Rashida Jones: Producing and writing work: …of the acclaimed TV series Black Mirror. Along with Alan Hicks she wrote and directed the 2018 documentary Quincy based on her father’s life; it won the best music film award at the 2019 Grammy Awards.

Black Mischief, satiric novel by Evelyn Waugh, published in 1932. The book skewers attempts to impose European customs and beliefs upon so-called primitive peoples. The story is set in the fictional empire of Azania, an island off the coast of Africa. Upon the death of the emperor of Azania, rule

sooty mold, plant disease characterized by splotchy black stains or coatings on leaves, stems, and fruit. The black residue of sooty mold is composed of dark fungal threads of a number of ascomycetes, including species of Alternaria, Capnodium, Cladosporium, Fumago, and Scorias. These fungi grow in

stock market crash of 1929: The panic began again on Black Monday (October 28), with the market closing down 12.8 percent. On Black Tuesday (October 29) more than 16 million shares were traded. The Dow lost another 12 percent and closed at 198—a drop of 183 points in less than two months. Prime securities tumbled…

Don Cheadle: …cast in another dark comedy, Black Monday (2019– ), centred on the stock market crash of October 19, 1987, and his performance earned him his 9th and 10th Emmy nominations. In 2021 he and Benicio Del Toro starred as small-time criminals in Soderbergh’s No Sudden Move, a drama set in…

Black Monday, global stock market crash that occurred on October 19, 1987. There have been several Black Mondays in history that are connected to stock market collapses, but what is arguably the worst of them arrived in 1987. October 19 was the day when global stock markets went into collective

The Black Monk, short story by Anton Chekhov, first published in Russian as “Chorny monakh” in 1894. “The Black Monk,” Chekhov’s final philosophical short story, concerns Kovrin, a mediocre scientist who has grandiose hallucinations in which a black-robed monk convinces him that he possesses

David Rabe: … (1998); The Dog Problem (2002); The Black Monk (2004), based on a Chekhov short story; An Early History of Fire (first performed 2012); and Visiting Edna (2016).

Marcus Garvey was a charismatic Black leader who organized the first important American Black nationalist movement (1919–26), based in New York City’s Harlem. Largely self-taught, Garvey attended school in Jamaica until he was 14. After traveling in Central America and living in London from 1912 to

Spanish moss, (Tillandsia usneoides), epiphyte (a nonparasitic plant that is supported by another plant and has aerial roots exposed to the humid atmosphere) of the pineapple family (Bromeliaceae). It is found in southern North America, the West Indies, and Central and South America. The

sooty mold, plant disease characterized by splotchy black stains or coatings on leaves, stems, and fruit. The black residue of sooty mold is composed of dark fungal threads of a number of ascomycetes, including species of Alternaria, Capnodium, Cladosporium, Fumago, and Scorias. These fungi grow in

Black Mountain College, experimental liberal arts college in Black Mountain, North Carolina, U.S. (about 20 miles [32 km] east of Asheville), founded in 1933 by scholars John Andrew Rice and Theodore Dreier. In little more than two decades, the college proved a wide-reaching influence on the larger

Black Mountain poets, a loosely associated group of poets that formed an important part of the avant-garde of American poetry in the 1950s, publishing innovative yet disciplined verse in The Black Mountain Review (1954–57), which became a leading forum of experimental verse. The group grew up

Black Mountain Range, southern spur of the Assam Himalayas in Bhutan. It lies between the Sankosh River (west) and the Mangde (Tongsa) River (east), and tributaries of the two rivers run through deep ravines down its steep slopes. The road between Punakha and Tongsa Dzong (a fortified monastery)

Black Mountain poets: …innovative yet disciplined verse in The Black Mountain Review (1954–57), which became a leading forum of experimental verse.

