(1946-) US rock singer and songwriter. Her album Horses 1975 contributed to the genesis of the New Wave. Her risk-taking performances and punk sensibility made her a significant influence. In 1978 she had a hit with Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Because the Night’.
Born in Chicago, Smith moved to New York, writing poetry and lyrics. Horses was followed by Radio Ethiopia 1976, Easter 1978, and Waves 1979. She made a comeback 1988 with Dream of Life.

(Margaret Natalie) (1934-) English actress. She is notable for her commanding presence, fluting voice, and throwaway lines. Her films include The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie 1969 (Academy Award), California Suite 1978, A Private Function 1984, A Room with a View and The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne both 1987, and Sister Act 1992.

(1894-1937) US jazz and blues singer. Known as the “Empress of the Blues”, she established herself in the 1920s after she was discovered by Columbia Records. She made over 150 recordings accompanied by such greats as Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman.
Her popularity waned in the Depression and she died after an auto accident.

(1769-1839) English geologist who produced the first geological maps of England and Wales, setting the pattern for geological cartography. Often called the founder of stratigraphical geology, he determined the succession of English strata across the whole country, from the Carboniferous up to the Cretaceous. He also established their fossil specimens.
Working as a canal engineer, he observed while supervising excavations that different beds of rock could be identified by their fossils, and so established the basis of stratigraphy.
Smith was born in Churchill, Oxfordshire, and became a drainage expert, a canal surveyor, and a mining prospector.
Smith was not the first geologist to recognize the principles of stratigraphy nor the usefulness of type fossils. His primary accomplishment lay in mapping. He began in 1799 but it was not until 1815 that he published A Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales, a geological map using a scale of five miles to the inch. Between 1816 and 1824 he published Strata Identified by Organized Fossils and Stratigraphical System of Organized Fossils, a descriptive catalog. He also issued various charts and sections, and geological maps of 21 counties.

(1948-1987) US fashion designer. He set up WilliWear Ltd 1976, making casual ready-to-wear lines. Previously he designed knitwear.

(1946-) English clothes designer. His clothes are stylistically simple and practical. He opened his first shop 1970, selling designer menswear alongside his own designs, and showed his first collection in Paris 1976. He launched a toiletry range 1986, a children's wear collection 1991, and women's wear 1994.
His designs were sold in 27 countries by 1993 and there were 78 Paul Smith shops in Japan alone.

(1879-1959) English artist. Influenced by the Fauves, he was known for his exuberant treatment of nudes, luscious fruits and flowers, and landscapes.

(1805-1844) US founder of the Mormon religious sect.
Born in Vermont, he received his first religious call in 1820, and in 1827 claimed to have been granted the revelation of the Book of Mormon (an ancient American prophet), inscribed on gold plates and concealed a thousand years before in a hill near Palmyra, New York. He founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Fayette, New York, 1830. The headquarters of the church was moved to Kirkland, Ohio, 1831; to Missouri 1838; and to Nauvoo, Illinois, 1840. Smith began the construction of a Mormon temple at Nauvoo, organized a private army to defend the sect from its enemies, and declared his candidacy for president. Hostility to Smith intensified when rumors that he had taken several wives began to circulate; Smith publicly opposed polygamy and acknowledged only one wife. He was jailed after some of his followers destroyed the printing press of a newspaper that had attacked him, and a mob stormed the jail and killed him. Historians still differ on whether Smith practiced polygamy; some have concluded that he secretly married more than 20 women. Some of his followers who accompanied Brigham Young to Salt Lake City openly espoused polygamy; those who organized a separate branch in Missouri, headed by Smith’s son, strongly opposed it. Smith’s chief works are Doctrines and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price.

(politician) (1938-1994) British Labour politician, party leader 1992–94. He was Trade and Industry Secretary 1978–79 and from 1979 held various shadow cabinet posts, culminating in that of shadow chancellor 1987–92. As Leader of the Opposition, he won a reputation as a man of transparent honesty and a formidable parliamentarian. His sudden death from a heart attack shocked British politicians of all parties.
(colonist) (1580-1631) English colonist. After an adventurous early life he took part in the colonization of Virginia, acting as president of the North American colony 1608–09. He explored New England in 1614, which he named, and published pamphlets on America and an autobiography. His trade with the Indians may have kept the colonists alive in the early years.
During an expedition among the Native Americans he was captured, and his life is said to have been saved by the intervention of the chief's daughter Pocahontas.

(Douglas) (1919-) Rhodesian politician. He was a founder of the Rhodesian Front 1962 and prime minister 1964–79. In 1965 he made a unilateral declaration of Rhodesia's independence and, despite United Nations sanctions, maintained his regime with tenacity.
In 1979 he was succeeded as prime minister by Bishop Abel Muzorewa, when the country was renamed Zimbabwe. He was suspended from the Zimbabwe parliament April 1987 and resigned in May as head of the white opposition party. In 1992 he helped found a new opposition party, the United Front.

