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: 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…

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