Black Mountains, plateau in Powys county, Wales, lying east of the River Usk and extending between Abergavenny and Hay-on-Wye. Waun Fach (2,660 ft [811 m]) is the highest

Black Mountains, mountain range in Yancey and Buncombe counties in western North Carolina, U.S., part of the Appalachian Mountains extending north from the Blue Ridge. The range includes Mount Mitchell (6,684 feet [2,037 meters]), the highest point east of the Mississippi River. Since the Black

mulberry: Major species: Black mulberry (M. nigra), the most common species, is a native of western Asia that spread westward in cultivation at an early period. Up to the 15th century it was extensively grown in Italy for raising silkworms, but it has since been superseded by white…

Nation of Islam, African American movement and organization, founded in 1930 and known for its teachings combining elements of traditional Islam with Black nationalist ideas. The Nation also promotes racial unity and self-help and maintains a strict code of discipline among members. Islam was

Rumer Godden: Black Narcissus (1939; filmed 1946), her first novel to achieve popular success, concerns a group of English nuns who surmount physical and emotional difficulties to establish a mission in the Himalayas. Underlying the plot are the issues of cultures in conflict and obsessive love, both…

Jim Broadbent: …priest in the TV miniseries Black Narcissus, an adaptation of a novel by Rumer Godden.

Deborah Kerr: …role of Sister Clodagh in Black Narcissus (1947), for which she won her first New York Film Critics’ Circle Award (her subsequent awards were for Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison [1957] and The Sundowners [1960]). Black Narcissus became an international hit and led to an MGM contract and the opportunity to…

Black nationalism, political and social movement prominent in the 1960s and early ’70s in the United States that gained popularity among Black Americans. The movement sought to acquire economic power and to infuse among Black people a sense of community and group feeling. The roots of Black

Langston Hughes: Documenting African American culture and posthumous works: Black Nativity (1961; film 2013) is a gospel play that uses Hughes’s poetry, along with gospel standards and scriptural passages, to retell the story of the birth of Jesus. It was an international success, and performances of the work—often diverging substantially from the original—became a…

Mary J. Blige: Acting career: … (2012), Betty and Coretta (2013), Black Nativity (2013), and Mudbound (2017). For her work in the latter movie, a drama about racism in 1940s Mississippi, Blige earned an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress. In addition, “Mighty River,” which she cowrote and sang for the film’s soundtrack, received an…

nightshade: The black nightshade (S. nigrum) is also generally considered poisonous, but its fully ripened fruit and foliage are cooked and eaten in some areas.

Rome: People of Rome: …such Romans are the “black nobility,” families with papal titles who form a society within high society, shunning publicity and not given to great intimacy with the “white nobility,” whose titles were conferred by mere temporal rulers. The inhabitants who consider themselves the most nobly Roman of them all…

Nossob River: …the White Nossob and the Black Nossob, both of which rise northeast of Windhoek (the national capital). Their confluence is north of Leonardville, which is located near the tropic of Capricorn. The Nossob then follows a southeasterly course, passing through the thick, porous sands of the semiarid western Kalahari (Desert).…

black oak, (Quercus velutina), North American timber tree belonging to the red oak group. The tree is distributed throughout the eastern United States. It grows on exposed slopes and ridges, as it cannot tolerate shade. Black oak usually grows to about 25 meters (80 feet) tall and may grow to 45

Black Obelisk, Assyrian monument of King Shalmaneser III (reigned 858–824 bc). The most complete Assyrian obelisk yet discovered, it is decorated with cuneiform inscriptions and reliefs recording military campaigns and other triumphs, including payment of tribute by King Jehu of Israel (reigned

Art Abuse: 11 Vandalized Works of Art: Black on Maroon:

opal: Black opal, with a very dark gray or blue to black body colour, is particularly rare and highly prized. White opal, with light body colours, and fire opal, characterized by yellow, orange, or red body colour, are much more common.

Kevin Costner: Open Range, Hidden Figures, and Molly’s Game: …raise his biracial granddaughter in Black or White. The next year he starred as a high-school cross-country running coach in McFarland, USA.

Tyra Banks: Early life and modeling career: …videos including Michael Jackson’s “Black or White” (1991), Tina Turner’s “Love Thing” (1992), and George Michael’s “Too Funky” (1992). In 1992 she returned from Paris, and in 1993 she was featured in a recurring role on several episodes of the television comedy series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990–96),…

Neil Gaiman: Background and Black Orchid: …Comics, and the result was Black Orchid, a miniseries that helped establish the atmosphere for the DC renaissance of the late 1980s. Along with Alan Moore’s work on Watchmen (1986–87) and Swamp Thing (1983–87) and Frank Miller’s gritty interpretation of Batman in The Dark Knight Returns (1986), the success of…

Coelogyne: The black orchid (C. pandurata) has black velvety markings on its fiddle-shaped central labellum (modified petal); it bears from 5 to 15 greenish yellow flowers.

