Forbes family U.S. publishing family. Bertie Charles Forbes (1880- 1954) emigrated from Scotland to the U.S. in 1904. He founded Forbes magazine, a business and finance magazine, in 1916. He became a U.S. citizen in 1917. His son, Malcolm S. Forbes (1919-90), was decorated for his service in World War II, and he later took over the publishing busi¬ ness, then foundering, turning it into a success. He ran unsuccessfully in New Jersey’s 1957 gubernatorial election. His colourful lifestyle— marked by lavish parties, motorcycling with Elizabeth Taylor, and sail¬ ing in hot air balloons—was celebrated in Forbes magazine and in books both by him and about him. On his death, his eldest son, Malcolm S. (“Steve”) Forbes, Jr. (b. 1947), took over the magazine, assisted by his three brothers. He tried unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for U.S. president in 1996 and 2000.
Forbidden City Imperial Palace complex in Beijing, containing hun¬ dreds of buildings and some 9,000 rooms. It served the emperors of China from 1421 to 1911. No commoner or foreigner was allowed to enter it without special permission. The moated palaces, with their golden tiled roofs and red pillars, are surrounded by high walls with a tower on each comer. The palaces consist of the outer throne halls and an inner court¬ yard, each palace forming an architectural whole. North of the front gate, a great courtyard lies beyond five marble bridges. Farther north, raised on a marble terrace, is the massive, double-tiered Hall of Supreme Harmony, once the throne hall, one of the largest wooden structures in China. The palaces and buildings are now public museums.
Forcados River \for-'ka-d6s\ River, southern Nigeria. A navigable channel of the Niger River, it leaves the main course of the Niger about
20 mi (32 km) downstream from Aboh and flows 123 mi (198 km) west¬ erly to the Bight of Benin. Since c. 1900 it has been the chief link for small-ship traffic between the Niger and the Gulf of Guinea.
force Action that tends to maintain or alter the position of a body or to distort it. It is a vector quantity, having both magnitude and direction. Force is commonly explained in terms of Newton's laws of motion. All known natural forces can be traced to the fundamental interactions. Force is measured in newtons (N); a force of 1 N will accelerate a mass of 1 kg at a rate of 1 m/sec/sec. See also centrifugal force; Coriolis force; electro¬ magnetic force; electric force; magnetic force; strong force; weak force.
Force Acts Series of four acts passed by the U.S. Congress (1870-75) to protect the rights guaranteed to blacks by the 14th and 15th Amend¬ ments to the Constitution of the United States. The acts authorized federal authorities to penalize any interference with the registration, voting, officeholding, or jury service of blacks. Violations produced over 5,000 indictments and 1,250 convictions throughout the South. The Supreme Court later ruled sections of the acts unconstitutional.
Ford, Ford Madox orig. Ford Hermann Hueffer Vhwof-orV (b. Dec. 17, 1873, Merton, Surrey, Eng.—d. June 26, 1939, Deauville, France) English novelist, editor, and critic. Ford collaborated with Joseph Conrad on The Inheritors (1901) and Romance (1903). As the founder of the English Review (1908), he generously encouraged younger writers. He was gassed and shell-shocked in World War I; after the war he changed his name to Ford. Of more than 70 published works, his best known are The Good Soldier (1915), a novel about the demise of aristocratic England; and the tetralogy Parade’s End— Some Do Not (1924), No More Parades (1925), A Man Could Stand Up (1926), and Last Post (1928)— which explores the breakdown of Edwardian culture and the emergence of new values.
Ford, Gerald R. in full Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr. orig. Leslie Lynch King, Jr. (b. July 14, 1913, Omaha, Neb., U.S.) 38th president of the U.S. (1974-77). While he was still an infant, his parents were divorced; his mother later married Gerald R. Ford, Sr., who adopted the boy and gave him his name. He received degrees from the University of Michigan and Yale Law School (1941). He joined the Navy during World War II and served in the South Pacific, attaining the rank of lieutenant commander. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 25 years (1948-73), becoming Republican minority leader in 1965. After Spiro Agnew resigned as vice president in 1973, Richard Nixon nominated Ford to fill the vacant post. When the Watergate scandal forced Nixon to resign. Ford became the first president who had not been elected to either the vice presidency or the presidency. A month later he pardoned Nixon; to counter widespread out¬ rage, he voluntarily appeared before a House subcommittee to explain his action. His administration gradually lowered the country’s high rate of inflation by slowing down the economy, though at the cost of a severe recession (1974-75) and high unemployment. Ford had a tense relationship with the Democrat-controlled Congress, vetoing more than 50 bills (more than 40 were sustained). In September 1975 he was twice the target of assassination attempts. In the final days of the Vietnam War, he ordered an airlift of 237,000 anti-communist Vietnamese refugees, most of whom came to the U.S. The public’s revulsion at the events of Watergate contrib¬ uted to his narrow defeat by Jimmy Carter in 1976.
Ford, Harrison (b. July 13, 1942, Chicago, Ill., U.S.) U.S. film actor. He played minor roles on screen and television before achieving stardom in George Lucas’s hit Star Wars (1977) and its sequels, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). He also starred in the adven¬ ture film Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and its sequels (1984, 1989). He graduated to dramatic roles in Blade Runner (1982), Witness (1985), The Fugitive (1993), and Clear and Present Danger (1994). His rugged good looks and wry charm made him, by some measures, the most popular actor of his time.
Ford, Henry (b. July 30, 1863, Wayne county, Mich., U.S.—d. April 7, 1947, Dearborn, Mich.) U.S. industrialist and pioneer automobile manufacturer. Ford worked his way up from a machinist’s apprentice (at age 15) to the post of chief engineer at the Edison Company in Detroit. He built his first experimental car in 1896. In 1903, with several partners, he formed the Ford Motor Company. In 1908 he designed the Model T; demand became so great that Ford developed new mass-production meth¬ ods, including the first moving assembly line in 1913. He developed the Model A in 1928 to replace the Model T, and in 1932 he introduced the V-8 engine. He observed an eight-hour workday and paid his workers far
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above the average, holding that well-paid labourers become the consum¬ ers that industrialists require, but strenuously opposed labour unions. As the first to make car ownership affordable to large numbers of Americans, he exerted a vast and permanent influence on American life. See also Ford Foundation.
Ford, John orig. Sean Aloysius O'Feeney or O'Fearna (b. Feb. 1, 1895, Cape Elizabeth, Maine, U.S.—d. Aug. 31, 1973, Palm Desert, Calif.) U.S. film director. In 1914 Ford went to Hollywood to join his brother, who was there acting in films. Ford became a director of west¬ erns, achieving success with The Iron Horse (1924). His distinctive style united action with colourful characterization and reflected his sense of American identity. He is best remembered for such westerns as Stage¬ coach (1939), My Darling Clementine (1946), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), many of which starred John Wayne. He also directed such historical dramas as Mary of Scotland (1936) and Young Mr. Lincoln (1939). He received Academy Awards for The Informer (1935), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1941), and The Quiet Man (1952), and also for his war¬ time documentaries The Battle of Midway (1942) and December 7th