Ringo Starr is a British musician, singer, songwriter, and actor who was the drummer for the Beatles, one of the most influential bands in rock history. He also found success in a solo career. Starkey was born in a working-class area of Liverpool. His parents, both bakery workers, divorced when he

Belle Starr: …where in 1880 she married Sam Starr, a Cherokee Indian and longtime friend of the Youngers and Jameses. They settled on a ranch, renamed Younger’s Bend, on the Canadian River (near present-day Eufaula). It became a favourite hideout for outlaws of every sort; Jesse James holed up there for several…

flounder: 7 kg (6 pounds); the starry flounder (Platichthys stellatus), a North Pacific species that averages about 9 kg (20 pounds) in weight; and the winter flounder (Pseudopleuronectes americanus), an American Atlantic food fish, growing to about 60 cm (23 inches) in length. Flounders in that family typically have the eyes…

Kenneth Lonergan: Lonergan later wrote and directed The Starry Messenger, which opened in 2009 with Matthew Broderick portraying an astronomy instructor trying to escape the ordinariness of his life.

The Starry Night: History: …a few night scenes, including Starry Night (Rhône) (1888). In that work, stars appear in bursts of yellow against a blue-black sky and compete with both the glowing gas lamps below and their reflection in the Rhône River.

The Starry Night, a moderately abstract landscape painting (1889) of an expressive night sky over a small hillside village, one of Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh’s most celebrated works. The oil-on-canvas painting is dominated by a night sky roiling with chromatic blue swirls, a glowing yellow

Asian longhorned beetle, (Anoplophora glabripennis), species of beetle, originally native to eastern China and Korea, that became a serious pest of hardwood trees in North America and parts of Eurasia. By tunneling deep into the wood of living hardwood trees—including maples, elms, willows, and

stonewort: At least one species, the starry stonewort (Nitellopsis obtusa), is an invasive species in areas outside its native range.

Arthur Eddington: Philosophy of science: …the public lectures published as Stars and Atoms (1927). In his well-written popular books he also set forth his scientific epistemology, which he called “selective subjectivism” and “structuralism”—i.e., the interplay of physical observations and geometry. He believed that a great part of physics simply reflected the interpretation that the scientist…

flag of the United States of America: The design of the Stars and Bars varied over the following two years. On May 1, 1863, the Confederacy adopted its first official national flag, often called the Stainless Banner. A modification of that design was adopted on March 4, 1865, about a month before the end of the…

After the American Revolution began, the first, unofficial national flag—known as the Continental Colours (or, sometimes, as the Grand Union Flag, the Cambridge Flag, the Somerville Flag, or the Union Flag)—was hoisted on a towering 76-foot (23-metre) liberty pole at Prospect Hill in Charlestown

The Stars and Stripes Forever, march by American composer John Philip Sousa that premiered in 1897. The piece stands as the quintessential example of the composer’s music. (Discover more patriotic tunes in Britannica’s List of Songs About America.) Sousa composed well over 100 marches, and the best

The Stars and Stripes, newspaper for U.S. military personnel that has been published periodically as either a weekly or a daily since single editions appeared during the American Civil War (1861–65). It was revived in 1918 as a weekly for U.S. troops in Europe at the end of World War I, was

Selena Gomez: Music career: …forged a solo career with Stars Dance (2013), which featured the seductive single “Come & Get It.” Subsequent solo albums include Revival (2015) and Rare (2020), the latter of which yielded the hit ballad “Lose You to Love Me.”