Hudsonian orogeny: …Mazatzal orogeny in Arizona, the Black orogeny in South Dakota, and the Penokean orogeny in the southern part of the Lake Superior region may represent the Hudsonian event in the United States. Precambrian rocks in the Southern Province, which extends south-southwest of Lake Superior into the mid-continental United States, also…

Orpheus: …Brazilian director Marcel Camus’s film Black Orpheus (1959).

Es’kia Mphahlele: … of the influential literary periodical Black Orpheus (1960–64), published in Ibadan, Nigeria; founder and director of Chemchemi, a cultural centre in Nairobi for artists and writers (1963–65); and editor of the periodical Africa Today (1967). He received a doctorate from the University of Denver in 1968. In 1977 he returned…

Gertrude Atherton: Her controversial novel Black Oxen (1923), the story of a woman revitalized by hormone treatments and based on Atherton’s own experience, was her biggest popular success.

oystercatcher: The black oystercatcher (H. bachmani), of western North America, and the sooty oystercatcher (H. fuliginosus), of Australia, are dark except for the pinkish legs.

Sun Temple, temple in Konark, Odisha state, India, that is dedicated to the Hindu sun god Surya. It was built of stone in the 13th century. The Sun Temple is the pinnacle of Hindu Orissan architecture and is unique in terms of its sculptural innovations and the quality of its carvings. Textual

Are Chunga Palms Really Dangerous?: …and chilling encounter with the chunga palms in the Darién Gap? Nothing like a surprising episode to pique your interest in botany, eh? Don’t worry, Encyclopædia Britannica has you covered.

black panther, colloquial term used to refer to large felines classified in the genus Panthera that are characterized by a coat of black fur or large concentrations of black spots set against a dark background. The term black panther is most frequently applied to black-coated leopards (Panthera

Black Panther, comic strip superhero created for Marvel Comics by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby. The character first appeared in Fantastic Four no. 52 (July 1966). Seeking to address the dearth of Black characters in comics, Lee and Kirby created T’Challa, a member of the royal family of

Black Panther: Black Panther in film and other media: Director Ryan Coogler helmed Black Panther (2018), a dazzling spectacle that saw Boseman return to the screen in the role of T’Challa. Perhaps the MCU’s best-reviewed film to date, Black Panther examined race, gender, and power issues through an Afrofuturist lens and featured an ensemble cast that included Michael…

Black Panther Party, African American revolutionary party, founded in 1966 in Oakland, California, by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. The party’s original purpose was to patrol African American neighborhoods to protect residents from acts of police brutality. The Panthers eventually developed into

Black Panther Party, African American revolutionary party, founded in 1966 in Oakland, California, by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. The party’s original purpose was to patrol African American neighborhoods to protect residents from acts of police brutality. The Panthers eventually developed into

Founded in 1966, the Black Panther Party reached its peak just a few years later, although it did not disband until 1982. Despite its relatively short duration, the group created an enduring—though controversial—legacy. The Panthers’ campaign for African American equality not only had a lasting

Black Panther Ten-Point Program, document first published on May 15, 1967, in the second issue of The Black Panther, the newspaper of the militant Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Composed in October 1966 by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton, the cofounders of the Black Panther Party, the

Black Panther Ten-Point Program, document first published on May 15, 1967, in the second issue of The Black Panther, the newspaper of the militant Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Composed in October 1966 by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton, the cofounders of the Black Panther Party, the

Eusébio was a Portuguese football (soccer) player considered one of the greatest of all time. He was celebrated for his long runs through defenders and his deft scoring touch. Eusébio began his career playing on the Sporting Clube de Lourenço Marques in what was then the Portuguese territory of

Angela Bassett: >Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022). For the latter she won a Golden Globe for best performance by an actress in a supporting role in any motion picture and received her second Oscar nomination.

