Native Dancer, (foaled 1950), American racehorse (Thoroughbred) who won 21 of 22 starts and achieved widespread popularity as the first outstanding horse whose major victories were seen on national television. Sired by Polynesian out of Geisha, the gray colt was undefeated in nine races as a

native element, any of a number of chemical elements that may occur in nature uncombined with other elements. The elements that occur as atmospheric gases are excluded. A brief treatment of native elements follows. For full treatment, see mineral: Native elements. Of the 90 chemical elements found

Natasha Trethewey: In Native Guard (2006; Pulitzer Prize), Trethewey honoured both her mother’s life and the largely unsung lives of the Union soldiers who made up the Louisiana Native Guards, one of the early African American units that fought in the American Civil War. In Thrall (2012) Trethewey…

Hawaii: Constitutional framework: Daniel Inouye, of the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, also known as the Akaka Bill, which would establish a Native Hawaiian governing body to negotiate with the state and federal governments on issues relating to land, assets, and natural resources. Although the bill has not been passed by the…

Mexico: Cultural institutions: …government bodies, among them the Native Institute, which seeks to preserve and stimulate traditional craftsmanship.

Sir Frederick Aloysius Weld: …confiscated under the newly passed Native Lands Act (1865) and distributed to European settlers. However, the government’s controversial removal of the seat of government from Auckland to Wellington, popular opposition to the self-reliant policy, and Weld’s own declining health so weakened his ministry that Weld resigned (1865), did not stand…

Southern Africa: White agriculture and African reserves: The Native Lands Act of 1913 and supplementary legislation in 1936 harmonized these conflicting interests, setting aside about one-eighth of South African land for the some 4,000,000 Africans, while reserving the rest for about 1,250,000 whites.

quandong, (Santalum acuminatum), small hemiparasitic tree of the sandalwood family (Santalaceae), useful for its edible fruit and seeds. The plant is native to Australia and has a long history of use by Aboriginal peoples. The nutritious red pulpy flesh of the fruit has a distinctive flavour and is

Hubert Howe Bancroft: …assigned the task of writing The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America (1875–76), a five-volume description of indigenous ethnic groups, a work still useful to anthropologists. After these five volumes and the next 28 on the settlement and history of the Western states, Bancroft wrote an additional…

Czesław Miłosz: Literary works: …his autobiography, Rodzinna Europa (1959; Native Realm), Prywatne obowiązki (1972; “Private Obligations”), the novel Dolina Issy (1955; The Issa Valley), and The History of Polish Literature (1969).

Māori Representation Act, (1867), legislation that created four Māori parliamentary seats in New Zealand, bringing the Māori nation into the political system of the self-governing colony. The Native Representation Act was originally intended to be temporary. When Māori landholdings were converted

Northwest Coast Indian: Cultural continuity and change: …Native Brotherhoods, and in 1923 Native Sisterhoods, to act on behalf of the people in legal and other proceedings; similar groups were subsequently formed in coastal British Columbia. These organizations provided valuable training in modern political processes and negotiations. Their successes are remarkable, given the rampant discrimination faced by indigenous…

Suzan-Lori Parks: …screenplays, including Girl 6 (1996); Native Son (2019), based on Richard Wright’s novel; and The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021), adapted from a book by Johann Hari. Parks’s first novel, Getting Mother’s Body, was published in 2003.

Native Son, novel by Richard Wright, published in 1940. The novel addresses the issue of white American society’s responsibility for the repression of blacks. The plot charts the decline of Bigger Thomas, a young African American imprisoned for two murders—the accidental smothering of his white

Witi Ihimaera: …Memoir of Childhood (2014) and Native Son: The Writer’s Memoir (2019).

princely state, nominally autonomous territory in colonial India, subject to indirect rule by the East India Company and, after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, by the British crown. British-controlled India was divided into provinces, which were directly administered by colonial authorities, and

Australia: The premierships of Bob Hawke (1983–91), Paul Keating (1991–96), and John Howard (1996–2007): The resulting Native Title Act (1993) was unsuccessfully challenged, and subsequently, under its judgment in 1996 (the Wik case), the High Court decided that Indigenous title and pastoral leasehold could coexist. Aboriginal descent became a matter of pride, and by the early 21st century the number affirming…

