England, and the Netherlands. See also BONE CHINA, PORCELAIN.
Stono rebellion (1739) Largest slave uprising in early America. On the morning of September 9, near the Stono River, 20 mi (30 km) from Charleston, S.C., slaves gathered, raided a firearms shop, and headed south, killing more than 20 whites as they went. Other slaves joined the rebellion until the group was about 60 strong. Whites set out in armed pursuit, and by dusk half the slaves were dead and half had escaped; most were eventually captured and executed. The slaves may have hoped to reach St. Augustine, Fla., where the Spanish were offering freedom and land to any fugitive. White colonists quickly passed a Negro Act that fur¬ ther limited slave privileges.
stools See feces
Stoppard, Sir Tom orig. Tomas Straussler (b. July 3, 1937, Zlm, Czech.) Czech-born British playwright. After living in East Asia with his family during World War II, he moved to England and adopted his step¬ father’s surname. His first play, A Walk on the Water , was televised in 1963, and he won fame with the absurdist Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966; film, 1990). His later plays, marked by verbal brilliance, ingenious plotting, and a playful interest in pivotal historical moments, include Jumpers (1972), Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (1977; with music by Andre Previn), The Real Thing (1982), and Arcadia (1993). He has also written radio plays and screenplays for films such as Empire of the Sun (1987) and Shakespeare in Love (1998, Academy Award). Stop¬ pard was knighted in 1997.
stored-program concept Storage of instructions in computer memory to enable it to perform a variety of tasks in sequence or intermit¬ tently. The idea was introduced in the late 1940s by John von Neumann, who proposed that a program be electronically stored in binary-number format in a memory device so that instructions could be modified by the computer as determined by intermediate computational results. Other engineers, notably John W. Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, contributed to this idea, which enabled digital computers to become much more flexible and powerful. Nevertheless, engineers in England built the first stored- program computer, the Manchester Mark I, shortly before the Americans built ED VAC, both operational in 1949.
stork Any of 17 species (family Ciconiidae) of voiceless, long-necked, mainly Old World birds. Storks are 2-5 ft (60-150 cm) tall, often with a totally or partially bald, brightly coloured head and upper neck. They fly
by alternately flapping and soaring, with neck outstretched and legs trail¬ ing. Most species are diurnal, feeding on small animals in shallow water and fields; some eat carrion. Usually found in flocks, storks pair off dur¬ ing the breeding season, and both parents incubate the eggs. Typical storks have a straight or nearly straight bill; the four species of wood stork have a curved bill. The only U.S. stork, the wood ibis (Mycteria americana ), is white, with black wings and tail and a curved bill. See also ibis; marabou.
storm petrel Any of about 20 species (family Hydrobatidae) of petrels that vary from 5 to 10 in. (13-25 cm) long. All are dark gray or brown, sometimes lighter below, often with a white rump. The relatively short wings are rounded at the tips. The toes are webbed, except for the small hind toe; the tail is square, forked, or wedge-shaped. Most species breed¬ ing in southern oceans “walk” over the water with wings spread, picking up minute marine organisms. Most northern species swoop over the water like tiny terns, occasionally alighting on the surface.
Storm Troopers See SA
Stornoway Gaelic Steornabhagh Burgh and largest town and port (pop., 1991: 5,975), Outer Hebrides Islands, Scotland. Located on the island of Lewis and Harris, Stornoway grew from the 18th century as a fishing town; the chief industry now is the manufacture of Harris tweed. It is the headquarters of the Western Isles council area.
Story, Joseph (b. Sept. 18, 1779, Marblehead, Mass., U.S.—d. Sept. 10, 1845, Cambridge, Mass.) U.S. jurist. After graduating from Harvard University, he practiced law in Salem, Mass. (1801-11) and served in the state legislature and U.S. Congress (1805-11). In 1811, though he was only 32 and lacked any judicial experience, he was appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States by Pres. James Madison. There he joined John AAarshall in interpreting the U.S. Constitution in a manner favour¬ ing the expansion of federal power. His opinion in Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee (1816) established the court’s appellate authority over the highest state courts. During his tenure on the court, he taught at Harvard (1829— 45), where he became the first Dane Professor of Law and whose endow¬ ment funded his influential series of commentaries, including Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1833), The Con¬ flict of Laws (1834), and On Equity Jurisprudence (1836). He and James Kent are considered the founders of U.S. equity jurisprudence.
Stoss \'shtos\, Veit (b. 1438/47, Swabia—d. 1533, Niimberg) German sculptor and wood carver. He worked mainly in Poland from 1477 to 1496; among his principal works is the majestic high altar in the Church of the Virgin Mary in Krakow (1477-89). After his return to Germany, he settled in Niimberg and produced important wood and stone sculptures in churches there and in Bamberg. His nervous, angu¬ lar forms, realistic detail, and vir¬ tuoso wood carving synthesized the sculptural styles of Flemish and Danubian art, and he exercised great influence on German late Gothic sculpture.
Stour Vstaur, 'stur. River River, eastern England. It rises in eastern Cambridgeshire and flows eastward through East Anglia, forming most of the boundary between Suffolk and Essex, through country made famous by the paintings of John Constable.
After a course of 47 mi (76 km), it enters the North Sea at Harwich.
Stout, Rex (Todhunter) (b. Dec.
1, 1886, Noblesville, Ind., U.S.—d.
Oct. 27, 1975, Danbury, Conn.) U.S. writer. He worked odd jobs until 1912, when he began to write. From 1927 he earned his living exclusively by writing. He is remembered for 46 genteel mystery novels and novelettes, beginning with Fer-de-Lance (1934), that revolve around Nero Wolfe, a brilliant, obese aesthete who
Salt-glazed stoneware Bartmannkrug with applied relief decoration, Cologne, c. 1540; in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London
COURTESY OF THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON; PHOTOGRAPH, WILFRID WALTER-EB INC.
The Archangel Raphael, wood sculp¬ ture by Veit Stoss, 1516-18; in the German National Museum, Nurnberg.
COURTESY OF THE GERMANISCHES NATIONALMUSEUM, NURNBERG
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
1828 I Stowe ► Strand
solves crimes without leaving his New York City apartment. Stout endowed his detective with his own passions for haute cuisine and the growing of orchids.
Stowe Vsto\, Harriet Beecher orig. Harriet Elizabeth Beecher
(b. June 14, 1811, Litchfield, Conn., U.S.—d. July 1, 1896, Hartford, Conn.) U.S. writer and philanthropist. Stowe was the daughter of the famous Congregationalist minister Lyman Beecher (1775-1863) and the sister of Henry Ward Beecher and Catharine Esther Beecher. She taught school in Hartford and in Cincinnati, where she came into contact with fugitive slaves and learned about life in the South, and later settled in Maine with her husband, a professor of theology. Her antislavery novel Uncle Tom ’s Cabin (1852) had so great an impact that it was often cited (by Abraham Lincoln, among others) among the causes of the American Civil War. Her other works include the novels Dred (1856), also against slavery, and The Minister’s Wooing (1859).
Strabane \stro-'ban\ Irish An Srath Ban Town, seat, and district (pop., 1995 est.: 36,000), Northern Ireland. Strabane is composed of river valleys, rolling lowlands, and moorlands of the Sperrin Mountains. Origi¬ nally inhabited by the O’Neill clan of Ulster, the district was settled in the 17th century by Scots Protestants. Livestock grazing in the lowlands, salmon fishing in the many rivers, and textile manufacturing contribute to the economy. The market town of Strabane (pop., 1991: 12,000), located on the River Mourne, is the district’s administrative seat.