Boeing Company: History of Boeing Company: …next jetliner, the twin-engine, wide-body 777, Boeing involved several key airlines in the development process in order to ensure that market needs and customer preferences were satisfied. Advances in computers and computer-aided design and manufacturing (CAD/CAM) software allowed Boeing to develop the 777 entirely on computers without having to build…

Guglielmo Marconi: Education and early radio work: …also, Marconi filed his now-famous patent No. 7777 for Improvements in Apparatus for Wireless Telegraphy. The patent, based in part on earlier work in wireless telegraphy by Sir Oliver Lodge, enabled several stations to operate on different wavelengths without interference. (In 1943 the U.S. Supreme Court overturned patent No. 7777,…

construction: Use of reinforced concrete: …Khan in the 174-metre (570-foot) 780 Third Avenue Office Building (1983) in New York City. This is a framed tube with diagonal bracing achieved by filling in diagonal rows of window openings to create exterior bracing members; this is a very efficient system and may lead to yet taller buildings…

Boeing Company: History of Boeing Company: …began taking orders for the 787 Dreamliner, a mid-range jet with speeds (Mach 0.85) that would match the fastest wide-body long-range planes but with vastly improved fuel efficiency, thanks to new high-bypass turbofan engines built by Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce and a radically innovative body design. Roughly half of…

Desert Rats, group of British soldiers who helped defeat the Germans in North Africa during World War II. The Desert Rats, led by Gen. John Harding, were especially noted for a hard-fought three-month campaign against the more-experienced German Afrika Korps, led by Gen. Erwin Rommel (“The Desert

Frank Borzage: …he made his breakthrough film, 7th Heaven, a sentimental and beautifully photographed tale of a Parisian sewer worker (played by Charles Farrell) who saves a homeless beauty (Janet Gaynor) from despair. It dominated the first Academy Awards with nominations for best picture, actress, screenplay adaptation, and director of a dramatic…

James Patterson: …the numerically titled series, including 7th Heaven (2008), 11th Hour (2012), 14th Deadly Sin (2015), 16th Seduction (2017), and The 20th Victim (2020), were written with coauthors. Patterson’s other thriller series included one involving Michael Bennett, a detective. The first installment, Step on a Crack, was published in 2007, and…

Battle of the Chosin Reservoir: Crossing into North Korea: ”] Smith), the 7th Infantry Division (Maj. Gen. David G. Barr), and the 3rd Infantry Division (Maj. Gen. Robert H. Soule). The corps also had control of the Capital and 3rd divisions of the South Korean I Corps, which was already crossing the 38th parallel on the east…

Battle of the Chosin Reservoir: The Chinese strike: …Army Group (commanded by General Song Shilun) to leave Manchuria and destroy it. Song’s army group (12 divisions in 3 armies) numbered 150,000 soldiers—mostly infantry with mortars and machine guns but not much artillery, since the Chinese lacked guns, shells, and trucks and feared UNC air strikes on road-bound columns.…

Stan Lee: Later work and participation in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: …an animated online series called 7th Portal, which featured aliens who enter Earth through a “7th portal”—the Internet. After this initial success, however, the company was beset by a number of lawsuits and corruption charges. It filed for bankruptcy in February 2001. In 2004 Pow Entertainment was established for Lee’s…

October: …from octo, Latin for “eight,” an indication of its position in the early Roman calendar.

Lina Wertmüller: …classic Otto e mezzo (1963; 812. She then wrote and directed her first film, I basilischi (1963; The Lizards). At about this time she became friends with the actor Giancarlo Giannini, who would star in most of her subsequent films.

Catherine Deneuve: …François Ozon’s 8 Femmes (2002; 8 Women) and smaller roles in Oliveira’s Je rentre à la maison (2001; I’m Going Home) and Une Filme falado (2003; A Talking Picture). She later reteamed with Ozon for the farcical comedy Potiche (2010). Deneuve starred as a woman who embarks upon a road…

Kim Basinger: …protagonist in the Eminem vehicle 8 Mile (2002), a kidnap victim in the thriller Cellular (2004), and the love interest of an aging boxer in Grudge Match (2013). After acting in The Nice Guys (2016), she appeared in Fifty Shades Darker (2017) and Fifty Shades Freed (2018), both of which…

Hal Ashby: The 1980s: Ashby’s final film, 8 Million Ways to Die (1986), was only marginally better. A freewheeling adaptation of a Lawrence Block novel, it starred Jeff Bridges as alcoholic private eye Matt Scudder, with supporting performances by Rosanna Arquette as a call girl in trouble and Andy Garcia as her…

Catherine Deneuve: …François Ozon’s 8 Femmes (2002; 8 Women) and smaller roles in Oliveira’s Je rentre à la maison (2001; I’m Going Home) and Une Filme falado (2003; A Talking Picture). She later reteamed with Ozon for the farcical comedy Potiche (2010). Deneuve starred as a woman who embarks upon a road…

Group of Eight, intergovernmental organization that originated in 1975 through informal summit meetings of the leaders of the world’s leading industrialized countries (the United States, the United Kingdom, France, West Germany, Italy, Canada, and Japan). Canada did not attend the initial meeting

dye: Azo dyes: H-acid (8-amino-1-naphthol-3,6-disulfonic acid) has both functional groups and can be selectively coupled to two diazo components in a two-step process. C.I. Acid Black 1 is formed by coupling first to diazotized p-nitroaniline in weakly acidic solution and then to diazotized aniline in alkaline solution.