Louis Adamic: …wrote about the experience in The Native’s Return (1934), the story of a man who finds he cannot slip comfortably into his former life as a peasant. Two successful sequels, Grandsons (1935) and Cradle of Life (1936), were followed by his first novel, The House in Antigua (1937). His following…

Zulfikar Ghose: The trilogy The Incredible Brazilian—comprising The Native (1972), The Beautiful Empire (1975), and A Different World (1978)—presents the picaresque adventures, often violent or sexually perverse, of a man who goes through several reincarnations. Ghose’s other novels include Crump’s Terms (1975), Hulme’s Investigations into the Bogart Script (1981),

Native American mascot controversy, conflict arising from the use of Native American-themed logos, mascots, and names by sports teams. Native-themed team names and mascots have been widely used throughout sports, from elementary schools to professional franchises. These names may refer to tribal

George Lamming: …William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and Natives of My Person (1971), about 16th-century explorers in the West Indies. His poetry and short stories were published in various anthologies, and Conversations, a volume of essays and interviews, was published in 1992.

rationalism: Types and expressions of rationalism: …claims, the rationalist defends a nativism, which holds that certain perceptual and conceptual capacities are innate—as suggested in the case of depth perception by experiments with “the visual cliff,” which, though platformed over with firm glass, the infant perceives as hazardous—though these native capacities may at times lie dormant until…

nativism, an ideology, governmental policy, or political stance that prioritizes the interests and well-being of native-born or long-established residents of a given country over those of immigrants, typically by advocating or enacting restrictions on immigration. Those who hold this view tend to

eschatology: Nativistic movements: Although usually associated with societies in the Judeo-Christian tradition, eschatological and messianic movements have emerged in various societies around the world. For example, the people of the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal believe that the Endtime will come when, at the…

Federico Barocci: … (1579) and the exquisitely beautiful Nativity (1597). Barocci was unusual in the Mannerist period for his numerous and extremely sensitive life drawings. His distinctive use of colour is central Italian in origin—pale, fugitive colours blended chiefly from vermilion pinks, mother-of-pearl whites, and grays.

Christianity: Christian practice in the modern world: …on the night of the Nativity, the ritual drama builds toward the moment when the altar-giver opens her home to Joseph and Mary. As Mother Mary prepares to give birth to Jesus, the hostess readies her home, heart, and community so that they may become fit dwelling places for the…

Nativity, a theme in art depicting the newborn Jesus with the Virgin Mary and other figures, following descriptions of Christ’s birth in the Gospels and Apocrypha. An old and popular subject with a complicated iconography, the Nativity has been portrayed in a variety of different ways over the

Geertgen tot Sint Jans: The Nativity at Night by Geertgen is remarkable for its rendering of chiaroscuro.

dramatic literature: Audience expectations: …it should be acknowledged that Nativity plays have always been associated with children both as performers and as spectators. These plays tend to be fanciful in conception, broad in characterization, and moralistic in intention. Nevertheless, probably the most famous of children’s plays, James Barrie’s Peter Pan (1904), implied that the…

Joseph Brodsky: …collections So Forth (1996) and Nativity Poems (2001) and the children’s poem Discovery (1999).

Alessio Baldovinetti: …mature style in his masterpiece, The Nativity (1460–62), a fresco in the Church of Santissima Annunziata, Florence. Although Baldovinetti’s technical experiments led to the fresco’s rapid decay, it shows the pale colours, atmospheric light, and integration of detail with large-scale design that characterized most of his later works, such as…

Paolo Uccello: Later years: …(sinopia) for his last fresco, The Nativity, and in three drawings universally attributed to him. These drawings indicate a meticulous, analytic mind, keenly interested in the application of scientific laws to the reconstruction of objects in a three-dimensional space. In these studies he was probably assisted by a noted mathematician,…

Hugo van der Goes: …of the Magi and The Nativity reveals the direction in which van der Goes’s later works were to evolve. The Adoration is spatially rational, compositionally tranquil, and harmonious in colour. By contrast, the Nativity (also called Adoration of the Shepherds), a later work painted on a curiously elongated panel, is…

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), military alliance established in 1949 that sought to create a counterweight to Soviet armies stationed in central and eastern Europe after World War II. Following the end of the Cold War, NATO was reconceived as a “cooperative-security” organization. It

warning system: Air defense systems: …BUIC in the United States, NATO air defense ground environment (NADGE) in Europe, a similar system in Japan, and various land-mobile, airborne, and ship command and control systems. Little information concerning the Soviet systems is available, but they are known to be extensive, automated, and capable.

