NBCUniversal, global media and entertainment company that develops, produces, and markets news and entertainment through its various subsidiaries. Its headquarters are in New York City. NBCUniversal was formed in 2004 via the merger of the American television network National Broadcasting Co., Inc.

basketball: U.S. professional basketball: …2001 the NBA launched the National Basketball Development League (NBDL; now called the NBA G League). The league serves as a kind of “farm system” for the NBA. Through its first 50 years the NBA did not have an official system of player development or a true minor league system…

Combahee River Collective: Founding: …a breakaway group from the National Black Feminist Organization. After some disagreements with that organization’s failure to address class struggles faced by Black women, the group quickly became a coalition in its own right in 1974. According to Smith, the Combahee River Collective formed out of a desire to synthesize…

set theory: The Neumann-Bernays-Gödel axioms: The second axiomatization of set theory (see the Neumann-Bernays-Gödel axiomsNeumann-Bernays-Gödel axioms.

Johann Sebastian Bach: Revival of music: …BG was succeeded by the Neue Bach-Gesellschaft (NBG), which exists still, organizing festivals and publishing popular editions. Its chief publication is its research journal, the Bach-Jahrbuch (from 1904). By 1950 the deficiencies of the BG edition had become painfully obvious, and the Bach-Institut was founded, with headquarters at Göttingen and…

Ayn Rand: The Collective and the Nathaniel Branden Institute: In 1950 Rand agreed to meet a young admirer, Nathan Blumenthal, on the basis of his several articulate fan letters. The two established an immediate rapport, and Blumenthal and his girlfriend, Barbara Weidman, became Rand’s friends as well as her intellectual followers.…

singularity: …accepts the inevitability of so-called NBIC convergence, that is, the near-future synthesis of nanotech, biotech, infotech, and cognitive science. Because this volume was sponsored by the U.S. National Science Foundation and edited by two of its officers, Mihail Roco and Bainbridge, some saw it as a semiofficial government endorsement of…

basketball: U.S. professional basketball: …first professional league was the National Basketball League (NBL), formed in 1898. Its game differed from the college game in that a chicken-wire cage typically surrounded the court, separating players from often hostile fans. (Basketball players were long referred to as cagers.) The chicken wire was soon replaced with a…

nitrile rubber (NBR), an oil-resistant synthetic rubber produced from a copolymer of acrylonitrile and butadiene. Its main applications are in fuel hoses, gaskets, rollers, and other products in which oil resistance is required. In the production of NBR, acrylonitrile (CH2=CHCN) and butadiene

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce responsible for the standardization of weights and measures, timekeeping, and navigation. Established by an act of Congress in 1901, the agency works closely with the U.S. Naval Observatory and the

pro-choice movement: …Project in 1983 (renamed the Black Women’s Health Imperative in 2002) and eventually to a broader move away from the personal-liberty approach.

computer numerical control (CNC), in manufacturing, the control of a device, particularly machine tools, by direct input of data from a computer program. It is a principal element of computer-integrated manufacturing. CNC is also essential to the operation of industrial robots. CNC systems often

Oracle Corp.: Competition and the Internet era: …and vocal support for the Network Computer (NC).

distress signal: …SOS, the international code signal NC, or the spoken word “Mayday” (pronounced like the French m’aider, “help me”), by radiotelephone. Distressed vessels may also actuate alarms of other vessels by a radio signal consisting of a series of 12 four-second dashes or by a radiotelephone signal consisting of two tones…

noise pollution: Noise regulation and mitigation: These have developed into the noise criteria (NC) and preferred noise criteria (PNC) curves, which provide limits on the level of noise introduced into the environment. The NC curves, developed in 1957, aim to provide a comfortable working or living environment by specifying the maximum allowable level of noise in…

David Watson Taylor: Navy, including the NC-4, first plane to fly the Atlantic (1919). He made many other contributions to aeronautics in 15 years of service on the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.

