6,078 articles
Bella Abzug
Bella Abzug (Bella Savitzky, 1920–1998), "Battling Bella," American labor and civil rights lawyer, antiwar activist, and three-term Democratic congresswoman from New York, 1971–1977; first federal gay rights bill, Child Development Act, NWPC cofounder, 1977 National Women's Conference presiding officer.
Belongingness
Belongingness, the need to belong, sense of belonging: the universal human need to form and maintain enduring interpersonal attachments, defined by Baumeister and Leary (1995), traced to Maslow (1943), and linked to wellbeing, education, suicide risk, and social connection policy.
Bem Sex-Role Inventory
The Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI) is a 60-item self-report questionnaire measuring masculinity, femininity, and androgyny as independent traits, introduced by Sandra Bem in 1974 and widely used in gender-role research.
Ben Bagdikian
Ben H. Bagdikian (1920–2016) was an Armenian American journalist and media critic who obtained the Pentagon Papers for The Washington Post in 1971 and wrote The Media Monopoly (1983), the influential study of media ownership concentration.
Ben Franklin effect
Ben Franklin effect: doing a favor for someone increases your liking for them, reversing the usual direction. Named for Franklin's 1736 book-borrowing anecdote; tested by Jecker and Landy in 1969; distinct from the question-behavior effect.
Ben Herbstreit
Ben Herbstreit was the golden retriever of ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit, a certified emotional support animal who traveled to College GameDay and Thursday Night Football from 2023 until his death from cancer on November 7, 2024, at age 10; he was succeeded by Peter.
Bene Israel (בני ישראל)
Bene Israel (בני ישראל), India's oldest and largest Jewish community, Marathi-speaking oil pressers of the Konkan coast near Mumbai, tracing their origin to a legendary 175 BCE shipwreck; about 5,000 remain in India after emigration to Israel.
Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks
Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE): American fraternal order founded February 16, 1868 in New York from the Jolly Corks club by English entertainer Charles Vivian; nearly 2,000 lodges, over $80 million annual charity, veterans and youth programs.
Bengali Hindus
Bengali Hindus are the Hindu Bengali ethno-linguistic community of West Bengal and Bangladesh, marked by Shakta and Vaishnava traditions, Vedantic and Brahmo reform currents, caste-negotiating folk ritual, and 1947 partition migration.
Bengali Kayastha
Bengali Kayasthas (বঙ্গীয় কায়স্থ) are a Bengali-speaking Hindu community historically associated with administrative, clerical, and record-keeping occupations. They form a regional Kayastha tradition distinct from the Chitragupta Kayasthas of northern India and.
Bengali Muslims (বাঙালি মুসলমান)
Bengali Muslims (বাঙালি মুসলমান) are Bengali-speaking Muslims of Bengal, centered in Bangladesh (91% Muslim per the 2022 census) and West Bengal, historically shaped by the 1947 partition, the 1952 language movement, and the 1971 creation of Bangladesh.
Bengalis (বাঙালি)
Bengalis (বাঙালি) are the Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic people of the Bengal region, spanning Bangladesh, West Bengal, Tripura, and Assam, defined by the Bengali language; Muslim-majority in Bangladesh, Hindu-majority in West Bengal since the 1947 partition.
Benjaman Kyle
Benjaman Kyle, aka Burger King Doe, later William Burgess Powell, an American man found beaten and amnesiac behind a Georgia Burger King in 2004, unidentified until 2015 DNA genealogy.
Benjamin Spock
Benjamin Spock (1903–1998), American pediatrician, author of The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (1946), over 50 million copies sold; later a leading Vietnam War opponent, SANE co-chair, and 1972 presidential candidate.
Benton Visual Retention Test
The Benton Visual Retention Test (BVRT) is a neuropsychological test assessing visual memory, perception, and construction by reproducing geometric designs, published by Arthur Benton in 1945.
Beothuk
The Beothuk were the Indigenous Algonquian-speaking people of Newfoundland, generally considered culturally extinct after Shanawdithit died in 1829; their disappearance, genocide claims, and surviving genetic lineages remain contested.
Berber Spring
The Berber Spring, or Tafsut Imaziɣen, was a period of protests and state repression in Algeria in 1980, sparked when authorities banned Mouloud Mammeri's lecture at Tizi Ouzou.
Berberism
Berberism, known today as the Amazigh movement, is an ethnocultural and political movement in North Africa seeking official recognition of the Berber (Amazigh) language and identity.
Berbers
Berbers, self-named Amazigh (Imazighen), are the indigenous peoples of North Africa speaking the Afro-Asiatic Berber (Tamazight) languages with the Tifinagh script; the term Berber derives from Greek-Roman barbaros, and Tamazight is official in Morocco (2011) and Algeria (2016).
Bertrand Piccard
Bertrand Piccard, Swiss psychiatrist and explorer, made the first non-stop balloon circumnavigation (1999, Breitling Orbiter 3) and first solar-powered round-the-world flight (2016, Solar Impulse 2), then founded the Solar Impulse Foundation and leads the Climate Impulse hydrogen plane project.
Best friends forever
Best friends forever (BFF) is an informal English acronym for a lifelong best friendship, popular from the 1990s via IM and texting sign-offs; related to bestie, friendship bracelets, adolescent intimacy research, and Hall's 300-hour estimate.
Bestiality
Bestiality, also called zoophilia or animal sexual abuse, is any sexual act between a human and an animal. Criminalized since the Code of Hammurabi; all but four U.S. states ban it, with recent reforms in Canada, the UK, and Australia.
Bestiality with a donkey
Sexual contact between humans and donkeys, a documented form of bestiality; recorded from ancient Egypt and Saharan cave art to rural Crete, Anatolia, Morocco, and Mexico, and criminalized in most jurisdictions today.
Beta Israel (ቤተ እስራኤል)
Beta Israel (ቤተ እስራኤል), also called Ethiopian Jews or formerly Falasha, is the Jewish community of northwestern Ethiopia. Known for its biblical, non-rabbinic Haymanot tradition, tribe-of-Dan origin tradition, 1973 rabbinic recognition, and the Operations Moses and Solomon airlifts that brought some 90,000 to Israel.
Beth Holloway
Beth Holloway, also Beth Holloway Twitty, is the American teacher and advocate, mother of Natalee Holloway, who vanished in Aruba in 2005; she founded the Natalee Holloway Resource Center and International Safe Travels Foundation and faced Joran van der Sloot's 2023 confession.
Bette Nash
Bette Nash (1935–2024), American flight attendant, Guinness-verified world's longest-serving and oldest active flight attendant; flew the Washington–New York–Boston shuttle from 4 November 1957 until her death.
Bettina Anderson
Bettina Anderson (Bettina Trump) is a Palm Beach socialite, model, and executive director of the nonprofit Paradise.ngo, which she co-founded in 2005; she married Donald Trump Jr. in May 2026.
Betty DeGeneres
Betty DeGeneres, New Orleans-born retired speech pathologist and mother of Ellen DeGeneres, became the Human Rights Campaign's first non-gay National Coming Out Project spokesperson in 1997 and wrote Love, Ellen.
Betty Dodson
Betty Dodson, American feminist sex educator and artist, author of Liberating Masturbation/Sex for One, creator of Bodysex group masturbation workshops, repopularizer of the vibrator, later partner of Carlin Ross and Goop Lab figure.
Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique (1963), co-founded the National Organization for Women in June 1966 and served as its first president, 1966–1970, leading EEOC lobbying and the 1970 Women's Strike for Equality.