), they lie between the Cheyenne and Belle Fourche rivers and rise to a maximum elevation of 7,242 ft (2,207 m) at Harney Peak. Their name refers to the dark appearance that their rounded hilltops and well-forested slopes present at a distance. The Sioux Indians were guaranteed treaty rights to the region in 1868; however, the discovery of gold in 1874 led to an influx of white miners and to the Black Hills War (1876), including the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Tourist attractions include the mining town of Deadwood, Mount Rushmore and Jewel Cave national monuments, Wind Cave National Park, and Custer State Park, all in South Dakota, and Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming.

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Secret Serbian society formed in 1911 primarily by army officers, which used terrorist methods to promote the liberation of Serbs outside Serbia from Habsburg or Ottoman rule. It conducted propaganda campaigns, organized armed bands in Macedonia, and established revolutionary cells throughout Bosnia. Within Serbia it dominated the army and wielded tremendous influence over the government. It gained its greatest notoriety with the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand in 1914. After a trial in 1917, three leaders were executed and more than 200 were imprisoned. The name also referred to several extortion rackets run by immigrant Sicilian and Italian gangsters in the Italian communities of many large U.S. cities circa 1890–1920. Local merchants and wealthy individuals would receive threatening notes printed with black hands, daggers, or other menacing symbols that demanded money on pain of death or destruction of property. It declined with the beginning of Prohibition and large-scale bootlegging.

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Day (Sept. 24, 1869) when plunging gold prices precipitated a U.S. stock-market panic. An attempt by Jay Gould and James Fisk to corner the market in gold and drive up its price depended on preventing the sale of government gold, an arrangement assured through the two men's political influence. When Pres. Ulysses S. Grant heard of the scheme, he ordered the government to sell $4 million in gold, which caused the price to drop and produced a panic selling of other stocks.

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German Schwarzwald

Mountain region, Baden-Württemberg, southwestern Germany. It extends in a fairly narrow strip about 100 mi (160 km) along the eastern bank of the upper Rhine River, from the Neckar River to the Swiss border. Its highest peak is Feldberg, at 4,897 ft (1,493 m). Its name comes from its dark interior, the higher parts being thickly forested with fir and pine. It is the source of the Neckar and Danube rivers. The setting of many of the Grimm brothers' fairy tales, it is famed for the beauty and charm of its villages and rolling hills. Winter sports are prominent in the area, which also has many mineral springs and watering places, including the spa town of Baden-Baden.

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Fierce and widespread outbreak of plague, probably bubonic and pneumonic, that ravaged Europe during the 14th century. The epidemic originated in Asia and was transmitted to Europeans in 1347 when a Turkic army besieging a Genoese trading post in the Crimea catapulted plague-infested corpses into the town. It spread from the Mediterranean ports and ravaged all of Europe between 1347 and 1351. Renewed outbreaks occurred in 1361–63, 1369–71, 1374–75, 1390, and 1400. Towns and cities were more heavily hit than the countryside, and whole communities were sometimes destroyed. Much of Europe's economy was devastated. About one-third of the European population, or a total of 25 million people, died in the Black Death.

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Park, western Colorado, U.S. Comprising a narrow, deep gorge of the Gunnison River, the preserve, established as a national monument in 1933 and elevated to a national park in 1999, occupies an area of 51 sq mi (133 sq km). The canyon derives its name from its black-stained, lichen-covered walls, which accentuate the gloom of the chasm.

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