cricket: The Cricket Council and the ECB: …County Cricket Board (TCCB), the National Cricket Association (NCA), and the MCC, was the result of these efforts. The TCCB, which amalgamated the Advisory County Cricket Committee and the Board of Control of Test Matches at Home, had responsibility for all first-class and minor-counties cricket in England and for overseas…

National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), organization in the United States that administers intercollegiate athletics. It was formed in 1906 as the Intercollegiate Athletic Association to draw up competition and eligibility rules for football and other intercollegiate sports. The NCAA

NCAA Division I men’s college basketball champions, winners of the annual National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I men’s college basketball tournament (commonly referred to as March Madness). The tournament’s field consists of 68 teams that either automatically qualify by winning

Judy Blume: Novels for adults and campaigns against censorship: …a board member with the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC). For Places I Never Meant to Be (2001), Blume invited other YA writers whose work had been censored or challenged to contribute original stories to benefit the NCAC.

I.M. Pei: Founding of I.M. Pei & Associates and projects from the late 1950s to the early ’80s: …the Mesa Laboratory of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, which, located near mountains, mimics the broken silhouettes of the surrounding peaks; and the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York, which consists of four buildings joined by bridges. For the U.S. Federal Aviation Agency, Pei designed a…

National Coal Board (NCB), former British public corporation, created on January 1, 1947, which operated previously private coal mines, manufactured coke and smokeless fuels, and distributed coal, heating instruments, and other supplies. It was renamed the British Coal Corporation in 1987. The

Interpol: Organization and functions: …has a domestic clearinghouse—called the National Central Bureau, or NCB—through which its individual police forces may communicate with the General Secretariat or with the police forces of other member countries. Interpol relies on an extensive telecommunications system and a unique database of international police intelligence. Each year, Interpol’s telecommunications staff…

boxing: Intercollegiate boxing: …in national tournaments of the National Collegiate Boxing Association (NCBA). Seeking to teach fundamentals to novices in a safety-oriented and structured environment of balanced competition, the NCBA bars persons who have participated in noncollegiate bouts after age 16. Almost since its inception and the first tournament in 1976, NCBA boxing…

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. (NCC), an agency of Protestant, Anglican, and Eastern Orthodox denominations that was formed in 1950 in the United States by the merger of 12 national interdenominational agencies. The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.

AmeriCorps: …public-health and job-training programs, (2) AmeriCorps NCCC (National Civilian Community Corps, modeled on the Great Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps), a full-time residential program in which volunteers living on several regional campuses work with various organizations and agencies on team-based service projects in their region, and (3) AmeriCorps State and National,…

Silvio Berlusconi: Prosecutions, political ban, and continued influence of Silvio Berlusconi: …Angelino Alfano to become the New Centre Right (Nuovo Centrodestra; NCD) party.

weather bureau: …United States, for example, the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), near Washington, D.C., are the keystone of the National Weather Service, preparing most of the guidance material and long-range forecasts used at synoptic scales—that is, at scales between 1,000 and 2,500 km (about 620 and 1,550 miles)—by local and…

camping: History: …in the United States (National Campers and Hikers Association and North American Family Campers Association) and one in Canada (Canadian Federation of Camping and Caravanning).

Bamum: The first mfon, Nchare, and his followers are believed to have come from the territory of the neighbouring Tikar people early in the 18th century. Settling among the Bamileke people and among other Tikar, Nchare proclaimed himself king and established his palace at Foumban. The 11th mfon, Mbuembue,…

National Council of Hispanic Women (NCHW), organization of both individuals and organizations, such as universities and corporations, founded in 1985 with the mission of empowering Hispanic women and giving them a greater role in American society. The main goal of the organization is to have a more

pharmaceutical industry: Taxol and the Pacific yew: …of Agriculture (USDA) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the United States. Extracts from the Pacific yew were tested against two cancer cell lines in 1964 and found to have promising effects. After a sufficient quantity of the extract was prepared, the active compound, taxol, was isolated in 1969.…

Linda Hunt: Later work: …Hetty Lange on the series NCIS: Los Angeles (2009–23).