Paul Natorp was a German Neo-Kantian philosopher, who represented the Marburg school in the philosophy of science and inquired particularly into its necessary presuppositions after the fashion of Kantian “transcendental logic.” He wrote Die logischen Grundlagen der exakten Wissenschaft (1910; “The

water snake, (subfamily Natricinae), any of about 200 species of semiaquatic snakes belonging to 38 genera (family Colubridae). Water snakes feed in or near water, and some leave aquatic environments only to bask in the sun or breed. Water snakes are characterized by stout bodies with strongly

sodium (Na), chemical element of the alkali metal group (Group 1 [Ia]) of the periodic table. Sodium is a very soft silvery-white metal. Sodium is the most common alkali metal and the sixth most abundant element on Earth, comprising 2.8 percent of Earth’s crust. It occurs abundantly in nature in

renal system: The role of hormones in renal function: This hormone, called atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP), exerts a vasodilator effect on the kidney and also reduces tubular reabsorption of sodium. Both actions result in increased urinary elimination of salt and water and tend to restore atrial pressure toward the normal. It is probably an important hormone controlling…

water snake: Natrix, the genus of Eurasian water snakes, is made up of four species. The common grass snake (N. natrix), which is the most terrestrial of the water snakes, inhabits all of Europe and western Asia. It is olive-coloured, green, or gray, with a yellow or…

water snake: The common grass snake (N. natrix), which is the most terrestrial of the water snakes, inhabits all of Europe and western Asia. It is olive-coloured, green, or gray, with a yellow or white collar on the neck. Adults range in length from 0.6 to 1 metre…

natrolite, hydrated sodium aluminosilicate mineral, Na2Al2Si3O10·2H2O, in the zeolite family. It has been found in the form of colourless or white, glassy, slender crystals or fibrous masses filling cavities or fissures in basaltic rocks, as in Trentino, Italy; Brevik, Nor.; Belfast, N.Ire.; the

thermonatrite: It is usually associated with natron (Na2CO3·10H2O) and trona, which alter to it upon partial dehydration; many reported deposits of natron are probably thermonatrite, because normal temperatures and dry air will cause the alteration. Natron, commonly found in solution, was used by ancient Egyptians as a preservative in mummification. For…

Peninj mandible, an almost perfectly preserved fossil jaw of the hominin (of human lineage) species Paranthropus boisei containing a complete set of adult teeth. It was found in 1964 at Peninj, a locale in Tanzania to the west of Lake Natron and about 80 km (50 miles) from Olduvai Gorge, a major

Lake Natron, lake in northern Tanzania on the border with Kenya, lying in the East African Rift System, 70 miles (113 km) northwest of Arusha. The lake is 35 miles (56 km) long and 15 miles (24 km) wide and contains salt, soda, and magnesite deposits. The lake’s warm water is an ideal breeding

mobile telephone: Airborne cellular systems: In the United States the North American terrestrial system (NATS) was introduced by GTE Corporation in 1984. Within a decade the system was installed in more than 1,700 aircraft, with ground stations in the United States providing coverage over most of the United States and southern Canada. A second-generation system,…

Mongolian literature: The 20th century and beyond: Dashdorjiin Natsagdorj (Nachugdorji), one of the founders of modern literature in Mongolia, introduced new genres and subjects through, for instance, his patriotic poems Minii nutag (“My Motherland”) and Tüükhiin shüleg (“Verses on History”), both on revolution and tradition, as well as through Erkh chölöö khüsekhüi…

Natsume Sōseki was an outstanding Japanese novelist of the Meiji period and the first to ably depict the plight of the alienated modern Japanese intellectual. Natsume took a degree in English from the University of Tokyo (1893) and taught in the provinces until 1900, when he went to England on a

Natsume Sōseki was an outstanding Japanese novelist of the Meiji period and the first to ably depict the plight of the alienated modern Japanese intellectual. Natsume took a degree in English from the University of Tokyo (1893) and taught in the provinces until 1900, when he went to England on a

