Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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stock market crash of 1929 ... Stone, Barton W

stock market crash of 1929: a sharp decline in U.S. stock market values in 1929 that contributed to the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Great Depression lasted approximately 10 years and affected both industrialized and nonindustrialized countries in many parts of the world.
stock option: contractual agreement enabling the holder to buy or sell a security at a designated price for a specified period of time, unaffected by movements in its market price during the period. Put and call options, purchased both for speculative and ...
stock-car racing: form of automobile racing, popular in the United States, in which cars that conform externally to standard U.S. commercial types are raced, usually on oval, paved tracks. Stock-car racing is said to have originated during the U.S. Prohibition period (1919-33), ...
Stockbridge: town (township), Berkshire county, western Massachusetts, U.S. It lies along the Housatonic River in the Berkshire Hills, 12 miles (19 km) south of Pittsfield. In 1737 John Sergeant and Timothy Woodbridge chartered a Christian mission on the site, which became ...
Stockelsdorf faience: tin-glazed earthenware made at Stockelsdorf near Lubeck, Germany. In what was probably an earlier stove-tile factory, Stockelsdorf began to make faience in 1771, specializing in tea trays and stoves. Between about 1773 and about 1775 Johann Buchwald (as director) and ...
Stockerau: city, Bundesland (federal state) Niederosterreich, northeastern Austria. It lies about 12.5 miles (20 km) northwest of Vienna, on a tributary of the Danube River. Stockerau was mentioned as a town in 1012 but was not chartered as a city until ...
Stockhausen, Karlheinz: German composer, an important creator and theoretician of electronic and serial music who strongly influenced avant-garde composers from the 1950s through the '80s.
Stockholm: lan (county) of east-central Sweden. It lies along the Baltic Sea and surrounds Stockholm, the national capital and seat of the lan's governor, yet is administratively separate from that city. The lan includes parts of the traditional landskap (provinces) of ...
Stockholm: capital and largest city of Sweden. Stockholm is located at the junction of Lake Malar (Malaren) and Salt Bay (Saltsjon), an arm of the Baltic Sea, opposite the Gulf of Finland. The city is built upon numerous islands as well ...
Stockholm Bloodbath: (Nov. 8-9, 1520), the mass execution of Swedish nobles by the Danish king Christian II (reigned 1513-23), which led to the final phase of the Swedish war of secession from the Kalmar Union of the three Scandinavian kingdoms under Danish ...
Stockmar, Christian Friedrich, Baron von: German physician who became influential in Belgian and then in British politics, as secretary to King Leopold I of the Belgians and as adviser to Queen Victoria and Albert, the prince consort, of Great Britain. His ardent constitutionalism helped to ...
Stockport: urban area and metropolitan borough in the southeastern part of the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester, England. Most of the borough, including the historic town of Stockport, lies in the historic county of Cheshire, but it includes an area west ...
Stockton: city, seat (1850) of San Joaquin county, north-central California, U.S. It lies along the San Joaquin River, 40 miles (65 km) south of Sacramento. Connected westward with San Francisco Bay by the river's 78-mile (126-km) channel, Stockton is, with Sacramento, ...
Stockton & Darlington Railway: in England, first railway in the world to operate freight and passenger service with steam traction. In 1821 George Stephenson, who had built several steam engines to work in the Killingworth colliery, heard of Edward Pease's intention of building an ...
Stockton, Frank Richard: American popular novelist and short-story writer of mainly humorous fiction, best known as the author of the title story of a collection called The Lady, or the Tiger? (1884).
Stockton, Robert F.: U.S. naval officer and public leader who helped conquer California in the Mexican War (1846-48).
Stockton-on-Tees: town and unitary authority, northeastern England. The unitary authority encompasses an area on both sides of the River Tees. The section north of the Tees, including the historic town of Stockton, forms part of the geographic and historic county of ...
Stoddard, Richard Henry: American poet, critic, and editor, more important as a figure in New York literary circles in the late 19th century than for his own verse. Abraham Lincoln, An Horatian Ode (1865) and parts of Songs of Summer (1857) and The ...
Stoecker, Adolf: cleric, conservative politician, and reformer who founded the German Christian Social Party and promoted political anti-Semitism in Germany.
Stoeng Treng: town, northeastern Cambodia. Stoeng Treng lies at the confluence of the San, Kong, and Mekong rivers. It is linked to Phnom Penh, the national capital, and to Laos by a national highway.
stoichiometry: in chemistry, the determination of the proportions in which elements or compounds react with one another. The rules followed in the determination of stoichiometric relationships are based on the laws of conservation of mass and energy and the law of ...
Stoicism: a school of thought that flourished in Greek and Roman antiquity. It was one of the loftiest and most sublime philosophies in the record of Western civilization. In urging participation in the affairs of man, Stoics have always believed that ...
Stojadinovic, Milan: Serbian politician, Yugoslav minister of finance from 1922 to 1926, and premier and foreign minister of Yugoslavia from 1935 to 1939.
Stoke Poges: town ("parish"), South Bucks district, administrative and historic county of Buckinghamshire, England, just north of Slough. It has become a fashionable residential area on the lower slopes of the Chiltern Hills, with a famous golf club on the site of ...