National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), oldest volunteer Jewish women’s organization in the United States, founded in 1893. Prompted by Jewish values, the organization works with both the Jewish community and the general public to safeguard rights and freedoms for people worldwide. This objective

National Consumers League (NCL), American organization founded in 1899 to fight for the welfare of consumers and workers who had little voice or power in the marketplace and workplace. Many of the NCL’s goals, such as the establishment of a minimum wage and the limitation of working hours, directly

No Child Left Behind (NCLB), U.S. federal law aimed at improving public primary and secondary schools, and thus student performance, via increased accountability for schools, school districts, and states. The act was passed by Congress with bipartisan support in December 2001 and signed into law by

Nnamdi Azikiwe: …as a founder of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), which became increasingly identified with the Igbo people of southern Nigeria after 1951. In 1948, with the backing of the NCNC, Azikiwe was elected to the Nigerian Legislative Council, and he later served as premier of the…

western Africa: The formation of African independence movements: …of the west, and the National Convention of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC), whose prime support came from the Igbo of the east. These parties expected the whole country quickly to follow the Ghanaian pattern of constitutional change. But any elective central assembly was bound to be dominated by the north, which…

National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), American umbrella organization, founded by Mary McLeod Bethune in New York City on December 5, 1935, whose mission is “to advance opportunities and the quality of life for African American women, their families and communities.” Disappointed with the lack of

noncommissioned officer (NCO), military officer appointed by a commissioned officer, generally to supervise enlisted soldiers and aid the commissioned officer corps. The noncommissioned officer corps is the administrative apparatus of the U.S. military, and NCOs are vital to the routine management

Blood River, short stream in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa, a tributary of the Buffalo (Mzinyathi) River. The river was the scene of a battle between the Zulu and the Voortrekker Boers on Dec. 16, 1838. The Zulu, under Dingane, were defeated by a Voortrekker commando force led by Andries

Battle of Blood River, (December 16, 1838), battle between the Zulu and the Voortrekker Boers in South Africa. Its proximate cause was a clash over land rights in Natal and the massacre of Voortrekkers by the Zulu king Dingane. In the early 1800s the British colonized the Cape, sending Boer farmers

Finland: Domestic affairs: Its former coalition partner, the National Coalition Party (NCP), won the election by capturing 44 seats (a drop of six seats from the 2007 election) but faced the prospect of coalition rule with one of the main opposition parties—either the Social Democrats, who finished second with 42 seats, or the…

Claro Mayo Recto: …Nacionalistas and joined the new Nationalist Citizens’ Party, advocating neutrality in foreign relations and economic independence from U.S. interests. He ran unsuccessfully as its candidate for president in 1957.

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), national political party in India. The NCP has described itself as a “millennial party with a modern and progressive orientation” with an ideology of “holistic democracy,” “Gandhian secularism,” and “federalism based national unity.” It has called for a “democratic

Nepal: External relations, 1750–1950: …revolutionary forces, led by the Nepali Congress (NC) party, gained an ascendant position in the administration.

Jordan: Continued reform and austerity: …political alliance known as the National Coalition for Reform (NCR) that included Christians and non-Islamist Muslims and that avoided campaigning under Islamist slogans. The NCR won only 15 of the 130 parliamentary seats but was the largest organized political group in parliament. The vast majority of seats were won by…

NCR Voyix Corporation, NCR Voyix is an American e-commerce company known for its digital banking and point-of-service retail and restaurant software. Its sister company, NCR Atleos, oversees automated teller machine (ATM) operations. The two companies are the result of a 2023 split of NCR

nervous system disease: Electromyography: …fibres can be measured with nerve conduction studies (NCS). The muscle is stimulated with a small electrical charge, which generates an impulse. The impulse moves along the nerve fibre and eventually reaches a muscle, which contracts. NCS can localize the site or sites of peripheral nerve disease and may even…

NASCAR: Founding: …in 1947 he created the National Championship Stock Car Circuit (NCSCC), a yearlong series of 40 races held across the southeastern United States. France was responsible for establishing and enforcing the technical regulations that governed the cars; creating a scoring system that would award drivers points used to determine a…

John Brennan: …the organization that became the National Counterterrorism Center, which he led as interim director before retiring from the CIA in 2005.