Giulio Natta was an Italian chemist who contributed to the development of high polymers useful in the manufacture of films, plastics, fibres, and synthetic rubber. Along with Karl Ziegler of Germany, he was honoured in 1963 with the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the development of Ziegler-Natta

Johan Petter Falkberget: …to become his second trilogy, Nattens brød (1940–59; “Bread of the Night”). The title is a reference to the ore for which local farmers give up their independence when they begin to transport it for the Danish rulers of Norway. This clash between local tradition and foreign capital informs the…

Jo Nesbø: Other works: In Natthuset (2023; The Night House) Nesbø adapts classic horror film tropes to the page, in a story about a teenage outcast who tries to convince the people in his small town that a haunted telephone booth is responsible for his friend’s disappearance.

Jean-Marc Nattier was a French Rococo painter noted for his portraits of the ladies of King Louis XV’s court in classical mythological attire. Nattier received his first instruction from his father, the portraitist Marc Nattier (c. 1642–1705), and from his uncle, the history painter Jean Jouvenet.

natto, Japanese dish consisting of fermented soybeans. Natto begins as cooked soybeans. These are fermented with bacteria (Bacillus subtilis natto) into a pungent, sticky, and highly nutritious mass, in which the beans retain their shape amid a viscous goo that forms fine threads when stirred.

Ingmar Bergman: Life: …films, Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, and The Silence, dealing with the borderline between sanity and madness and that between human contact and total withdrawal, was regarded by many as his crowning achievement. Through a Glass Darkly won an Academy Award for best foreign film.

Bob Marley: Formation of the Wailers, role of Rastafari, and international fame: …Song,” Marley’s landmark albums included Natty Dread (1974), Live! (1975), Rastaman Vibration (1976), Exodus (1977), Kaya (1978), Uprising (1980), and the posthumous Confrontation (1983). Exploding in Marley’s reedy tenor, his songs were public expressions of personal truths—eloquent in their

Natufian culture, Mesolithic culture of Palestine and southern Syria dating from about 9000 bc. Mainly hunters, the Natufians supplemented their diet by gathering wild grain; they likely did not cultivate it. They had sickles of flint blades set in straight bone handles for harvesting grain and

Riau Islands: …Riau (east-central Sumatra); and the Natuna, Anambas, and Tambelan island clusters, widely scattered in the waters between western Borneo, Sumatra, and the Malay Peninsula. The most important islands are Batam, Bintan, and Great Karimun (Indonesian: Karimun Besar), all in the Riau archipelago. Tanjungpinang, on Bintan, is the provincial capital. Area…

Moritz Hauptmann: …der Harmonik und Metrik (1853; The Nature of Harmony and Metric).

Ludwig Büchner: …between mind and matter (Natur und Geist, 1857; “Nature and Spirit”) appealed strongly to freethinkers, but dialectical materialists condemned his acceptance of competitive capitalism, which Büchner viewed as an example of Charles Darwin’s “struggle for survival.” An English translation of his Die Stellung des Menschen in der Natur (1869)…

Emil Brunner: …Barth”; published in 1946 as Natural Theology), Brunner broke with Karl Barth’s theology by asserting that humanity has borne the “image of God” since Creation and has never wholly lost it, a view that provoked Barth’s vigorous disagreement.

Natural History, encyclopaedic scientific work of dubious accuracy by Pliny the Elder, completed in 77 ce as Naturae historiae and conventionally known as Naturalis historia. Although Pliny did not distinguish between fact, opinion, and speculation in his 37-volume treatise, he can be credited with

the Mekons: …(Out of Our Heads) (2002), Natural (2007), Ancient & Modern (2011), and Existentialism (2017), the last of which captures a live experimental performance in Brooklyn featuring just-written politically charged songs.

bullfighting: Act three: Especially noteworthy is the left-handed natural, a simple but dangerous pass performed with the muleta held to the matador’s right: the sword is not used to spread the cloth, making for a much smaller target. The matador’s entire body is thereby exposed before the bull passes on the right and…

accidental: …it by a semitone; a natural (♮) restores it to the original pitch. Double sharps (×) and double flats (♭♭) indicate that the note is raised or lowered by two semitones. Sharps or flats that are placed at the beginning of a musical staff, called a key signature, indicate the…

abrasive: Abrasive materials: their composition and properties: Natural abrasives include diamond, corundum, and emery; they occur in natural deposits and can be mined and processed for use with little alteration. Synthetic abrasives, on the other hand, are the product of considerable processing of raw materials or chemical precursors; they include silicon carbide,…

José de Acosta: …moral de las Indias (1590; Natural and Moral History of the Indies), the earliest survey of the New World and its relation to the Old. His works, missionary and literary, mark the zenith of the period of religious and scientific incorporation of the newly discovered lands into Western culture.

