Alfred Schnittke was a postmodernist Russian composer who created serious, dark-toned musical works characterized by abrupt juxtapositions of radically different, often contradictory, styles, an approach that came to be known as “polystylism.” Schnittke’s father was a Jewish journalist who had been

schnitzel, a thin meat cutlet, pounded until tender and then breaded and fried, that is a culinary staple in German-speaking countries and communities. The Americanized version of the dish is chicken-fried steak. Schnitzel comes from the German verb schnitten, meaning “to cut.” The meat used in a

Mehmed Emin Pasha was a physician, explorer, and governor of the Equatorial province of Egyptian Sudan who contributed vastly to the knowledge of African geography, natural history, ethnology, and languages. In 1865 Schnitzer became a medical officer in the Turkish army and used his leisure to

Arthur Schnitzler was an Austrian playwright and novelist known for his psychological dramas that dissect turn-of-the-century Viennese bourgeois life. Schnitzler, the son of a well-known Jewish physician, took a medical degree and practiced medicine for much of his life, interesting himself

Poodle: Schnoodle (Schnauzer + Poodle), and Pekepoo (Pekingese + Poodle). However, many Poodle breeders deplored the trend and regretted the dilution of carefully managed bloodlines.

Bremen: Geography: …Old Town, especially in the Schnoorviertel, a district that was restored to its original 16th- and 17th-century appearance during the post-World War II reconstruction. Parks, located all over the city, offer a relaxing contrast to Bremen’s often hectic pace. The best known are the Bürgerpark, with its famous rhododendron gardens,…

Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld was a painter and designer who figured importantly in the German Nazarene movement. Schnorr received his earliest instruction from his father, Hans Veit Schnorr, a draftsman, engraver, and painter, and in 1818 he went to Rome where he was associated with a group of

Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld was a German tenor, known for his Wagnerian roles. Schnorr made his first solo appearance in 1855 with the Karlsruhe Opera. He married the singer Malvina Garrigues and moved to Dresden in 1860, where he established himself as a singer in lieder and oratorio as well as

Jimmy Durante was an American comedian whose career in every major entertainment performance medium spanned more than six decades. As a boy, Durante wanted to become a saloon pianist. His father, a barber, bought him a piano and provided intermittent lessons. Although Durante left school in seventh

Jimmy Durante was an American comedian whose career in every major entertainment performance medium spanned more than six decades. As a boy, Durante wanted to become a saloon pianist. His father, a barber, bought him a piano and provided intermittent lessons. Although Durante left school in seventh

Franz Schubert: Early life and career: …induced the young and brilliant Franz von Schober to visit Schubert. Late in 1815 Schober went to the schoolhouse in the Säulengasse, found Schubert in front of a class with his manuscripts piled about him, and inflamed the young composer, a willing listener, with a desire to break free from…

Johann Schober was a police official who was twice prime minister of Austria (1921–22 and 1929–30). He established friendly relations with the Czechoslovak republic but was unable to negotiate a union between Austria and Germany. Schober entered the imperial Austrian police service as a young man

the Go-Go’s: Drummer Gina Schock (b. August 31, 1957, Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.) replaced Bello in 1979, and bassist Kathy Valentine (b. January 7, 1959, Austin, Texas, U.S.) replaced Olavarria in 1980. Other members included bassists Paula Jean Brown and Abby Travis (b. November 10, 1969, Los Angeles).

Othmar Schoeck was a Swiss musician, one of the principal composers of lieder of his time. Schoeck studied at Zürich and in 1907 with Max Reger in Leipzig. On his return to Zürich he conducted choral societies until 1917. From 1917 to 1944 he was conductor of the symphony concerts at Sankt Gallen.

Ernest B. Schoedsack was an American film director who made only a few movies, most in collaboration with producer-director Merian C. Cooper, of which the most notable was King Kong (1933). Schoedsack ran away from home in his teens and eventually found work as a surveyor in San Francisco. His

Ernest B. Schoedsack was an American film director who made only a few movies, most in collaboration with producer-director Merian C. Cooper, of which the most notable was King Kong (1933). Schoedsack ran away from home in his teens and eventually found work as a surveyor in San Francisco. His

Victor Schoelcher was a French journalist and politician who was France’s greatest advocate of ending slavery in the empire. Although born into a wealthy porcelain-manufacturing family, Schoelcher showed little inclination for a business career. After a trip to the United States in 1829, where he

Christian Friedrich Schönbein was a German chemist who discovered and named ozone (1840) and was the first to describe guncotton (nitrocellulose). His teaching posts included one at Epsom, England, before he joined the faculty at the University of Basel, Switzerland (1828), where he was appointed

Gallagher and Shean: …the act of “Gallagher and Shean.” They went separate ways from 1914 to 1920, but in the latter year (at the urging of Shean’s sister Minnie Marx, mother of the Marx Brothers) they rejoined to star in the Shubert Brothers’ Cinderella on Broadway, with huge success. They then appeared in…

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian-American composer who created new methods of musical composition involving atonality, namely serialism and the 12-tone row. He was also one of the most-influential teachers of the 20th century; among his most-significant pupils were Alban Berg and Anton Webern.