South Korea: The Yushin order (Fourth Republic): The National Conference for Unification (NCU) was created “to pursue peaceful unification of the fatherland.” The conference was to be a body of between 2,000 and 5,000 members who were directly elected by the voters for a six-year term. The president was the chairman of the…

Kate Sheppard: …1896 Sheppard helped establish the National Council of Women (NCW) and became its first president. Among the issues she supported were greater equality in marriage and the right of women to run for Parliament. Although poor health forced her to step down as president of the NCW in 1903, she…

Poland: Accommodation with the ruling governments: …Democratic movement originated with a Polish League organized in Switzerland; by 1893 the organization had transformed into the clandestine National League, based in Warsaw. It stressed its all-Polish character, rejected loyalism, and promoted national resistance, even uprisings, when opportune. Its nationalist ideology tinged with populism gradually evolved into “integral” nationalism,…

New Democracy (ND), conservative political party in Greece. New Democracy was founded in 1974 by Konstantinos Karamanlis, who oversaw the country’s transition from military dictatorship to democracy. It generally supports greater economic liberalization, including privatization and lower taxes, and

neodymium (Nd), chemical element, a rare-earth metal of the lanthanide series of the periodic table. Neodymium is a ductile and malleable silvery white metal. It oxidizes readily in air to form an oxide, Nd2O3, which easily spalls, exposing the metal to further oxidation. The metal must be stored

pharmaceutical industry: The New Drug Application: The second important regulatory document required by the FDA is the New Drug Application (NDA). The NDA contains all of the information and data that the FDA requires for market approval of a drug. Depending on the intended use of the drug…

National Democratic Alliance (NDA), alliance of right-leaning political parties in India, led by the pro-Hindutva Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) held power first from 1999 until 2004 under the leadership of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and again from

Ituri Forest: The village-living agriculturalists: …including the Bila, Budu, and Ndaka, speak one of the numerous Bantu languages spoken in sub-Saharan Africa, but others, such as the Mamvu and Lese, speak tonal Central Sudanic dialects. In general, the agriculturalists live in small villages with 10 to 150 residents, all members of the same patriclan. Houses…

African art: Nupe: The ndako gboya appears to be indigenous; a spirit that affords protection from witches, it is controlled by a small secret society that cleanses communities by invitation. The mask consists of a tall tube of white cotton supported inside on a bamboo pole about 12 feet…

Saint-Louis, island city and seaport near the mouth of the Sénégal River, and rail terminus north-northeast of Dakar, Senegal. The island and city are connected to the mainland by a land bridge. Saint-Louis, founded in 1659, is the oldest colonial city on the western African coast and was the

Mali: 2020 and 2021 coups and transitional administration: Bah N’Daw, a retired colonel and former defense minister, was named interim president, and Col. Assimi Goïta, the chairman of the CNSP, was named interim vice president. Because of his role in the coup, and because of the call for a civilian-led transitional administration, Goïta’s…

Burundi: The 2020 elections: …early 2020 the CNDD–FDD named Evariste Ndayishimiye as their presidential candidate for the upcoming election scheduled for May. This appeared to lay to rest lingering fears that Nkurunziza intended to stand for another term as president.

Burundi: The path toward peace: …and a Hutu president (Domitien Ndayizeye) for the next 18 months. Sporadic fighting continued between Hutu rebel groups and the government, however.

John Mahama: …Ghanaian politician affiliated with the National Democratic Congress (NCD) political party who became vice president of Ghana in 2009. After the death of Pres. John Evans Atta Mills in July 2012, Mahama ascended to the presidency. He was elected president later that year and served until 2017. He was reelected…

Grenada: Independence of Grenada: …in March 1990, Braithwaite, whose National Democratic Congress (NDC) fell one seat shy of a parliamentary majority, was appointed prime minister by Scoon.

