Shorthorn or Durham Blocky, short-horned breed of beef cattle developed in the late 18th century by crossbreeding of local cattle in the county of Durham, Eng. Colour can be white, solid or white-marked red, or roan. The Shorthorn is the only roan-coloured modern cattle breed. It is popular throughout the world. Special strains include the Milking, or Dairy, Shorthorn, raised for milk and beef, and the Polled Shorthorn, a hornless variety.
Shoshone \sh3-'sho-ne\ Group of closely related North American Indian peoples living in the Great Basin region of the U.S. Their language belongs to the Numic group of the Uto-Aztecan family. The Shoshone are usually divided into four groups: Western (unmounted) Shoshone, cen¬ tred in eastern Nevada; Northern (mounted) Shoshone of northwestern Utah and southern Idaho; Wind River Shoshone in western Wyoming; and Comanche in western Texas. The Western Shoshone subsisted through hunting and gathering. The Northern Shoshone and Wind River Shoshone
Shoin-zukuri interior in the Ginkaku Temple, Kyoto, showing a chigai-dana (left background) and a shoin with shoji (right background), late 15th cen¬ tury
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1744 I Shoshone River ► Shrewsbury
probably acquired horses by 1680 and adopted much of Plains Indian cul¬ ture; they hunted buffalo, used tepees and skin clothing, and warred with other tribes. The Shoshone are closely related to the Ute, Paiute, Gosiute, and Bannock. After splitting from the Wind River group, the Comanche moved south. The Shoshone number about 10,000.
Shoshone \sh3-'sho-ne, sho-'shon\ River River, northwestern Wyo¬ ming, U.S. Formed by the uniting of two headstreams in the Absaroka Range in Yellowstone National Park, it flows northeast 100 mi (160 km) to join the Bighorn River near the Montana border. The river was named for the Shoshone Indians.
Shostakovich \,shas-t3-'ko-vich\, Dmitry (Dmitriyevich) (b. Sept. 25, 1906, St. Petersburg, Russia—d. Aug. 9, 1975, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.) Russian composer. Shaped by his intellectual parents and the political turmoil of his youth, he was admitted to the St. Petersburg Con¬ servatory at age 13. His Symphony No. 1 (1924-25) attracted international attention for its convincing command of a large scale and its expressive palette ranging from unaffected lyricism to bitter satire to grand heroics. He experimented with avant-garde trends in his next symphonies and theatre works, such as the opera Lady Macbeth ofMtsensk (1932; revised as Kat¬ erina Izmaylova). The denunciation of Lady Macbeth by the Soviet authorities in 1936 led to his adopting a very different style that was serious and elegiac, with a directness that appealed to the public. His wartime Sym¬ phony No. 7 (1941), thought to portray the German invasion, became a symbol of patriotism. After his music was denounced by the government in 1948, he was again devastated and began putting his most personal feelings into chamber works, particularly the remarkable 15 string quartets. With the Cold War “thaw” of the late 1950s, he composed two outspokenly per¬ sonal late symphonies, including the 13th (1962). He is remembered as the greatest Russian composer to follow Igor Stravinsky.
shot put Field event in which a metal ball is heaved for distance. It derives from the ancient event of “putting the stone”; later a shot (can¬ nonball) was substituted. A 16-lb (7.3-kg) shot was adopted for men in the first modem Olympic Games (1896); an 8.8-lb (4-kg) weight is used by women.
shotcrete or gunite Concrete applied by spraying. Shotcrete is a mix¬ ture of Portland cement, aggregate, and water conveyed by compressed air to a spray gun. For structural uses, shotcrete is usually sprayed over a framework of reinforcing bars and steel mesh. Because it can take any shape, is easily coloured, and can be sculpted after application, it is used for a variety of specialized structures, including artificial rock walls, zoo enclosures, canopies, shell structures, pools, and dams. It is sometimes used to bind the walls of tunnels.
shotgun Smoothbore shoulder firearm designed to fire a number of pel¬ lets, or shot, that cover a large target area after they leave the muzzle. It is used mainly against small game such as birds. The earliest examples were the fowling pieces that appeared in 16th-century Europe. Repeating shotguns, in which several cartridges could be loaded at once, became available in the 1880s. The range of a modern shotgun is about 50 yards (45 m).
Shotoku in full Shotoku Taishi \sho-'to-ku-'ta-e-she\ English Crown Prince Shotoku (b. 574, Yamato, Japan—d. April 8, 622, Yamato) Important Japanese regent and scholar of the Asuka period who promoted Buddhism and Confucianism, reinstituted embassies to China, and adopted the Chinese calendar and court ranks. He built the HoryO Temple and is sometimes credited with writing the Seventeen-Article Con¬ stitution, which describes Confucian ethical concepts and the Chinese bureaucratic system. Since his death he has been regarded as a Buddhist saint.
shoveler Any of four species (genus Anas, family Anatidae) of dabbling ducks having a long, spoon-shaped bill. The migratory northern shoveler (A. clypeata) inhabits shallow marshes and lagoons in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia. The male has a green head, white breast, chest¬ nut belly and sides, and a blue patch on the fore wing. It uses its bill to sift small organisms and seeds from the mud; in deeper waters, it skims the surface for plankton. The other species are the South American red shoveler (A. platalea)\ the Cape, or Smith’s, shoveler (A. smithii ) of South Africa; and the Australasian, or blue-winged, shoveler (A. rhynchotis).
show jumping Competitive riding of horses through an obstacle course. Horses run the course one at a time, and the winner is judged according to jumping ability and speed. Individual and team jumping
events have been part of the Olympic Games since 1912. The President’s Cup is the world team championship.
Showa emperor See Hirohito
Showa Vsho-9\ period (1926-89) Period of Japanese history corre¬ sponding to the reign of Hirohito, the Showa emperor. The first decades of the period were marked by the rise of militarism in the 1930s and by Japan’s disastrous participation in World War II, resulting in the coun¬ try’s complete collapse and ultimate surrender. The postwar era was one of rehabilitation, during which it joined the UN (1956), hosted the 1964 Summer Olympics, and held the Osaka World Exposition in 1970. Japan experienced a so-called “economic miracle,” with annual growth averag¬ ing 10% in 1955-60 and higher in the years following. In the 1980s the Japanese economy became one of the world’s largest and most sophisti¬ cated, with per capita income surpassing that of the U.S. Japanese soci¬ ety became increasingly urban, with one-tenth of the population living in Tokyo by mid-decade. U.S. influence on popular culture was strong, and young Japanese emulated their U.S. counterparts in numerous ways. Other societal changes during the Showa period included more people living in nuclear families than in extended families, love marriages rather than arranged marriages, fewer children per family, and more opportunities for women. See also Heisei period; Occupation (of Japan).
shrapnel \'shrap-n 3 l\ Originally, a type of projectile invented by the Brit¬ ish artillery officer Henry Shrapnel (1761-1842), containing small spheri¬ cal bullets and an explosive charge to scatter the shot and fragments of the shell casing. A time fuse set off the explosive charge late in the shell’s flight, when it was near opposing troops. The resulting hail of high-velocity debris was often lethal; it caused most of the artillery-inflicted wounds in World War I. In World War II a high-explosive bursting charge that fragmented the shell’s iron casing made shrapnel balls unnecessary; the term shrapnel came to be used for the shell-casing fragments.