Jacques Tourneur: Later films: Stars in My Crown, Nightfall, and Curse of the Demon: …project was the atypically sensitive Stars in My Crown (1950), with Joel McCrea as a Civil War veteran who has become a minister in a small Tennessee town. It was Tourneur’s own favourite among his films. However, he noted that because he had accepted the minimum salary for a director…

Samuel R. Delany: Delany’s complex Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (1984) was regarded by critics as a stylistic breakthrough. His subsequent novels include Dark Reflections (2007), which portrays an aging gay Black poet as he lives through successes and disappointments, and Through the Valley of the Nest…

A.J. Cronin: Cronin’s fourth novel, The Stars Look Down (1935; filmed 1939), which chronicles various social injustices in a North England mining community from 1903 to 1933, gained him an international readership. It was followed by The Citadel (1937; filmed 1938), which showed how private physicians’ greed can distort good…

Carol Reed: …produce such noteworthy efforts as The Stars Look Down (1939), an internationally acclaimed film that depicted life in an English mining town, and Night Train to Munich (1940), a Hitchcock-style thriller that featured Rex Harrison as a British double agent. During World War II, Reed directed documentaries for the British…

Ben Okri: …at the Shrine (1986) and Stars of the New Curfew (1988) portray the essential link in Nigerian culture between the physical world and the world of the spirits.

figure skating: Ice shows: Stars on Ice was founded in 1986 by Scott Hamilton and sports agent Robert D. Kain. It features a relatively small international cast of elite skaters, many of whom are Olympic and world champions. Skaters perform individual and group numbers filled with sophisticated choreography and…

Colin Wilson: …A Casebook of Murder (1970), Starseekers (1980), The Quest for Wilhelm Reich (1981), and Poltergeist! (1981).

Jefferson Airplane, was an American psychedelic rock band best known for its biting political lyrics, soaring harmonies, and hallucinogenic titles, such as Surrealistic Pillow and “White Rabbit.” Jefferson Airplane was an important standard-bearer for the counterculture in the 1960s, but in its

Starship, spacecraft being developed by the American corporation SpaceX. Starship, with the Super Heavy launch vehicle, is the successor to SpaceX’s previous rockets: the Falcon 1, the Falcon 9, and the Falcon Heavy. The Super Heavy first stage would be capable of lifting 100,000 kg (220,000

Paul Verhoeven: …back to science fiction with Starship Troopers (1997), based on a Robert Heinlein novel, and Hollow Man (2000), the latter of which also has elements of horror. However, neither reached the heights of critical or popular acclaim of his earlier movies. He returned to the Netherlands for his next movie,…

Ukraine: The autonomous hetman state and Sloboda Ukraine: …of the senior Cossack officers, starshyna, who had evolved into a hereditary class approximating the Polish nobility in its privileges. The common Cossacks too were undergoing stratification, the more impoverished hardly distinguished, except in legal status, from the peasantry. The conditions of the free peasantry worsened over time, their growing…

Jason Bateman: Later life and career: …A True Underdog Story (2004), Starsky & Hutch (2004), The Break-Up (2006), Smokin’ Aces (2006), Juno (2007), Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), Hancock (2008), Couples Retreat (2009), The Switch (2010),

J.J. Johnson: …The Mod Squad, 1970–73, and Starsky and Hutch, 1975).

Gillian Armstrong: In her next movie, Starstruck (1982), Armstrong told the story of a young woman hoping to become a pop star in contemporary Sydney.

Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START), arms control negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union (and, later, Russia) that were aimed at reducing those two countries’ arsenals of nuclear warheads and of the missiles and bombers capable of delivering such weapons. The talks, which

Doomsday Clock: History: …after the signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) by the Soviet Union and the United States, which was an agreement designed to reduce the nuclear weapons arsenals of both countries.

Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START), arms control negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union (and, later, Russia) that were aimed at reducing those two countries’ arsenals of nuclear warheads and of the missiles and bombers capable of delivering such weapons. The talks, which

Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START), arms control negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union (and, later, Russia) that were aimed at reducing those two countries’ arsenals of nuclear warheads and of the missiles and bombers capable of delivering such weapons. The talks, which

the Rolling Stones: Lineup changes, disbanding, and reunion: …Emotional Rescue (1980), and “Start Me Up” (1981), the Stones’ albums and singles became increasingly predictable, though their tours continued to sell out. They even briefly disbanded in the late 1980s after a public spat between Jagger and Richards. Both leaders recorded solo albums that performed relatively poorly in…

Chris Gardner: Memoir, film adaptation, and later career: His second book, Start Where You Are (with Mim E. Rivas; 2009), offers “life lessons in getting from where you are to where you want to be.”

start-up company, a business at the initial stages of its life cycle. It is typically characterized by an innovative stance, a potential for rapid growth, external funding, and vulnerability. Start-ups can appear in virtually any industry and may span more than one, and they have given rise to the

Kate Atkinson: …There Be Good News? (2008), Started Early, Took My Dog (2010), and Big Sky (2019).