Kim Jong-Un: Childhood and rise to power: …a post on the powerful National Defense Commission (NDC); the chairmanship of the NDC, defined in the constitution as the country’s highest office, was held by Kim Jong Il. By mid-2009 Kim Jong-Un was being referred to within the country by the title “Brilliant Comrade,” and in June it was…

drug use: National controls: …also responsible for producing the National Drug Control Strategy (NDCS). The NDCS is designed to facilitate effective drug-control measures at local levels by providing information on drugs and drug abuse for community members and by making various resources for drug control available to local officials.

materials testing: Nondestructive testing: The tensile-strength test is inherently destructive; in the process of gathering data, the sample is destroyed. Though this is acceptable when a plentiful supply of the material exists, nondestructive tests are desirable for materials that are costly or difficult to fabricate or that…

National Defense Education Act (NDEA), U.S. federal legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower on September 2, 1958, that provided funding to improve American schools and to promote postsecondary education. The goal of the legislation was to enable the

Ndebele, any of several Bantu-speaking African peoples who live primarily in the Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces in South Africa. The Ndebele are ancient offshoots of the main Nguni-speaking peoples and began migrations to the Transvaal region in the 17th century. The main group of Transvaal

Ndebele, Bantu-speaking people of southwestern Zimbabwe who now live primarily around the city of Bulawayo. They originated early in the 19th century as an offshoot of the Nguni of Natal. Mzilikazi, an Nguni military commander under Shaka, king of the Zulu, came into conflict with Shaka and in 1823

Ndebele, Bantu-speaking people of southwestern Zimbabwe who now live primarily around the city of Bulawayo. They originated early in the 19th century as an offshoot of the Nguni of Natal. Mzilikazi, an Nguni military commander under Shaka, king of the Zulu, came into conflict with Shaka and in 1823

Ndebele, Bantu-speaking people of southwestern Zimbabwe who now live primarily around the city of Bulawayo. They originated early in the 19th century as an offshoot of the Nguni of Natal. Mzilikazi, an Nguni military commander under Shaka, king of the Zulu, came into conflict with Shaka and in 1823

African religions: Mythology: For the Ndembu of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, by contrast, twins represent an excess of fertility more characteristic of the animal world than the human, and rituals are undertaken to protect the community from this anomalous condition.

Santa Cruz Islands: The main islands are Nendö (also called Ndeni Island or Santa Cruz Island), Utupua, Vanikolo, and Tinakula. Nendö is 25 miles (40 km) long and 14 miles (22 km) wide, with heavily wooded slopes rising to 1,800 feet (550 metres). The Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira tried…

Kenya: Sports and recreation: Catherine Ndereba, for example, repeatedly won marathons in Boston and Chicago, and in 2024 Ruth Chepngetich became the first woman to finish a marathon under 2:10 when she won the Chicago Marathon with a time of 2:09:56. Eliud Kipchoge won gold medals in the marathon…

fascism: Acceptance of racism: …a German puppet state, the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), and established a one-party regime. The NDH moved against the more than one million Orthodox Serbs in Croatia, forcing some to convert and expelling or killing others in campaigns of genocide. About 250,000 Serbs in Croatia were eventually liquidated, many…

diabetes insipidus: Types and causes: …of the disease is called nephrogenic diabetes insipidus, which results when the supplies of vasopressin are adequate but the kidney tubules are unresponsive—either genetically or because of an acquired condition. The most severe form of this disorder is congenital hereditary nephrogenic diabetes insipidus. This condition is caused by mutations in…

Jacques d’Amboise: …became director of the nonprofit National Dance Institute (NDI), which he founded (1976) in order to take the teaching of dance into an ever-widening circle of public schools. The NDI, which was based in New York City, later became involved with a number of associate organizations across the country. D’Amboise’s…

Xhosa: Rharhabe, Ngqika, Ndlambe, and the Gqunkhwebe (the latter being partly of Khoekhoe origin).

Eswatini: Settlement patterns: …at Ludzidzini and of the ndlovukazi (the queen mother) at Phondvo, both of which are in the “royal heart” of the country and not far from the old royal capital of Lobamba.