Sally Field: In the sports comedy 80 for Brady (2023), she costarred with Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno, and Lily Tomlin.

Alcor, star with apparent magnitude of 4.01. Alcor makes a visual double with the brighter star Mizar in the middle of the handle of the Big Dipper (Ursa Major). The two are 1.2 light-years apart and may be gravitationally bound to each other. Alcor itself is orbited by a faint red companion star.

Sebastian Coe: …major race in 1977, an 800-metre event at the European indoor championships in San Sebastián, Spain. He first ran against Ovett in Prague in 1978 in an 800-metre race that neither won. The next year in Oslo, Norway, Coe set his first world records, in 800-metre and one-mile races. At…

Kanye West: Late Registration, Graduation, and 808s and Heartbreak: In 2008 West released 808s and Heartbreak, an album that dwelled on feelings of personal loss and regret. (His mother had died the previous year from a heart attack following cosmetic surgery.) Its sound differed radically from his previous releases, as West chose to sing (with the assistance of…

Dave Eggers: …2002 of Eggers’s nonprofit organization 826 Valencia, based in San Francisco, was a further foray into literary advocacy. It was a volunteer-based writing laboratory devoted to developing kids’ creativity and love of books through programs that included free tutoring and writing workshops. Soon after, branches of 826 Valencia opened in…

Deepika Padukone: Actress and producer: In 83 (2021), a biopic on the famous cricketer Kapil Dev and the Indian team that won the 1983 Cricket World Cup (India’s first World Cup win), Padukone played Romi Dev, the wife of Kapil Dev, who was played by Padukone’s real-life husband. Padukone also coproduced…

Mel Brooks: Work as producer and actor: … (1980), Frances (1982, uncredited), and 84 Charing Cross Road (1987), the last of which starred his second wife, Anne Bancroft, whom he married in 1964. Brooks costarred with Bancroft in To Be or Not to Be (1983), a remake of the Ernst Lubitsch-directed film of the same name. His work…

MS-DOS, the dominant operating system for the personal computer (PC) throughout the 1980s. The acquisition and marketing of MS-DOS were pivotal in the Microsoft Corporation’s transition to software industry giant. American computer programmer Timothy Paterson, a developer for Seattle Computer

Usher: 8701 and Confessions: Usher’s third studio album, 8701 (2001), further cemented his reputation as a smooth, seductive, and bankable artist. Music from 8701 gave Usher two number-one pop hits, “U Remind Me” and “U Got It Bad,” and his first two Grammy Awards. On his fourth album, Confessions (2004), he extended his…

eschatology: Renewed interest in eschatology: …late 1980s with Edgar Whisenant’s 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Happen in 1988 (significantly, 40 years after the creation of the State of Israel), the premillennial dispensationalism became increasingly prominent in the United States and Latin America. Led by such figures as Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts, and Hal Lindsey,…

half-track: A typical type was the 8t SdKfz personnel carrier, which weighed almost 12 tons, could carry 12 soldiers, and had a top speed of 50 km (31 miles) per hour.

number symbolism: 9: In contrast to 8, the number 9 often represents pain or sadness. The 16th-century Catholic theologian Peter Bungus pointed out that the Ninth Psalm predicts the coming of the Antichrist. In Islamic cosmology the universe is made from nine spheres—the traditional eight of Ptolemy,…

Kim Basinger: …the controversial and explicitly sexual 9 12 Weeks (1986). She costarred with Richard Gere in the thriller No Mercy (1986), with Bruce Willis in Blake Edwards’s Blind Date (1987), with Jeff Bridges in the comedy Nadine (1987), and with Dan Aykroyd in My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988).

