All articles A–Z
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Special effect
Special effect: an illusion created live or on camera, beyond ordinary scenery or lighting. Covers theatre classifications (mechanical, pyrotechnical, electrical), Shakespearean and Victorian stagecraft, early cinema, fog safety, and modern projection and tracking systems.
Special elections to the United States House of Representatives, 1789–1860
Special elections to the United States House of Representatives, 1789–1860, filled vacancies from death, resignation, or withdrawal by writ of election under Article I, with no temporary appointments allowed.
Special elections to the United States House of Representatives, 1861–1959
Special elections to the United States House of Representatives, 1861–1959, filled House seats vacated by death, resignation, or other causes, with states setting the timing.
Special flood hazard area
A special flood hazard area (SFHA) is land subject to the 1-percent-annual-chance base flood, designated by FEMA, where flood insurance is mandatory for federally backed mortgages.
Special forces
Special forces, more broadly special operations forces, are elite military units for unconventional warfare, special reconnaissance, and counterterrorism; the concept emerged in WWII commando units and includes the British SAS and US Army Special Forces.
Special forces of India
Special forces of India: the Army's Para SF, Navy's MARCOS (1987), Air Force's Garud Commando Force, plus NSG and Special Frontier Force, unified under the tri-service AFSOD.
Special Forces Support Group
The Special Forces Support Group (SFSG) is a British Armed Forces special-forces unit formed 3 April 2006, built around 1st Battalion Parachute Regiment with Royal Marines and RAF Regiment elements, providing infantry support, quick reaction, and counter-terrorism support to UKSF operations.
Special Forces Tab
Special Forces Tab, the U.S. Army "long tab," a permanent shoulder tab awarded by USAJFKSWC to Special Forces Qualification Course graduates; approved 17 June 1983, teal blue and yellow, worn above the SSI.
Special Forces: World's Toughest Test
Special Forces: World's Toughest Test is a Fox reality series (premiered January 4, 2023), adapted from SAS: Who Dares Wins, putting celebrities through ex-Special Forces-led selection challenges with no formal eliminations.
Special Frontier Force
Special Frontier Force (SFF), also Establishment 22 or Vikas battalions, is India's covert Tibetan-recruited paramilitary unit raised 14 November 1962 under the Cabinet Secretariat and R&AW for operations against China, first used in the 1971 Bangladesh war.
Special Higher Police
The Special Higher Police, known as Tokkō, was Japan's prewar and wartime political police, active from 1911 until dissolution by Allied occupation orders in October 1945.
Special Immigration Appeals Commission
The Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) is a UK tribunal under the 1997 Act hearing appeals against national security immigration and citizenship decisions, using special advocates and closed material, with further appeals on points of law to the Court of Appeal or Court of Session.
Special interest (autism)
A special interest, also known as a restricted or circumscribed interest, is an intense, highly focused interest found in an estimated 75 to 95 percent of autistic people.
Special K
Special K is a Kellogg breakfast cereal brand behind the Special K Challenge, a two-week diet replacing two daily meals with cereal and milk, claiming six pounds lost; studies show short-term loss averaging about 3.5 pounds, but experts call it unsustainable.
Special library
A special library serves a particular subject, format, or clientele inside a parent organization that funds it, including law, medical, corporate, government, and prison libraries.
Special linear group
The special linear group, written SLn, is the group of n by n matrices with determinant 1 over a ring or field, also called the unimodular group.
Special linear Lie algebra
The special linear Lie algebra slₙ consists of n×n matrices with trace zero under the commutator bracket, and is the Lie algebra of the special linear group of determinant-1 matrices.
Special Marriage Act, 1954
Special Marriage Act, 1954 (विशेष विवाह अधिनियम, 1954): India's secular civil-marriage statute, enacted 9 October 1954 replacing the 1872 Act. Key facts: open to any citizen regardless of religion without conversion; Section 4 conditions (21/18 ages, monogamy); 30-day public notice under Sections 5-7; succession under Indian Succession Act 1925 unless both parties are Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, or Jain.
Special mission unit
Special mission unit (SMU): US military designation for the most classified special operations subcomponents, conducting counterterrorism, hostage rescue, and high-value target raids, distinct from broader SOF, with limited external oversight.
Special moment-resisting frame
A special moment-resisting frame, or SMF, is a highly ductile seismic force-resisting system of rigidly joined beams and columns, permitted in high seismic design categories.
Special Naval Landing Forces
The Special Naval Landing Forces (SNLF, Tokubetsu Rikusentai) were Imperial Japanese Navy ground units formed in the late 1920s, used for amphibious landings and garrison duty until 1945.
Special needs
Special needs is a euphemism for disability, common in education and speech but rejected by UN guidance, APA and ASHA style guides, and many disabled people; a 530-person study found it reads more negatively than disability.
Special Night Squads
Special Night Squads (פלגות הלילה המיוחדות, SNS): British-Jewish counterinsurgency unit formed in June 1938 by Orde Wingate in Mandate Palestine; fought Arab rebels in Galilee at night, trained Haganah fighters like Moshe Dayan, disbanded 1939.
Special Olympics
Special Olympics: global sports organization founded 1968 by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, first Games at Chicago's Soldier Field; year-round training and competition in 30+ Olympic-type sports for over 5 million athletes with intellectual disabilities in 170+ countries; distinct from the Paralympics.
Special Olympics Great Britain
Special Olympics Great Britain (Special Olympics GB), founded 1978 by Chris Maloney as Special Olympics UK, is a charity providing year-round sport for people with intellectual disabilities: 95 clubs, 27 sports, 6,500 athletes, 3,500 volunteers, Tier 3 governance.
Special Olympics World Games
Special Olympics World Games: biennial summer and winter multi-sport competition for athletes with intellectual disabilities, first held July 20, 1968 at Soldier Field, Chicago; Berlin 2023 drew nearly 7,000 athletes from 176 nations, Santiago 2027 is next.
Special operations
Special operations are small-scale, unconventional military activities by specially selected forces (SOF). Covers missions, US SOCOM oversight and acquisitions, training accidents, and drone-driven changes in Ukraine.
Special Operations Center "South" (Центр спеціальних операцій «Південь») (Ukraine)
Special Operations Center "South" (Центр спеціальних операцій «Південь»), formally the 73rd Naval Special Operations Center named after Antin Holovaty, is the maritime component of Ukraine's Special Operations Forces, formed 1 October 2003, specializing in maritime reconnaissance, underwater demolition, and raids behind enemy lines.
Special Operations Executive
Special Operations Executive (SOE), British organization formed in 1940 (June or July) to conduct sabotage, subversion, and resistance support in enemy-occupied territory in World War II; nicknamed Churchill's Secret Army, based at Baker Street, London.
Special Operations Forces (Belarus)
Special Operations Forces of Belarus (Сілы спецыяльных аперацый): branch-level command created 1 August 2007 from the Mobile Forces, comprising the 5th Spetsnaz, 38th Air Assault, and 103rd Airborne brigades, about 6,100 troops, integrated with Russia's forces.