Library of Congress: …Library of Congress launched the National Digital Library Program (NDLP), making freely available on the Internet high-quality electronic versions of American historical material from the library’s special collections. By the end of the library’s bicentennial year in 2000, more than five million items (manuscripts, films, sound recordings, and photographs) had…

Ndola, city, capital of Copperbelt province, north-central Zambia. It is located on the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo near Kitwe. Ndola is one of the largest cities in the country. It is linked by road and rail to the capital, Lusaka, and to Livingstone and thus to Zimbabwe, as

South Africa: The Zulu after Shaka: …the Zulu civil war (the Battle of Ndondakasuka on the lower Tugela River, close to the sea) elevated Mpande’s younger son, Cetshwayo, over Mpande’s older son, Mbuyazi. Although Cetshwayo formally became ruler of Zululand only upon his father’s death in 1872, he had in fact effectively ruled the kingdom since…

Ndongo, historical African kingdom of the Mbundu people. The original core of the kingdom was in the highlands east of Luanda, Angola, between the Cuanza and Lucala rivers. At its height in the late 16th century, it stretched west to the Atlantic coast and south of the Cuanza. According to early

Mbundu: …the ngola (ruler) of the Ndongo people. This centralization was destroyed by the Portuguese, who from the late 16th to the late 17th century provoked warfare and slaving among the peoples of the region.

New Democratic Party (NDP), Canadian social democratic political party favouring a mixed public-private economy, broadened social benefits, and an internationalist foreign policy. The New Democratic Party (NDP) grew out of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), which was founded in 1933 as

Suriname: Suriname since independence: …served as president of the National Democratic Party (Nationale Democratische Partij; NDP) and was widely viewed as the real power behind Jules Wijdenbosch, who was elected president of the country in 1996. In 1997 the government of the Netherlands issued an arrest warrant for Bouterse on charges of drug smuggling,…

South Korea: The Third Republic: Members of the opposition New Democratic Party (NDP), whose head was the twice-defeated Yun, claimed fraud and refused for some time to take their seats in the National Assembly.

Raila Odinga: Early life and political activity: …left FORD–K and joined the National Development Party (NDP).

National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), right-wing German nationalist party that called for German unification during the Cold War and advocated law and order as well as an end to German “guilt” for World War II. The party’s founders included many former supporters of the Nazis. In the 1950s,

Malaysia: Economy of Malaysia: …(NEP) and later as the New Development Policy (NDP), that has sought to strike a balance between the goals of economic growth and the redistribution of wealth. The Malaysian economy has long been dominated by the country’s Chinese and South Asian minorities. The goal of the NEP and the NDP…

Joshua Nkomo: …in 1960 and founded the National Democratic Party (NDP); in 1961, when the NDP was banned in turn, he founded ZAPU. The white-minority government of Rhodesia held Nkomo in detention from 1964 until 1974. After his release he traveled widely in Africa and Europe to promote ZAPU’s goal of Black…

Alan Gilbert: …became chief conductor-designate at the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra; he officially assumed the post in 2019.

Alan Gilbert: …became chief conductor-designate at the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra; he officially assumed the post in 2019.

’Ndrangheta, criminal organization that originated in Italy’s Calabria region. One of the most extensive and powerful criminal enterprises in the world, the syndicate has engaged in illegal activities as diverse as embezzlement, fraud, extortion, waste dumping, and the trafficking of drugs,

Vannevar Bush: Architect of the military-industrial complex: …about forming an organization, the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC), to organize research of interest to the military and to inform the armed services about new technologies. The NDRC was formed with Bush as its chairman on June 27, 1940. One year later, the Office of Scientific Research and Development…

Simeon Saxecoburggotski: …announced the formation of the National Movement for Simeon II, an organization that set out to field candidates in the national legislative elections scheduled in June. When the courts ruled that the party had not met all of the requirements for registration, it joined two minor parties’ coalition and was…

New Delhi Television Limited (NDTV) is an Indian news media company and publicly listed broadcaster controlled by Adani Group interests. It was established in 1988 by husband-wife team Prannoy (1949–) and Radhika Roy (1949–) during an era of rapid growth in Indian television resulting from the