(1882-1967) US Marine general in World War II. His ruthless drive and personality earned him the nickname of “Howling Mad” but he perfected the art of amphibious warfare while commanding V Amphibious Corps in the Pacific, leading them in the Aleutian Islands, Tarawa, Kwajalien, Saipan, and Tinian. He was given command of the Fleet Marine Force Aug 1944 and directed the landings on Guam and Iwo Jima.

(1931-) US microbiologist who shared the 1978 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with his colleague Daniel Nathans for their work on restriction enzymes, special enzymes that can cleave genes into fragments.
Smith was born in New York and studied at the University of California at Berkeley, and at Johns Hopkins University. In 1964 he returned to Johns Hopkins, becoming professor 1973.
Werner Arber (1929– ), a Swiss microbiologist, discovered restriction enzymes in the 1960s. Smith, working independently of Arber, verified Arber's findings and was also able to identify the gene fragments. Smith collaborated with Nathans on some of this work.
As a result of the work of Nathans, Smith, and Arber (who also shared the Nobel Prize), it is now possible to determine the chemical formulas of the genes in animal viruses, to map these genes, and to study the organization and expression of genes in higher animals.

(1923-) English radioastronomer who with his colleague Martin Ryle mapped the radio sources in the sky in the 1950s. Smith discovered the strongly polarized nature of radiation from pulsars 1968, and estimated the strength of the magnetic field in interstellar space. He was Astronomer Royal from 1982 to 1990.
Smith was born in Roehampton, Surrey, and studied at Cambridge. During World War II he was assigned to the Telecommunications Research Establishment, and when he returned to Cambridge, he joined the radio research department at the Cavendish Laboratory. He was appointed professor of astronomy at Manchester 1964 and worked at Jodrell Bank until 1974. He was director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory 1976–81. In 1981, he moved back to Jodrell Bank to become director there.
In 1948, Smith and Ryle, investigating a source of radio waves in the constellation of Cygnus, detected a second source in the constellation Cassiopeia. Smith spent the following years trying to determine the precise location of both sources. Finally, astronomers at Mount Palomar, California, were able to pinpoint optical counterparts. Cassiopeia A was shown to derive from a supernova explosion within our Galaxy; Cygnus A is a double radio galaxy.
Smith and Ryle were the first to publish (in 1957) a paper on the possibility of devising an accurate navigational system that depended on the use of radio signals from an orbiting satellite.
In 1962 Smith installed a radio receiver in Aeriel II, one of a series of joint US–UK satellites, enabling it to make the first investigation of radio noise above the ionosphere.

(1906-1965) US sculptor and painter. His work made a lasting impact on sculpture after World War II. Trained as a steel welder in an automobile factory, his pieces are large openwork metal abstracts.
Smith turned first to painting and then, about 1930, to sculpture. Using welded steel, he created abstract structures influenced by the metal sculptures of Picasso and Julio González. In the 1940s and 1950s he developed a more linear style. The Cubi series of totemlike abstracts, some of them painted, was designed to be placed in the open air.

(Alfred Emanuel) (1873-1944) US political leader who served four terms as governor of New York but was unsuccessful as a candidate for the presidency. In 1928 he became the first Roman Catholic to receive a presidential nomination. In his lively, yet unsuccessful, campaign against Herbert Hoover he was called the “Happy Warrior”.
Smith, born in New York, left school in his teens and became involved in local Democratic politics. After serving in the New York state assembly 1905–15 he became New York County sheriff 1915–17.
In 1918 he was elected governor of New York. He was defeated for reelection 1920 but was victorious in 1922, 1924, and 1926.

(1723-1790) Scottish economist, often regarded as the founder of political economy. His The Wealth of Nations 1776 defined national wealth in terms of consumable goods and the labor that produces them, rather than in terms of bullion, as prevailing economic theories assumed. The ultimate cause of economic growth is explained by the division of labor—dividing a production process into several repetitive operations, each carried out by different workers, is more efficient. Smith advocated the free working of individual enterprise, and the necessity of “free trade”.
In Theory of Moral Sentiments 1759, Smith argued that the correct way to discern the morally right is to ask what a hypothetical impartial spectator would regard as fitting or proper.
He was born in Kirkcaldy, and was professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow 1752–63.

ETYM as. smith; akin to Dutch smid, German schmied, Old High Germ. smid, Icel. smithr, Dan. and Swed. smed, Goth. smitha (in comp.); cf. Greek smile a sort of knife, sminye a hoe, mattock.
1. Someone who works at something specified.
2. Someone who works metal (especially by hammering it when it is hot and malleable); SYN. metalworker.

UK chain of newsagent, book, and record shops developed from a newspaper and stationery business set up 1820. In 1986 Smith bought the Our Price chain of record shops and in 1988 acquired 74 of the Virgin record outlets, plus 1991 a half share in the Virgin megastores, giving the company more than 25% of the UK music market. It also owns the Waterstones chain of bookshops.
Two newsvendor's sons, Henry Edward Smith and William Henry Smith (died 1865), ran the first shop in the Strand, London, 1820–1828, after which William Henry Smith continued alone.
In 1846 he was joined by his son William Henry Smith (1825–1891), and they opened the first railroad bookstall in Euston Station, London, 1848.