Stoke-on-Trent: city and unitary authority, geographic and historic county of Staffordshire, England, consisting of the industrial ceramic-producing area known as the Potteries. Ceramics is the chief industry, although metalworking, glass, and rubber are also important.
stoker: machine for feeding coal or other solid fuel into a furnace, usually supporting the fuel during combustion. A good stoker also supplies air for combustion and regulates the rate of burning and, in large installations, disposes of the ashes. Use ...
Stoker, Bram: author of the popular horror tale Dracula.
Stokes lines: radiation of particular wavelengths present in the line spectra associated with fluorescence and the Raman effect (q.v.), named after Sir George Gabriel Stokes, a 19th-century British physicist. Stokes lines are of longer wavelength than that of the exciting radiation responsible ...
Stokes's law: mathematical equation that expresses the settling velocities of small spherical particles in a fluid medium. The law, first set forth by the British scientist Sir George G. Stokes in 1851, is derived by consideration of the forces acting on a ...
Stokes, Carl: American lawyer and politician, who became the first African American to serve as mayor of a major U.S. city, having been elected to that office in Cleveland, Ohio (1967-71).
Stokes, Donald Gresham Stokes, Baron: British automobile executive who presided over the merger that resulted in British Leyland Motor Corporation, Ltd. (later renamed BL Public Limited Company), the largest automaker in England. Although Stokes had done well as managing director of Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd., ...
Stokes, Sir George Gabriel, 1st Baronet: British physicist and mathematician noted for his studies of the behaviour of viscous fluids, particularly for his law of viscosity, which describes the motion of a solid sphere in a fluid, and for Stokes's theorem, a basic theorem of vector ...
Stokes, William: physician and the leading representative of the Irish, or Dublin, school of anatomical diagnosis, which emphasized clinical examination of patients in forming a diagnosis. He was also the author of two important works in the emerging field of cardiac and ...
Stokesay: village ("parish") in South Shropshire district, administrative and historic county of Shropshire, England, best known for its castle (1240), one of the most notable fortified manor houses of England. It was fortified against Welsh marauders, and the south tower was ...
Stokowski, Leopold: virtuoso British-born U.S. conductor known for his flamboyant showmanship and the rich sonorities of his orchestras and for his influence as a popularizer of classical music.
STOL airplane: any of several fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing on runways considerably shorter than those needed by conventional aircraft. Most aircraft of this type require a runway no more than 150 metres (500 feet) long, which is about ...
Stolberg-Stolberg, Friedrich Leopold, Graf zu: (count of) German lyric poet of the Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) and early Romantic periods.
Stolbovo, Treaty of: (1617), peace settlement concluded between Sweden and Russia ending Sweden's intervention in Russia's internal political affairs and blocking Russia from the Baltic Sea. In 1610 Muscovite leaders, faced with a succession crisis, a war with Poland, and peasant uprisings (Time ...
stole: ecclesiastical vestment worn by Roman Catholic deacons, priests, and bishops and by some Anglican, Lutheran, and other Protestant clergy. A band of silk 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 centimetres) wide and about 8 feet (240 centimetres) long, it ...
stolon: in biology, a special slender horizontal branch serving to propagate the organism. In botany a stolon-also called a runner-is a slender stem that grows horizontally along the ground, giving rise to roots and aerial (vertical) branches at specialized points called ...
Stolypin land reform: (1906-17), measures undertaken by the Russian government to allow peasants to own land individually. Its aim was to encourage industrious peasants to acquire their own land, and ultimately to create a class of prosperous, conservative, small farmers that would be ...
Stolypin, Pyotr Arkadyevich: conservative statesman who, after the Russian Revolution of 1905, initiated far-reaching agrarian reforms to improve the legal and economic status of the peasantry as well as the general economy and political stability of imperial Russia.
stomach: saclike expansion of the digestive system, between the esophagus and the small intestine; it is located in the anterior portion of the abdominal cavity in most vertebrates. The stomach serves as a temporary receptacle for storage and mechanical distribution of ...
stomach cancer: a disease characterized by abnormal growth of cells in the stomach. The incidence of stomach cancer has decreased dramatically since the early 20th century in countries where refrigeration has replaced other methods of food preservation such as salting, smoking, and ...
stomacher: ornamental garment worn at the front of the upper body by men and women from the end of the 15th until the late 18th century. At the end of the 15th century, men's jackets often had a V-opening allowing for ...
stomate: any of the microscopic openings or pores in the epidermis of leaves and young stems. Stomates are generally more numerous on the underside of leaves. They provide for the exchange of gases between the outside air and the branched system ...
Stommel, Henry Melson: American oceanographer and meteorologist.
stone: British unit of weight for dry products generally equivalent to 14 pounds avoirdupois (6.35 kg), though it varied from 4 to 32 pounds (1.814 to 14.515 kg) for various items over time. Originally any good-sized rock chosen as a local ...
Stone Age: prehistoric cultural stage, or level of human development, characterized by the creation and use of stone tools. The Stone Age is usually divided into three separate periods-Paleolithic Period, Mesolithic Period, and Neolithic Period-based on the degree of sophistication in the ...
stone chimes: a set of struck sonorous stones (individually called phonoliths). Such instruments can be found from the South Seas and South America to Africa and the Far East. Stones are used in Ethiopian and Coptic churches, for example, as bells (dowel) ...
Stone, Barton W: Protestant clergyman and a founder of the Disciples of Christ, a major U.S. religious denomination.