Sam Giancana was born on May 24, 1908 to Sicilian immigrants Antonio and Antonia Giancana in Chicago's Little Italy. As a child, Giancana was frequently subjected to the violent discipline of his father. At age six, his father beat him wit...

Shafiihuna Nujoma (born 1929) led the Southwest African People's Organization (SWAPO) from exile for almost 30 years. In 1989 he became the first president of independent Namibia. Shafiihuna (Sam) Nujoma was born May 12, 1929, in the Ongan...

Sam Shepard (Samuel Shepard Rogers VII; born 1943) began his career as a playwright in the lively off-off-Broadway scene of the 1960s and became one of the United States' most prolific and acclaimed dramatists. He was also a film actor, a ...

SAMARITANS. The Samaritans are an ethno-religious group in Palestine and in Israel. Their religious center is Mount Gerizim in the vicinity of Nablus. Half of the community lives on the mountain, half lives in Ḥolon, a southern subu...

(2002 pop. 373,000). Samarqand in Uzbekistan is one of the world's oldest extant cities, and is Central Asia's most senior urban setting. Narrow streets wind through the old quarter of Samarqand. The historic heart of Samarqa...

SAMI RELIGION. The term Sami is an ethnonym used by the Sami people to describe themselves. They are also known by the term Lapp, which refers to their nomadic way of life, not to ethnicity, in accordance with the Swedish phrase "le...

"In this game, you have to work hard to get better. I like to work hard. I love this game."--Sammy Sosa. Outfielder Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs entered the 1998 baseball season as a relatively unknown player to most Americans. However, ...

A dedicated military man and socialist revolutionary, Samora Moises Machel (1933-1986) presided over the independence of Mozambique from Portugal in 1975 and became its first president. Samora Moises Machel was born on September 29, 1933, ...

SAMSON, or, in Hebrew, Shimshon; legendary Israelite hero who flourished, according to tradition, circa the twelfth century BCE. The thirteenth to sixteenth chapters of the Book of Judges recount the adventurous life of Samson, a charismat...

HIRSCH, SAMSON RAPHAEL (1808–1888), was a German rabbi and the foremost ideologue of Jewish Neo-Orthodoxy in the Western world. Hirsch was born in Hamburg and educated in an "enlightened-pious" family of Orthodox Jews ...

The prophet Samuel (ca. 1056-1004 BC) was the last judge of Israel and the first of the prophets after Moses. He inaugurated the monarchy by choosing and anointing Saul and David as kings of Israel. Samuel was the son of Elkanah and Hannah...

The British philosopher Samuel Alexander (1859-1938) was a forceful exponent of metaphysics at a time when that subject had largely fallen into disrepute. His work shows a fine capacity for synthesis and system. Samuel Alexander was born i...

Although Samuel Butler was largely overlooked by the general public in his own time— only one of his books, Erewhon Revisited Twenty Years Later (1901), was published without financial support from its author—Samuel Butler achi...

The American inventor and manufacturer Samuel Colt (1814-1862) first developed and popularized the multishot pistol, or revolver, which found wide use in the last half of the 19th century, especially in the American West. Samuel Colt was b...

Samuel de Champlain (ca. 1570-1635) was a French geographer and explorer whose mission was to establish a joint French and Native American agricultural and fur-trading colony. In 21 voyages to New France he laid the foundations for modern ...

Samuel Finley Breese Morse (1791-1872), American artist and inventor, designed and developed the first successful electromagnetic telegraph system. Samuel F. B. Morse was born in Charlestown, Mass., on April 27, 1791; he was the son of Jed...

Samuel Hearne (1745-1792) was an English explorer who surveyed the Coppermine River, discovered the "Northern Ocean," and searched for the Northwest Passage. Samuel Hearne was born in London, the son of Samuel and Diana Hearne. Upon his fa...

American politician Samuel Jones Tilden (1814-1886), a governor of New York and Democratic presidential candidate, typified genteel reform in the "gilded age." Samuel J. Tilden was born on Feb. 9, 1814, in New Lebanon, N.Y. His father, a m...

Johnson, Samuel(1696–1772) Samuel Johnson, the American philosopher, was born in Guilford, Connecticut. He studied and taught at the college at New Haven, later called Yale. One of the first colonials to read Francis Bacon, John Loc...

1799-1851 American physician who was a pioneering physical anthropologist. Morton earned medical degrees from the Universities of Pennsylvania and Edinburgh. He wrote anatomy and pathology texts and was active in the Philadelphia Associati...

The American scientist Samuel Pierpont Langley (1834-1906) was a pioneer experimenter with airplanes and in the science of aeronautics. Samuel Langley was born in Roxbury, Mass., on Aug. 22, 1834. As a boy, he studied diligently and read w...

The voluminous diary of Samuel Sewall (1652-1730), American jurist, provides a vivid picture of the Boston of his day as well as of himself. Samuel Sewall was born on March 28, 1652, in North Baddesley, Hampshire, England. His father was a...

The English-born American manufacturer Samuel Slater (1768-1835) built the first successful cotton mill in the United States, in 1790. Samuel Slater was born near Belper in Derbyshire on June 9, 1768, the son of a prosperous yeoman farmer....

The German jurist and historian Baron Samuel von Pufendorf (1632-1694) is best known for his influential writings on international and natural law. His works became standard textbooks for both juristical and historical students in the 17th...

Samuel White Baker Born June 8, 1821, Gloucestershire, England Died December 30, 1893, Sanford Orleigh, Devon, England Florence Baker Born August 6, 1841, Transylvania, Romania Died 1916, England Unlike other famous nineteenth-century explo...