Sacco-Vanzetti case Murder trial in Massachusetts (1920-27). After the robbery and murder of a paymaster and a guard at a shoe factory (1920), police arrested the Italian immigrant anarchists Nicola Sacco (1891-1927), a shoemaker, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (1888-1927), a fish peddler. They were tried and found guilty. Radicals and socialists pro¬ tested the men’s innocence, and many others felt they had been convicted for their anarchist beliefs. In 1925 a convicted murderer confessed to par¬ ticipating in the crime, but attempts to obtain a retrial failed and Sacco and Vanzetti were sentenced to death in 1927. Protest meetings were held throughout the U.S. Gov. Alvin Fuller appointed an advisory panel, which agreed with his refusal to grant clemency, and the men were executed. They became martyrs to radicals’ belief that the legal system was biased. Though opinion remained divided on the men’s guilt, most agreed that a retrial was warranted. In 1977 Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis issued a proclamation stating that Sacco and Vanzetti had not been treated justly and that no stigma should be associated with their names.
Sachs \'zaks,\ English Vsaks\, Curt (b. June 29, 1881, Berlin, Ger.—d. Feb. 5, 1959, New York, N.Y., U.S.) German-born U.S. musicologist. He studied clarinet and composition as a teenager but earned a doctorate in art history. After working as an art critic, he returned to musicology, becoming one of the most significant scholars of that field, especially in the systematic study of musical instruments (working with Erich von Hornbostel). After immigrating to the U.S. in 1937, he wrote important textbooks and surveys and supervised the growth of the discipline, lec¬ turing at such institutions as Columbia University and New York Univer¬ sity.
Sachs, Nelly (Leonie) (b. Dec. 10, 1891, Berlin, Ger.—d. May 12, 1970, Stockholm, Swed.) German poet and dramatist. Born to a prosper¬ ous family, Sachs wrote poems mainly for her own entertainment until the advent of Nazism darkened her work and forced her to flee to Swe-
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Sachsen ► Saddam Hussein I 1661
den. Her lyrics from those years combine lean simplicity with imag¬ ery variously tender, searing, or mys¬ tical. In the famous title poem of her collection O the Chimneys (1967),
Israel’s body drifts upward as smoke from the Nazi death camps. Her best- known play is Eli (1951). She shared the 1966 Nobel Prize with S.Y.
Agnon.
Sachsen See Saxony
Sachsenhausen Vzak-son-.hau- zon\ German Nazi concentration camp. Located near the village of Sachsenhausen in northern Ger¬ many, it was established in 1936 as part of a system of camps that included Buchenwald (for central Germany) and Dachau (for southern Germany). The camp’s early prison¬ ers included 10,000 Jews rounded up from Berlin and Hamburg after the Kristallnacht raids. Of the 200,000 prisoners who went through Sachsen¬ hausen during World War II, 100,000 died there from disease, execution, and overwork in the local armaments factories; many of the rest were transferred to other camps. See also Holocaust.
Sackler, Arthur M(itchell) (b. Aug. 22, 1913, New York, N.Y., U.S.—d. May 26, 1987, New York City) U.S. physician, medical pub¬ lisher, and art collector. He earned an M.D. from New York University. In 1949 he founded the Creedmore Institute of Psychobiological Studies in New York and did pioneering research in the field of psychobiology. He edited the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Psychopathology and founded the biweekly Medical Tribune newspaper. He funded research at several universities and endowed art galleries at universities and muse¬ ums, donating art from his own vast collection, including the world’s largest collection of ancient Chinese art, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Sacks, Oliver (Wolf) (b. July 9, 1933, London, Eng.) British-U.S. neurologist and writer. He immigrated to the U.S. in 1960 to study neu¬ rology at the University of California, and in 1965 he joined the faculty at New York’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Many of his books relate case histories of neurologically damaged people. His empathy with those afflicted with strange conditions, including Tourette syndrome, amne¬ sia, and autism, has been the hallmark of his writings. His book Awaken¬ ings (1973), about the long-term effects of sleeping sickness, was filmed in 1990; other books include The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (1986) and An Anthropologist on Mars (1995).
Sackville, Thomas, 1st earl of Dorset (b. 1536, Buckhurst, Sus¬ sex, Eng.—d. April 19, 1608, London) English politician and poet. A London barrister, he entered Parliament in 1558. He was a member of the Privy Council (1585) and conveyed the death sentence to Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1586. He later served on diplomatic missions to The Hague and served as lord high treasurer (1599-1608). He was also noted as the coau¬ thor of The Tragedie of Gorboduc (1561), the earliest English drama in blank verse, and for his “Induction,” the most famous part of the verse collection A Myrrour for Magistrates (1563).
Sackville-West, Vita orig. Victoria Mary Sackville-West (b.
March 9, 1892, Knole, Kent, Eng.—d. June 2, 1962, Sissinghurst Castle, Kent) British novelist and poet. The daughter of a baron, she married the diplomat and author Harold Nicolson (1886-1968) in 1913; her journal was the basis of Portrait of a Marriage (1973) by their son Nigel, which described a happy marriage in which both partners were principally homo¬ sexual. Her gift for evoking the beauty of the Kentish countryside was evident in her long poem The Land (1926). Her best-known novels are The Edwardians (1930) and All Passion Spent (1931). She also wrote biographies and gardening books. She was the inspiration for the title character in her friend Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando.
sacrament Religious action or symbol in which spiritual power is believed to be transmitted through material elements or the performance of ritual. The concept is ancient; prehistoric people believed that they
could advantageously influence events in the natural world, such as weather patterns, through the performance of ritual. The word sacramen- tum was used in Roman law and later became an oath of allegiance sol¬ diers swore in a sacred place. The sacrament is primarily associated with Christianity, and Christian theologians as early as St. Augustine focused on the proper definition of sacrament. Among Christians, sacraments are said to derive from practices instituted by Jesus, such as baptism, the washing of the feet, and the casting out of demons. There are seven sacraments of Roman Catholicism, as codified by St. Thomas Aquinas and promulgated by the Council of Trent: baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, penance, anoint¬ ing of the sick, ordination, and matrimony. The Eastern Orthodox church generally accepts seven sacraments, even though no council accepted by the Orthodox church ever defined the number of sacraments. In most Protestant churches, however, only baptism and the Lord’s Supper are recognized as sacraments, as the understanding of sacrament differs from that of the Roman Catholic church. See also samskara.
Sacramento City (pop., 2000: 407,018), capital of California, U.S. It is located in the Central Valley, where the Sacramento and American riv¬ ers meet. First settled in 1839 as New Helvetia by John Sutter, it became an important trading centre during the gold rush. The present city was laid out in 1848 and named for the river. It became the state capital in 1854 and prospered as a transportation and agricultural centre. It was the ter¬ minus of the first California railroad in 1856 and the western terminus of the Pony Express in 1860. A ship canal completed in 1963 made the city a deepwater port. The city’s main industries, in addition to government ser¬ vices, include food processing, printing, and aerospace products. It is the site of several institutions of higher learning.