My Chemical Romance: The Black Parade (2006), a bombastic rock opera about the reflections of a dying cancer patient, was produced by Rob Cavallo, who had worked previously with pop-punk group Green Day on its similarly ambitious American Idiot. The ensuing multicontinent concert tour found My Chemical Romance…

Matilda Sissieretta Jones was an American opera singer who was among the greatest sopranos in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Jones early revealed her talent as a singer, and for a time she studied at the Providence (Rhode Island) Academy of Music. She may have undertaken further studies at

Matilda Sissieretta Jones: …called, to her distaste, the Black Patti Troubadors, a motley group whose performances included blackface minstrel songs and “coon” songs and featured acrobats and comedians. Madame Jones, as she preferred to be known, restricted herself to operatic selections, which over the years grew to include costumes and scenery. Performing almost…

bubble tea, beverage combining tea, milk, and “bubbles”—chewy gelatinous candies made of tapioca or fruit jelly. Bubble tea is a favourite in its homeland of Taiwan and is now popular worldwide. Bubble tea originated in the city of T’ai-nan, Taiwan, in the mid-1980s. Dozens of variations of the

Steve Biko: Education and activism: …of the founders of the Black People’s Convention, an umbrella organization of Black consciousness groups.

black pepper: Cultivation and harvest: …whole peppercorns, when ground, yield black pepper. White pepper is obtained by removing the dark outer part of the pericarp, and the flavor is less pungent than that of black pepper. The outer coating is softened either by keeping the berries in moist heaps for 2 or 3 days or…

black pepper, (Piper nigrum), perennial climbing vine of the family Piperaceae and the hot, pungent spice made from its fruits. Black pepper is native to the Malabar Coast of India and is one of the earliest spices known. Widely used as a spice around the world, pepper also has a limited usage in

peppermint: Types: Black peppermint, also called English peppermint or mitcham mint, is extensively grown in the United States and has purplish stems. The white variety is less hardy and less productive, but its oil is considered more delicate in odor and obtains a higher price.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: Literary archaeologist: …Gates became codirector of the Black Periodical Literature Project at Yale. In the years that followed he earned a reputation as a “literary archaeologist” by recovering and collecting thousands of lost literary works (short stories, poems, reviews, and notices) by African American authors dating from the early 19th to the…

Zwarte Piet is a character in Dutch folklore who serves St. Nicholas (in Dutch, Sinterklaas) in St. Nicholas Day (December 6 and its eve) festivities in the Netherlands. Usually performed in blackface, Zwarte Piet is widely considered a racist caricature, though some defend the character as part of

tag: …wall-to-wall in Great Britain, and pom-pom-pullaway in the United States). In addition, there are also freeze tag and group tag. With freeze tag, the tagged person cannot move until someone from his team “unfreezes” him with a touch. In group tag the child touching a safe area (often known as…

phoebe: …most widely distributed is the black phoebe (S. nigricans), which is found near water from the southwestern United States to Argentina. Measuring 16 cm (6.3 inches) long, S. nigricans is slightly smaller than S. phoebe, and it is dark above with a contrasting white belly.

phosphorus: Properties and reactions: …is converted to a flaky black crystalline form, which somewhat resembles graphite. This may prove to be the most stable form of phosphorus, despite the relative difficulty in its preparation. In both the red and the black forms, each phosphorus atom forms three single bonds, which are spread apart sufficiently…

red pill and blue pill: The term black pill, first popularized in the 2010s on the incel blog Omega Virgin Revolt, refers to accepting the futility of fighting against a feminist system. Blackpilled incels are encouraged to either commit suicide or “go ER”/be a “hERo,” referencing Elliot Rodger’s 2014 Isla Vista murder…

pine: Major Eurasian pines: The Austrian, or black, pine (P. nigra) grows to a height of 30 or even 45 meters (98 to 148 feet), with a straight trunk and branches in regular whorls, forming in a large tree a pyramidal head. It derives its name from the sombre aspect…

yellowwood: …elatus) of southeastern Australia; the black pine, or matai (P. spicatus), the kahikatea, or white pine (P. dacrydioides), the miro (P. ferrugineus), and the totara (P. totara), all native to New Zealand; kusamaki, or broad-leaved podocarpus (P. macrophyllus), of China and Japan; real yellowwood (P. latifolius),

cypress pine: Major species: …columellaris), found throughout Australia; the black cypress pine (C. endlicheri) of eastern Australia, locally also called black pine, red pine, and scrub pine; the Port Macquarie pine, or stringybark (C. macleayana), of southeastern Australia; and the common cypress pine (C. preissii) of southern Australia, often shrubby near the seacoast, with…