Charles F. Kettering: …as well as the first electric starter, which was introduced on Cadillacs in 1912.

sprint: …using a device called a starting block (legalized in the 1930s) to brace their feet. Races are begun by a pistol shot; at 55 to 65 meters (60 to 70 yards), top sprinters attain maximum speed, more than 40 km per hour (25 miles per hour). After the 65-meter mark…

Walt Whitman: Early life: …unknown), and “Premonition” (later entitled “Starting from Paumanok”), which records the violent emotions that often drained the poet’s strength. “A Word out of the Sea” (later titled “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking”) evoked some somber feelings, as did “As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life.” “Chants Democratic,” “Enfans…

Alan J. Pakula: Films of the 1970s: The romantic comedy Starting Over (1979) followed. Adapted from Dan Wakefield’s novel of the same name, it featured Burt Reynolds as a divorced professor who relocates to Boston, where his relationship with a preschool teacher (Jill Clayburgh) keeps getting derailed by the frantic reconciliation attempts of his ex-wife…

You’re eyeing a stock that trades at $250. Is that an attractive price? It’s hard to tell by just looking at the quote. That’s where financial ratios—the stock’s price relative to company earnings, cash flow, book value, and more—come in handy. On the surface, a stock’s price is just a number. But

battery: Lead-acid batteries: …classified into three groups: (1) starting-lighting-ignition (SLI) batteries, (2) traction batteries, and (3) stationary batteries. The automotive SLI battery is the best-known portable rechargeable power source. High current can be obtained for hundreds of shallow-depth discharges over a period of several years. Traction batteries are employed in industrial lift trucks,…

environmental economics: Sources of bias: …nor give a reasonable answer), starting-point bias (where the respondent is influenced by the initial numbers given as examples or as part of a range in survey), and strategic bias (where the respondent wants a specific outcome). Because any bias can hinder the usefulness of a contingent valuation survey, special…

startle reaction, an extremely rapid psychophysiological response of an organism to a sudden and unexpected stimulus such as a loud sound or a blinding flash of light. In human beings it is characterized by involuntary bending of the limbs and a spasmodic avoidance movement of the head. Musculature

startle reaction, an extremely rapid psychophysiological response of an organism to a sudden and unexpected stimulus such as a loud sound or a blinding flash of light. In human beings it is characterized by involuntary bending of the limbs and a spasmodic avoidance movement of the head. Musculature

Ada Limón: Other publications: …spring of 2025, Limón published Startlement: New and Selected Poems in September. She also published her second children’s picture book, And, Too, The Fox. In 2026 she released Against Breaking: On the Power of Poetry, the text of her final lecture in her role at the Library of Congress, in…

starets, (Slavic translation of Greek gerōn, “elder”), plural Startsy, in Eastern Orthodoxy, a monastic spiritual leader. Eastern Christian monasticism understood itself as a way of life that aimed at a real experience of the future kingdom of God; the starets, as one who had already achieved this

Adam Brody: Television success with Nobody Wants This: …joined the main cast of StartUp (2016–18). On the show he played an ambitious banker who gets pulled into the world of organized crime. Brody played the best friend to Jesse Eisenberg’s character in the drama miniseries Fleishman Is in Trouble (2022–23), which also starred Claire Danes and Lizzy Caplan.

start-up company, a business at the initial stages of its life cycle. It is typically characterized by an innovative stance, a potential for rapid growth, external funding, and vulnerability. Start-ups can appear in virtually any industry and may span more than one, and they have given rise to the

starvation, widespread or generalized atrophy (wasting away) of body tissues either because food is unavailable or because it cannot be taken in or properly absorbed. See