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian-American composer who created new methods of musical composition involving atonality, namely serialism and the 12-tone row. He was also one of the most-influential teachers of the 20th century; among his most-significant pupils were Alban Berg and Anton Webern.

grassland: Biota: >Schoenefeldia. Other species, which are highly palatable to grazing animals, are now restricted to rocky sites that offer some protection; these species may have once been far more widespread and important. In many places where shrubs and small trees occur the vegetation would be called…

Rudolf Schoenheimer was a German-born American biochemist whose technique of “tagging” molecules with radioactive isotopes made it possible to trace the paths of organic substances through animals and plants and revolutionized metabolic studies. Schoenheimer was a graduate in medicine from the

Cyperaceae: Distribution and abundance: …Bulbostylis, with approximately 100 species; Schoenus, also with about 100 species; and Mapania, with up to 80 species.

Hannah Kent Schoff was an American welfare worker and reformer who was influential in state and national child welfare and juvenile criminal legislation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Schoff married in 1873 and eventually settled in Philadelphia. She attended the first National Congress

Schöffe, in Germany, a lay jurist or assessor assigned primarily to a lower criminal court to make decisions both on points of law and on fact jointly with professional jurists. A Schöffe may also sit on a higher court. Since 1976, in the higher court, two Schöffen sit along with three professional

printing: The invention of typography—Gutenberg (1450?): …comes from his chief detractor, Johann Schöffer, the son of Peter Schöffer and grandson of Johann Fust. Though Schöffer claimed from 1509 on that the invention was solely his father’s and grandfather’s, the fact is that in 1505 he had written in a preface to an edition of Livy that…

Nicolas Schöffer was a Hungarian-born French artist best known for his sculptures employing mechanical movement, light, and sound. Schöffer studied painting at the School of Fine Arts in Budapest from 1932 to 1935 and then at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He became a French citizen in 1948.

Peter Schöffer was a German printer who assisted Johannes Gutenberg and later opened his own printing shop. Schöffer studied in Paris, where he supported himself as a copyist, and then became an apprentice to Gutenberg in Mainz. He entered the printing business as the partner of Gutenberg’s

Koolau Range: Western lava flows created the Schofield Barracks, a saddle (ridge) 14 miles (22 km) long and 5 miles (8 km) wide between the Koolau Range and the Waianae Range (which parallels the island’s west coast).

Battle of Nashville: Context: John Schofield at its head. Hood first engaged Schofield on November 29 at Spring Hill, Tennessee, just north of the Duck River. He intended to sever Schofield’s access to the Nashville road, but communication between Hood and his subordinates broke down and Schofield slipped past…

Schoharie, county, east-central New York state, U.S., comprising a mountainous region. The principal streams are Schoharie, Cobleskill, and Catskill creeks and West and Manor kills. The main (west) and east branches of the Delaware River originate in the southwestern corner of the county. Water is

marsupial: The gliders have a membrane along either flank, attached to the forelegs and hind legs, that enables these arboreal animals to glide down from a high perch. A few marsupials—such as tree kangaroos, koalas, and some cuscuses—spend most of their lives in trees. The water opossum,…

schola cantorum, medieval papal singing school and associated choir, the ancestor of the modern Sistine Choir. According to tradition, the schola cantorum was established by Pope Sylvester I (d. 335) and was reorganized by Pope Gregory I (d. 604), but the first written mention of it dates from the

Charles Bordes: …d’Indy, founded in Paris the Schola Cantorum, a society that in 1896 became a school for church music with Bordes as professor. Its publication, La Tribune de St. Gervais (1895), became the main organ of French musicology. He also began publication of the Anthologie des maîtres religieux primitifs, which provided…

The Scholar Gipsy, lyric poem by Matthew Arnold, published in Poems (1853). It is a masterful handling of the 10-line stanza that John Keats used in many of his odes. The poem’s subject is a legendary Oxford scholar who gives up his academic life to roam the world with a band of Gypsies, absorbing

Gennadios II Scholarios was the first patriarch of Constantinople (1454–64) under Turkish rule and the foremost Greek Orthodox Aristotelian theologian and polemicist of his time. Scholarios became expert in European philosophy and theology and was called “the Latinist” derisively by his colleagues.

history of publishing: Scholarly journals: The publishing of scholarly journals, begun in the 17th century, expanded greatly in the 19th as fresh fields of inquiry opened up or old ones were further divided into specialties. Numerous learned societies were formed in such fields as classical studies, biblical studies,…

library: University and research libraries: Before the invention of printing, it was common for students to travel long distances to hear famous teachers. Printing made it possible for copies of a teacher’s lectures to be widely disseminated, and from that point universities began to create great libraries. The…

Confucianism: The historical context: …by Chinese historians as the rujia, “scholarly tradition,” that had its origins two millennia previously, when the legendary sages Yao and Shun created a civilized world through moral persuasion.