Douglas Fairbanks: …The Thief of Bagdad (1924), The Black Pirate (1926), The Iron Mask (1929), and The Taming of the Shrew (1929), in which he costarred with Mary Pickford, the popular leading lady to whom he was married from 1920 to 1935.

During the ”golden age” of piracy in the late 1600s and early 1700s, a pirate ship was one of the few places a Black man could attain power and money in the Western Hemisphere. Some of these Black pirates were fugitive slaves in the Caribbean or other coastal areas of the Americas. Others joined

Georgia O’Keeffe: New Mexico: …Place (1940), Pelvis IV (1944), Black Place III (1944), and numerous other paintings of the area’s distinctive natural and architectural forms. Such paintings of what she saw allowed her to continue to explore the abstract language she had identified as her own in the 1910s in that its abstract shapes…

cacao: Pests and diseases: A pod rot called black pod is caused by a fungus (Phytophthora) that spreads rapidly on the pods under conditions of excessive rain and humidity, insufficient sunshine, and temperatures below 21 °C (70 °F). Control requires timely treatment with copper-containing fungicides and constant removal of infected pods. Witches’ broom…

poplar: Common species: The black poplar, or black cottonwood (P. nigra), has oval fine-toothed leaves, is long-trunked, and grows to a height of 35 metres (115 feet). Columnar black poplars are widely used in ornamental landscape plantings, particularly among the villas of Italy and elsewhere in southern Europe. White…

Longshan culture, Neolithic culture of central China, named for the site in Shandong province where its remains were first discovered by C.T. Wu. Dating from about 2600 to 2000 bce, it is characterized by fine burnished ware in wheel-turned vessels of angular outline; abundant gray pottery;

black powder, first type of explosive mixture invented for use in firearms and for blasting (see

The Black Power movement was an American civil rights effort begun in the 1960s that emphasized African American pride and self-reliance over racial integration. Leaders of the movement pushed for the creation of cultural, economic, and political institutions that would promote and protect the

Mississippi: Relief and soils: …Central Prairie, separated from the Black Prairie by a section of hills and woods. The two prairies, with fertile black soil that is excellent for many types of agriculture, were once the site of large cotton plantations. East of the Black Prairie, in the extreme northeast, are the Tennessee Hills.…

Black Prince’s ruby, large red gem set in the Maltese cross in the front of the imperial state crown of England. It is not a ruby but is one of the world’s largest gem-quality red spinels, a polished lump 5 cm (2 inches) long, pierced and partly filled with a small ruby. The stone was given to

Shirley Ann Grau: Grau’s first book, The Black Prince, and Other Stories (1955), had considerable success. Her first novel, The Hard Blue Sky (1958), concerns Cajun fishermen and their families. This was followed by The House on Coliseum Street (1961), which examines the lives of a mother and her five daughters,…

Edward The Black Prince was the son and heir apparent of Edward III of England and one of the outstanding commanders during the Hundred Years’ War, winning his major victory at the Battle of Poitiers (1356). His sobriquet, said to have come from his wearing black armour, has no contemporary

Peter Jackson was an outstanding professional boxer. A victim of racial discrimination (Jackson was black), he was denied a chance to fight for the world heavyweight championship while in his prime. Jackson won the Australian heavyweight championship in 1886 and the British Empire title in 1892. On