Jamestown Colony: The Starving Time and near abandonment (1609–11): In the autumn of 1609, after Smith left, Chief Powhatan began a campaign to starve the English out of Virginia. The tribes under his rule stopped bartering for food and carried out attacks on English parties that came in…

bioluminescence: The range and variety of bioluminescent organisms: …Diplocladon hasseltii, called starworm, or diamond worm, gives off a continuous greenish blue luminescence from three spots on each segment of the body, forming three longitudinal rows of light, the appearance of which inspired the common name night train. Phrixothrix, the railroad worm, possesses two longitudinal rows, with a red…

Stary Oskol, city, Belgorod oblast (region), western Russia. It lies along the Oskol River. It was founded as a fortress called Oskol in 1593 for the defense against Crimean Tatars and was named Stary (“Old”) Oskol in 1655. Machinery and food industries reflect the city’s mineral and agricultural

Stary Oskol, city, Belgorod oblast (region), western Russia. It lies along the Oskol River. It was founded as a fortress called Oskol in 1593 for the defense against Crimean Tatars and was named Stary (“Old”) Oskol in 1655. Machinery and food industries reflect the city’s mineral and agricultural

Dalia Stasevska is a Ukrainian-born Finnish musician and conductor who became, in 2019, the youngest person and the first woman to be awarded a title conducting position at the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Stasevska was born to a Ukrainian father and a Lithuanian mother, both of whom were artists. The

Stasi, secret police agency of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). The Stasi was one of the most hated and feared institutions of the East German communist government. The Stasi developed out of the internal security and police apparatus established in the Soviet zone of occupation in

Stasi: …German parliament (Bundestag) passed the Stasi Records Law, which granted to Germans and foreigners the right to view their Stasi files. By the early 21st century nearly two million people had done so.

Cyprus: Assyrian and Egyptian domination: …was written on the island; Stasinus of Cyprus, credited with the authorship of the lost epic poem Cypria, was highly regarded among the poets of this literary genre in the 7th century. Bronze, iron, delicate jewelry, and ivory work are characteristic of this period; notable examples are the ivory throne…

stasis dermatitis, a type of dermatitis

United States presidential election of 1944: Background and party nominations: …the governor of Ohio; and Harold Stassen, the former governor of Minnesota. By the time the Republican convention began in Chicago on June 26, however, both Bricker and Stassen had withdrawn, and Dewey was nominated on the first ballot. Bricker, in turn, was unanimously selected as the party’s vice presidential…

Arianna Huffington is a Greek American author and commentator, best known for creating The Huffington Post, a popular liberal Web site offering news and commentary. Stassinopoulos, the daughter of a Greek newspaper owner, moved at age 16 to England, where she later pursued an economics degree at

Stanisław Staszic was the foremost political writer of the Enlightenment in Poland. Staszic came from a middle-class family. He studied at Leipzig, Göttingen, and Paris and was far more European in his outlook than many of his Polish contemporaries. He became a teacher and then began to write on

Stanisław Staszic was the foremost political writer of the Enlightenment in Poland. Staszic came from a middle-class family. He studied at Leipzig, Göttingen, and Paris and was far more European in his outlook than many of his Polish contemporaries. He became a teacher and then began to write on

Ivar Lo-Johansson: …two volumes of short stories, Statarna I–II (1936–37; “The Sharecroppers”), and in his novel Jordproletärerna (1941; “Proletarians of the Earth”). These works are based on his own recollections but are at the same time an indictment of existing social conditions. In their combination of political tract and novel, and their…

sabermetrics: The rise of advanced statistics: …and the resulting output, dubbed Statcast, provided the teams—and, to a lesser degree, amateur and professional analysts outside of front offices—with a wealth of new information that allowed unprecedented accuracy of measuring virtually everything that happens during a baseball game. This data was enough to keep teams of number crunchers…