Wu Jingzi: 1750; The Scholars).

American football: Scholarships and the student athlete: ” College football’s other post-World War II crisis, regarding professionalism, reached a flash point in the late 1940s and early 1950s over athletic scholarships. Subsidizing athletes had been common since the 1920s but was not officially sanctioned and was entirely unregulated,…

aptitude test: The Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) and the American College Testing Exam (ACT) are examples of group tests commonly used in the United States to gauge general academic ability; in France the International Baccalaureate exam (le bac) is taken by secondary-school students. Such tests yield a profile…

St. Benedict: Life: His sister Scholastica, who came to live nearby as the head of a nunnery, died shortly before her brother. The only certain date in Benedict’s life is given by a visit from the Gothic king Totila about 542. Benedict’s feast day is kept by monks on March…

Scholasticism, the philosophical systems and speculative tendencies of various medieval Christian thinkers, who, working against a background of fixed religious dogma, sought to solve anew general philosophical problems (as of faith and reason, will and intellect, realism and nominalism, and the

Buddhism: The Pali canon (Tipitaka): …the interest in scholasticism (Pali: Abhidhamma).

Moses De León: …disguised, were discerned by Gershom Scholem, one of the great 20th-century scholars of Jewish mysticism, and he became convinced that the Zohar was a medieval work. He was able to demonstrate, further, that the Aramaic in which the Zohar is written is, in both vocabulary and idiom, the work of…

Roger Ascham: The Scholemaster, written in simple, lucid English prose and published posthumously in 1570, is Ascham’s best-known book. It presents an effective method of teaching Latin prose composition, but its larger concerns are with the psychology of learning, the education of the whole person, and the ideal…

Myron S. Scholes is a Canadian-born American economist best known for his work with colleague Fischer Black on the Black-Scholes option valuation formula, which made options trading more accessible by giving investors a benchmark for valuing. Scholes shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences

St. Maximus the Confessor: Gregory of Nazianzus), and Scholia (on Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite), express Maximus’s teaching on the transcendental, impredicable nature of the divinity, his intrinsic Trinitarian existence, and his definitive communication in Christ. In his 400 Capita de caritate (“Four Hundred Chapters on Charity”), Maximus counselled a Christian humanism, integrating asceticism with…

Hucbald: The Musica enchiriadis and Scholia enchiriadis give the earliest written description of music in several voices: parallel organum, in which a plainchant melody is sung in parallel fourths or parallel fifths. De alia musica deals with a notational system called daseian notation. Although it never became generally accepted, it…

White Rose: …of the group’s founding members—Hans Scholl, Willi Graf, and Alexander Schmorell—were medical students at the University of Munich. While on the Eastern Front, the trio observed the murder of Jewish civilians by SS troops. When they returned to Munich, the three joined with other students—including Hans’s sister Sophie—to discuss…

White Rose: …with other students—including Hans’s sister Sophie—to discuss their opposition to the Nazi regime. Coupling youthful idealism with an impressive knowledge of German literature and Christian religious teachings, the students published their beliefs in a series of leaflets under the name “the White Rose” (and later as “Leaflets of the Resistance”).

Don Schollander is an American athlete who was the first swimmer to win four gold medals in a single Olympic Games. A product of the acclaimed Santa Clara (California) Swim Club, Schollander was noted for his speed, perfection of stroke, and effortless crawl. He broke several U.S. and world

Switzerland: Relief and drainage: …of a bridge in the Schöllenen Gorge, which traverses the northern chain, while the southern range is crossed by the St. Gotthard Pass at an elevation of 6,916 feet (2,108 meters). The 9-mile (14-km) St. Gotthard rail tunnel through the pass was opened in 1882; a twin 10.5-mile (17-km) road…

Battle of Tannenberg: Initial developments on the Eastern Front: …East Prussia to advance against Friedrich von Scholtz’s XX Corps. He had been so hurried on by Zhilinsky that his troops were tired and hungry, their transport incomplete, and the supply services in chaos. Samsonov’s appearance was reported to Prittwitz on August 20, and the Russian force was under, rather…

Neue Sachlichkeit: Alexander Kanoldt, Carlo Mense, Georg Scholz, and Heinrich Davringhausen.

Karl Barth: Years in Germany: …with the philosopher of science Heinrich Scholz. It was in this connection that he produced his celebrated study of St. Anselm, Fides quaerens intellectum (1931; Faith in Search of Understanding).