Suze Orman: Orman’s follow-up, The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom (1997), was on The New York Times best-seller list for more than one year. Soon after, she began presenting workshops on public television, and her Financial Freedom hour was one of the most successful programs in public television’s pledge-drive…

anthraquinone, the most important quinone derivative of anthracene and the parent substance of a large class of dyes and pigments. It is prepared commercially by oxidation of anthracene or condensation of benzene and phthalic anhydride, followed by dehydration of the condensation product. Alizarin

Angela Bassett: …Los Angeles police officer in 9-1-1. She also served as an executive producer on that show and, beginning in 2020, on its spin-off, 9-1-1: Lone Star. Over her career Bassett lent her voice to many animated movies, including Meet the Robinsons (2007), Curious George 3: Back to the Jungle (2015),…

9-11 Commission, bipartisan study group created by U.S. Pres. George W. Bush and the United States Congress on November 27, 2002, to examine the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. The commission’s report served as the basis for a major reform of the U.S. intelligence

hormone: Pheromones: of the honeybee (Apis mellifera), 9-oxodecenoic acid, stimulates the olfactory receptors of the drones (males). Secreted by the queen bee in the hive, the pheromone inhibits the development of the ovaries of the worker bees (sterile females) but is entirely effective only when it acts in conjunction with another inhibitory…

Whoopi Goldberg: …this time included the drama 9/11 (2017), which centres on a group of people trapped in a World Trade Center elevator during the September 11, 2001, attacks; and the comedy Nobody’s Fool (2018), wherein she played the mother of a recently paroled ex-convict (played by Tiffany Haddish).

September 11 attacks, series of airline hijackings and suicide attacks committed in 2001 by 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda against targets in the United States, the deadliest terrorist attacks on American soil in U.S. history. The attacks against New York City and

James Bridges: Bridges next wrote and directed 9/30/55 (1978; also known as September 30, 1955), a dramatization of a fan (Richard Thomas) struggling to come to grips with the death of idol James Dean in 1955. However, it was the suspenseful The China Syndrome (1979) that became Bridges’s first breakout hit. Jane…

Massimo Bontempelli: …expressed particularly in his review 900 (founded 1926). European in outlook (one foreign editor was James Joyce), 900 sought a middle ground between the extremes of traditionalism and the literary avant-garde.

Siege of Leningrad, prolonged siege (September 8, 1941–January 27, 1944) of the city of Leningrad (St. Petersburg) in the Soviet Union by German and Finnish armed forces during World War II. The siege actually lasted 872 days. After Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, German armies

Yes: …White, enjoyed commercial success with 90125 (1983), a collection that included the hit single “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” and Big Generator (1987); the creation of another group by other Yes veterans (including Bruford, Howe, and Wakeman) led to legal wrangling over ownership of the band’s name. The dispute, which…

asteroid: Asteroids in unusual orbits: Another asteroid, (944) Hidalgo, is also thought by some to be a defunct comet because of its unusual orbit. That object, discovered in 1920, travels sunward as near as 2.02 AU, which is at the inner edge of the main asteroid belt, and as far as 9.68 AU,…

Generation of 1898, in Spain, the novelists, poets, essayists, and thinkers active at the time of the Spanish-American War (1898), who reinvigorated Spanish letters and restored Spain to a position of intellectual and literary prominence that it had not held for centuries. The shock of Spain’s

Andreas Gursky: …homogenous palette, such as in 99 Cent II Diptychon (2001), a dizzying diptych shot in a 99 Cents Only store. He manipulated the colour to create an explosion of repeating reds, yellows, and oranges dotted with blue, pink, white, and black. He also digitally inserted a reflection of the merchandise…

Dana Gioia: …Pity the Beautiful (2012); and 99 Poems (2016). He became a professor of poetry and public culture at the University of Southern California in 2011, and in 2015 he was named state poet laureate of California, a post he held until 2018.

Phil Karlson: Film noirs: …also starred in the violent 99 River Street (1953), this time portraying a former prizefighter who becomes the prime suspect in his wife’s murder. Karlson briefly took a break from noirs to make the western They Rode West (1954) and Hell’s Island (1955), an adventure starring Payne as a down-on-his-luck…

OSIRIS-REx: …mission: to orbit the asteroid Apophis after its flyby of Earth in 2029. The mission was renamed OSIRIS-APEX (OSIRIS-Apophis Explorer).

Walter Abish: … (1970), a collection of poems; 99: The New Meaning (1990), a group of narratives; and the novel Eclipse Fever (1993). Double Vision, a memoir, was published in 2004.

Tuskegee Airmen: …War Department formed the all-black 99th Pursuit Squadron of the U.S. Army Air Corps (later the U.S. Army Air Forces), to be trained using single-engine planes at the segregated Tuskegee Army Air Field at Tuskegee, Alabama. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the black press, and…

Malaysia Airlines flight 17: …from a Buk (also called SA-11) surface-to-air system that was more than capable of reaching the cruising altitude of flight 17. The missile never struck the aircraft directly. Instead, as intended, its warhead exploded a few feet away from the cockpit, propelling hundreds of shrapnel fragments through the fuselage. The…

9to5, National Association of Working Women: …group had its origins in 9to5 News, a newsletter that was first published in December 1972. About a year later, the newsletter’s publishers announced the formation of Boston 9to5, a grassroots collective for women office workers that addressed issues such as low pay and lack of opportunities for advancement. One…

9to5, National Association of Working Women, organization established in 1973 and dedicated to improving the working conditions and ensuring the rights of women office workers in the United States. The group had its origins in 9to5 News, a newsletter that was first published in December 1972. About