Iris Murdoch: Novels and themes: …Tait Black Memorial Prize for The Black Prince (1973), which centers on a middle-aged Shakespeare critic and failed novelist who begins a sexual relationship with the teenage daughter of his rival and former student, a best-selling writer. The title alludes to Hamlet, the complicated Freudian dynamics of which permeate the…

black pudding, a sausage incorporating blood, popular in the British Isles and typically eaten as a breakfast food. Black pudding has been a recorded item of British cuisine since at least the 1400s, although it is certainly far older. The Odyssey of Homer mentions a sausage “filled with fat and

colony collapse disorder: Suspected causes: Ascosphaera apis (chalkbrood disease), black queen cell virus, chronic bee paralysis virus, deformed wing virus, invertebrate iridescent virus, Israeli acute paralysis virus, Kashmir bee virus, Nosema species, Paenibacillus larvae (American foulbrood), and

Jude Law: Streaming career and activism: … in the quick-paced Netflix miniseries Black Rabbit.

Ibuse Masuji: …the novel Kuroi ame (1966; Black Rain), which deals with the terrible effects of the bombing of Hiroshima during World War II.

Ridley Scott: …Watch Over Me (1987) and Black Rain (1989); again, these were admired for their visual styling. While Scott’s settings in Thelma & Louise (1991) were no less notable, the film’s lead characters (played by Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon) and feminist theme were the focus of critical attention, and he…

Ozzy Osbourne: Later music: …studio album in six years, Black Rain. He followed with Scream (2010), Ordinary Man (2020), and Patient Number 9 (2022). The latter won the Grammy for best rock album, and its single “Degradation Rules” (featuring Iommi) was named best metal performance.

Black Range, mountain range extending 100 miles (160 km) north to south, through Catron and Sierra counties, southwestern New Mexico, U.S. The range follows the Continental Divide for much of its length. Most of the range lies within the Gila National Forest, near the headwaters of the Gila River.

raspberry: Cultivation: Two North American species of black raspberries (R. occidentalis and R. leucodermis) are also grown commercially in some areas, though production is limited. Raspberry plants are fairly resistant to disease and pests but must be staked or trellised to control their wild growth. Red varieties are usually propagated by suckers…

rat: …the Norway rat), and the house rat, R. rattus (also called the black rat, ship rat, or roof rat), live virtually everywhere that human populations have settled; the house rat is predominant in warmer climates, and the brown rat dominates in temperate regions, especially urban areas. Most likely originating in…

rat snake: The black rat snake, or pilot black snake (Elaphe obsoleta obsoleta), of the eastern United States usually is about 1.2 m (about 4 feet) long but may exceed 2.5 m (8 feet). It is black, with whitish chin and throat—like the true black snake (see racer)—but…

Sam Houston was an American lawyer and politician, a leader in the Texas Revolution (1834–36) who later served as president of the Republic of Texas (1836–38; 1841–44) and who was instrumental in Texas’s becoming a U.S. state (1845). In his youth Houston moved with his family to a farm in rural

W.E.B. Du Bois: Black nationalism and later works: Black Reconstruction: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860–1880 (1935) was an important Marxist interpretation of Reconstruction (the period following the American Civil War during which the seceded Southern states were…

redshank: The slightly larger spotted redshank (T. erythropus), also called dusky or black redshank, has reddish brown legs and a straight red bill with a brown tip. In breeding season, its plumage is black; in winter, gray. It breeds across sub-Arctic Eurasia and winters from the Mediterranean region into…

Queen Latifah: …with Motown Records, she released Black Reign in 1993. The album was a critical and commercial success, and the single “U.N.I.T.Y.,” which decried sexism and violence against women, earned a Grammy Award.

Narodnik: …Tsar Alexander II (1881), and Chorny Peredel (“Black Repartition”), a party that continued to emphasize work among the peasantry until its members shifted their attention to the urban proletariat in the 1880s. The populist ideology of the Narodnik movement was revived by its 20th-century ideological descendant, the Socialist Revolutionary Party…

Mary Frances Berry: Publications: …racial and gender inequality, including Black Resistance/White Law: A History of Constitutional Racism in America (1971, expanded ed. 1994), which concluded that high-level government officials implemented laws that undermined minorities; Long Memory: The Black Experience in America (1982); and The Politics of Parenthood: Child Care, Women’s Rights, and the Myth…