John Graunt: …he was inspired to write Natural and Political Observations . . . Made upon the Bills of Mortality (1662). He produced four editions of this work; the third (1665) was published by the Royal Society, of which Graunt was a charter member.

John Wood Oman: In his main work, The Natural and the Supernatural (1931), Oman developed this view in a wide-ranging treatment of knowledge and perception, of necessity and freedom, and of the history and classification of religions. His other works include Grace and Personality (1917), Vision and Authority (1902), and The Church…

natural bridge, naturally created arch formation resembling a bridge. Most natural bridges are erosion features that occur in massive, horizontally bedded sandstone or limestone. Some bridges, such as the Natural Bridge near Lexington, Va., are formed by the collapse of a cavern’s roof that may

asphalt: Natural asphalt (also called brea), which is believed to be formed during an early stage in the breakdown of organic marine deposits into petroleum, characteristically contains minerals, while residual petroleum asphalt does not.

Oliver Stone: Stone again courted controversy with Natural Born Killers (1994), a film, written by Quentin Tarantino, about the savagely violent exploits of a married couple, played by Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis. While Stone claimed that the film was meant to be critical of sensationalized violence, some critics found it guilty…

natural bridge, naturally created arch formation resembling a bridge. Most natural bridges are erosion features that occur in massive, horizontally bedded sandstone or limestone. Some bridges, such as the Natural Bridge near Lexington, Va., are formed by the collapse of a cavern’s roof that may

Natural Bridge, natural limestone arch, Rockbridge county, western Virginia, U.S., 20 miles (32 km) south of Lexington near the village of Natural Bridge and the northern portion of Jefferson National Forest. The arch, spanning a gorge cut by Cedar Creek, is 215 feet (66 metres) high, 90 feet (27

Natural Bridges National Monument, scenic area in southeastern Utah, U.S., containing three natural sandstone bridges. The bridges were carved by two winding streams that formed on the western slopes of Elk Ridge, a formation of the northwestern Colorado Plateau. Established in 1908, the monument

Carolus Linnaeus: Classification by natural characters of Carolus Linnaeus: Linnaeus did not consider the sexual system to be his main contribution toward the “reformation of botany” to which he aspired. His main contribution came in the form of a booklet, Fundamenta Botanica (1736; “The Foundations of Botany”), that framed the…

natural childbirth, any of the systems of managing parturition in which the need for anesthesia, sedation, or surgery is largely eliminated by physical and psychological conditioning. Until the early 20th century, the term natural childbirth was thought of as synonymous with normal childbirth. In

natural childbirth: …early 20th century, the term natural childbirth was thought of as synonymous with normal childbirth. In 1933 the British obstetrician Grantly Dick-Read wrote a book entitled Natural Childbirth, in which he postulated that excessive pain in labour results from muscular tension arising from fear of the birth process; he proposed…

universal: Resemblance nominalism: …matter of belonging to a natural class, and that the naturalness of a class is to be understood in terms of the ways in which the members resemble one another. These “resemblance nominalists” typically adopt a strategy used by the German-born philosopher Rudolf Carnap in Der Logische Aufbau der Welt…

dye: Natural dyes: Until the 1850s virtually all dyes were obtained from natural sources, most commonly from vegetables, such as plants, trees, and lichens, with a few from insects. Solid evidence that dyeing methods are more than 4,000 years old has been provided by dyed fabrics…

atmosphere: Convection: This process, referred to as free convection, occurs when the environmental lapse rate (the rate of change of an atmospheric variable, such as temperature or density, with increasing altitude) of temperature decreases at a rate greater than 1 °C per 100 metres (approximately 1 °F per 150 feet). This rate…