Coulomb force: …charge is one electrostatic unit, esu, or statcoulomb. In the metre–kilogram–second and the SI systems, the unit of force (newton), the unit of charge (coulomb), and the unit of distance (metre), are all defined independently of Coulomb’s law, so the proportionality factor k is constrained to take a value consistent…

thermodynamics: Thermodynamic states: The application of thermodynamic principles begins by defining a system that is in some sense distinct from its surroundings. For example, the system could be a sample of gas inside a cylinder with a movable piston, an entire steam engine, a marathon runner, the…

state, political organization of society, or the body politic, or, more narrowly, the institutions of government. The state is a form of human association distinguished from other social groups by its purpose, the establishment of order and security; its methods, the laws and their enforcement; its

U.S. state, first-order administrative unit of the United States, one of the 50 constituent political entities (four of which are formally called commonwealths) that share their sovereignty with the U.S. federal government. In 1776, 13 North American British colonies proclaimed themselves to be

philosophy of mind: States and events: States consist simply of objects having properties or standing in relations to other objects. For example, Caesar’s mental state of being conscious presumably ended with the event of his death. An event consists of objects’ losing or acquiring various properties and relations;…

Bolshoi Theatre, leading theatre company for ballet and opera in Russia. The original group, which was made up of several smaller troupes, was organized in Moscow in the mid-1770s, performing primarily at the mansion of Count R.I. Vorontsov. In 1780 the first permanent theatre building in Moscow

Igor Moiseyev: …festival, he founded (1937) the State Academic Folk Dance Ensemble, which featured 35 dancers, principally amateurs, and dances from the 11 republics then forming the U.S.S.R. Subsequently he built a company of about 100 professional dancers trained by either the Bolshoi Theatre School or its National Dance Department, which Moiseyev…

Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University, public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Normal, Alabama, U.S., a historically black school. The university comprises the schools of Graduate Studies and Extended Education, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Arts and Sciences,

government budget: State and local budgets in the United States: In 1972 Congress passed the State and Local Fiscal Assistance Act, which over a five-year period allocated some $30,000,000,000, one-third to state governments and two-thirds to local governments. This act, called general revenue sharing, continued into the 1980s although the amounts it allocated generally diminished after 1980. Only a fraction…

Government services like roads, schools, and social programs don’t come free. To fund these necessities, federal, state, and local governments rely on taxes. Whether it’s income, property, or sales taxes, you and everyone else must contribute their share. Because you pay taxes at the state and

David Mamet: State and Main (2000), a well-received ensemble piece written and directed by Mamet, depicts the trials and tribulations of a film crew shooting in a small town. He also applied his dual talents to Heist (2001), a crime thriller; Redbelt (2008), a latter-day samurai film…

economic system: Centrally planned systems: In his pamphlet The State and Revolution, written before he came to power, Vladimir Lenin envisaged the task of coordinating a socialist economy as little more than delivering production to central collecting points from which it would be distributed according to need—an operation requiring no more than “the…

Each of India’s 28 states and seven of its eight union territories (all except Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu) has an official animal, selected to represent its unique wildlife and cultural heritage. The practice of selecting a state animal began in the 1970s. The selected animals, some

civil service: Civil servants and communism: …compulsory arbitration operated through the State Arbitration Tribunal (known as Gosarbitrazh) under the Council of Ministers and through arbitration tribunals responsible to the councils of ministers in each of the republics. It settled all disputes concerning contracts, quality of goods, and other property disputes between various state enterprises. The system…

State Bank of India (SBI), state-owned commercial bank and financial services company, nationalized by the Indian government in 1955. SBI maintains thousands of branches throughout India and offices in dozens of countries throughout the world. The bank’s headquarters are in Mumbai. The oldest

Pakistan: Finance of Pakistan: The State Bank of Pakistan (1948) has overall control of the banking sector, acts as banker to the central and provincial governments, and administers official monetary and credit policies, including exchange controls. It has the sole right to issue currency (the Pakistani rupee) and has custody…

Vietnam: Finance: The State Bank of Vietnam, the central bank, issues the national currency, the dong, and oversees the country’s banking system. Known until 1975 as the National Bank of Vietnam in the north, the State Bank of Vietnam formerly functioned as a government monopoly in the banking…

state building, the construction of a state apparatus defined by its monopoly of the legitimate use of violence in a given territory. Because of the wide variance between states across history, state building may be best understood not in generic terms but as the result of political dynamics

state capitalism, economic system in which the state takes an active role in economic production, controlling the means of production and generating profits (or surplus value, in Marxist economics), which it then uses for further production. The state functions in a manner akin to a business