formal logic: Natural deduction method in PC: PC is often presented by what is known as the method of natural deduction. Essentially this consists of a set of rules for drawing conclusions from hypotheses (assumptions, premises) represented by wffs of PC and thus for constructing valid inference…

natural disaster, any calamitous occurrence generated by the effects of natural, rather than human-driven, phenomena that produces great loss of human life or destruction of the natural environment, private property, or public infrastructure. A natural disaster may be caused by weather and climate

dye: Natural dyes: Until the 1850s virtually all dyes were obtained from natural sources, most commonly from vegetables, such as plants, trees, and lichens, with a few from insects. Solid evidence that dyeing methods are more than 4,000 years old has been provided by dyed fabrics…

ocean thermal energy conversion: By 1999 the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA) had created and tested a 250-kilowatt plant.

problem of evil: Theistic responses: …it fails to reckon with natural evil, except insofar as the latter is increased by human factors such as greed or thoughtlessness. Another argument, developed by the English philosopher Richard Swinburne, is that natural evils can be the means of learning and maturing. Natural evils, in other words, can help…

natural experiment, observational study in which an event or a situation that allows for the random or seemingly random assignment of study subjects to different groups is exploited to answer a particular question. Natural experiments are often used to study situations in which controlled

contraception: Fertility awareness techniques: Three procedures can be followed to predict ovulation so that, during the approximately six days of a woman’s most fertile monthly phase, sexual intercourse can be avoided. Their effectiveness is typically about 80 percent but may reach as high as 99 percent,…

natural fibre, any hairlike raw material directly obtainable from an animal, vegetable, or mineral source and convertible into nonwoven fabrics such as felt or paper or, after spinning into yarns, into woven cloth. A natural fibre may be further defined as an agglomeration of cells in which the

mechanics: Coupled oscillators: …frequencies, are known as the normal modes of the system.

natural gas, colourless highly flammable gaseous hydrocarbon consisting primarily of methane and ethane. It is a type of petroleum that commonly occurs in association with crude oil. A natural resource and fossil fuel, natural gas is used for electricity generation, heating, and cooking and as a

Natural gas reserves were discovered about 20 miles (35 km) offshore the Gaza Strip in 2000. The reserves, located within the maritime boundaries allocated to the Palestinian Authority (PA) under the bilateral Oslo Accords between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, were a key discovery for the still

liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), any of several liquid mixtures of the volatile hydrocarbons propene, propane, butene, and butane. It was used as early as 1860 for a portable fuel source, and its production and consumption for both domestic and industrial use have expanded ever since. A typical

natural gas: Discovery and early application: …bce that the first known well was drilled for natural gas, to reported depths of 150 metres (500 feet). The Chinese drilled their wells with bamboo poles and primitive percussion bits for the express purpose of searching for gas in limestones dating to the Late Triassic Epoch (about 237 million…

liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), any of several liquid mixtures of the volatile hydrocarbons propene, propane, butene, and butane. It was used as early as 1860 for a portable fuel source, and its production and consumption for both domestic and industrial use have expanded ever since. A typical

industrial glass: Natural glasses: Several inorganic glasses are found in nature. These include obsidians (volcanic glasses), fulgarites (formed by lightning strikes), tektites found on land in Australasia and associated microtektites from the bottom of the Indian Ocean, moldavites from central Europe, and Libyan Desert glass from western…

history of the organization of work: Communal organization: Throughout human history, work has often required organization. Capture of game and fish required varying degrees of cooperation among members of the group. Communal activity of this type had important social implications. Food had to be equitably distributed, and a leader was needed…

World Heritage site: Designating World Heritage sites: Natural heritage sites are restricted to those natural areas that (1) furnish outstanding examples of Earth’s record of life or its geologic processes, (2) provide excellent examples of ongoing ecological and biological evolutionary processes, (3) contain natural phenomena that are rare, unique, superlative, or of…

Natural History, encyclopaedic scientific work of dubious accuracy by Pliny the Elder, completed in 77 ce as Naturae historiae and conventionally known as Naturalis historia. Although Pliny did not distinguish between fact, opinion, and speculation in his 37-volume treatise, he can be credited with

Gilbert White: …naturalist and clergyman, author of The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789), the first work on natural history to attain the status of an English classic.