Raleigh: The first capitol, completed in 1794, burned in 1831 and was replaced by the present building, completed in 1840. It stands in the middle of a large square and is considered an outstanding example of Greek Revival architecture. Capitol Square is surrounded by various state and historic…

Madison: …skyline is dominated by the State Capitol (284.4 feet [86.7 metres] high), modeled after the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Its white granite dome is topped by a statue, Wisconsin; made of bronze by sculptor Daniel Chester French and covered in gold leaf, it symbolizes the state motto: “Forward.” It…

Frankfort: The State Capitol (1910) is crowned by a dome 212 feet (65 metres) high. The city’s historic buildings include the Old Capitol (1827–30), Liberty Hall (c. 1796), and the Orlando Brown House (1835). The graves of pioneer Daniel Boone and his wife, Rebecca Boone, are in…

Lansing: ) The Michigan State Capitol (erected 1872–78) stands in a 10-acre (4-hectare) park in the centre of the city; the capitol underwent extensive restoration in 1989–92. Connected by plank road to Detroit in 1852 and to out-of-state areas by railroad in the 1870s, the city grew industrially after…

Denver: The contemporary city: The State Capitol (built 1887–95 in Corinthian style) has a 272-foot (83-metre) gold-leafed dome, and Civic Center Park adjoins the Capitol grounds. Denver’s climate and geographical location make outdoor recreation an especially popular pastime. The Rocky Mountains begin a few miles west of the city and…

Phoenix: From a town to a city: …1912, the building became the state capitol.

Charleston: The State Capitol, designed by architect Cass Gilbert and completed in 1932, features a gold-leafed dome that is larger than that of the United States Capitol. The Capitol Complex contains the governor’s mansion, the cultural centre, the state museum, and a memorial to Booker T. Washington,…

Cheyenne: The State Capitol with its lantern-type cupola atop a 145-foot (44-metre) dome displays Western murals within. The Wyoming State Museum is nearby as is the Historic Governor’s Mansion. The world’s largest steam engine is on display in Holliday Park. Frontier Days, featuring one of America’s oldest…

Montpelier: The present state capitol (the third constructed on the site; completed in 1859) is built of Vermont granite. Within its portico is a marble statue representing Ethan Allen, a hero of the American Revolution.

Indianapolis: The contemporary city: The State Capitol (1878–88), just west of the circle, is constructed of Indiana limestone and has a central rotunda 234 feet (71 metres) high. Hilbert Circle Theatre (1916), home of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, is adjacent to the circle, and Clowes Memorial Hall (1963), on the…

Sacramento: The contemporary city: The Roman golden-domed Corinthian State Capitol (constructed 1860–74), in the heart of the city, is surrounded by 40 acres (15 hectares) of parkland and includes a museum. California State University, Sacramento, was established in 1947, Sacramento City College in 1916, American River College in 1955, and Cosumnes River College…

Nashville: The contemporary city: The State Capitol (1859) was designed along classical Greek lines by William Strickland; Pres. James K. Polk is buried in its grounds. Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park, near the building, includes a black granite globe as a memorial to World War II. The Hermitage, the home…

Salt Lake City: The contemporary city: The State Capitol (1916), built of Utah granite and marble in Corinthian style, has an exhibition hall.

Honolulu: …replaced by the nearby new State Capitol (an unusual rectangular structure featuring legislative chambers shaped like volcanoes and columns shaped like royal palms). Within a two-block radius of the palace are several historic buildings, including Kawaiahao Church (1841) and the early Mission Houses, built in the 1820s from lumber brought…

Richmond: Construction of the present capitol building, designed by Thomas Jefferson, began in 1785. In 1840 the city was linked to Lynchburg by the James River and Kanawha Canal, and by 1860 it was served by several railroads. Following the secession of Virginia (April 1861) at the outbreak of the…