Olaf Scholz is a German politician who served as chancellor of Germany from 2021 to 2025. A longtime member of Germany’s center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), Scholz served as finance minister and vice chancellor in the “grand coalition” government of Angela Merkel (2018–21) before succeeding

Boston: The original members were Tom Scholz (b. March 10, 1947, Toledo, Ohio, U.S.), Brad Delp (b. June 12, 1951, Boston, Massachusetts—found dead March 9, 2007, Atkinson, New Hampshire), Fran Sheehan (b. March 26, 1949, Boston), Barry Goudreau (b. November 29, 1951, Boston), and John (“Sib”) Hashian (b. August 17,…

Frederick Herman, duke of Schomberg was a German soldier of fortune, a marshal of France, and an English peer, who fought in the service of various countries in the major European wars between 1634 and 1690. Schomberg was the son of the Protestant court marshal of Frederick V, elector Palatine, and

Sir Robert Hermann Schomburgk was a German-born British explorer and surveyor whose “Schomburgk Line” marked the boundary of British Guiana from 1841 to 1895. He was knighted in 1844. Schomburgk was educated in Germany, and in 1829 he went to the United States and from there in 1831 visited

Max Bruch: …orchestra—such as Schön Ellen (1867; Beautiful Ellen) and Odysseus (1872). These were favourites with German choral societies during the late 19th century. These works failed to remain in the concert repertoire, possibly because, despite his sound workmanship and effective choral writing, he lacked the depth of conception and originality needed…

Betty Davis: Albums and later career: …Graham Central Station and guitarist Neal Schon from Santana (and later Journey). The album was released in 1973 on the label Just Sunshine. Davis followed with They Say I’m Different in 1974, under Just Sunshine, and Nasty Gal in 1975, released under Island Records; both albums she produced herself. The…

Christian Friedrich Schönbein was a German chemist who discovered and named ozone (1840) and was the first to describe guncotton (nitrocellulose). His teaching posts included one at Epsom, England, before he joined the faculty at the University of Basel, Switzerland (1828), where he was appointed

Gallagher and Shean: …the act of “Gallagher and Shean.” They went separate ways from 1914 to 1920, but in the latter year (at the urging of Shean’s sister Minnie Marx, mother of the Marx Brothers) they rejoined to star in the Shubert Brothers’ Cinderella on Broadway, with huge success. They then appeared in…

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian-American composer who created new methods of musical composition involving atonality, namely serialism and the 12-tone row. He was also one of the most-influential teachers of the 20th century; among his most-significant pupils were Alban Berg and Anton Webern.

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian-American composer who created new methods of musical composition involving atonality, namely serialism and the 12-tone row. He was also one of the most-influential teachers of the 20th century; among his most-significant pupils were Alban Berg and Anton Webern.

August Belmont was a German-born American banker, diplomat, political leader, sportsman, and a patron of the arts who was a defining figure of America’s Gilded Age. At age 14 Belmont entered the banking house of the Rothschilds at Frankfurt am Main, and he later transferred to the Naples office. In

Frederick Herman, duke of Schomberg was a German soldier of fortune, a marshal of France, and an English peer, who fought in the service of various countries in the major European wars between 1634 and 1690. Schomberg was the son of the Protestant court marshal of Frederick V, elector Palatine, and

Friedrich Karl, Graf (count) von Schönborn was a prince-prelate, bishop of Bamberg and Würzburg (1729–46). His long reign as vice chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire (1705–34) raised the imperial chancery for the last time to a position of European importance. After studies at Mainz, Aschaffenburg,

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Early life and education: …elector, the archbishop of Mainz, Johann Philipp von Schönborn, where he was concerned with questions of law and politics.

Schloss Schönbrunn, Rococo-style 1,440-room summer palace of the Habsburgs in Vienna. Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach’s first design for the building, meant to rival France’s Palace of Versailles, was done in 1690. A second, somewhat less ornate, plan, however, dating from 1695–96 was adopted,

zoo: …the Imperial Menagerie at the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna. This menagerie, which still flourishes, was opened to the general public in 1779. In 1775 a zoo was founded in a Royal Park in Madrid, and 18 years later the zoological collection of the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, was begun. The…

Schloss Schönbrunn, Rococo-style 1,440-room summer palace of the Habsburgs in Vienna. Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach’s first design for the building, meant to rival France’s Palace of Versailles, was done in 1690. A second, somewhat less ornate, plan, however, dating from 1695–96 was adopted,

Treaty of Schönbrunn, (Oct. 14, 1809), agreement signed at the Schloss Schönbrunn in Vienna after Austria’s premature war of liberation against Napoleon collapsed with its defeat at Wagram and its failure to get the Prussian support it had expected. Austria lost about 32,000 square miles (83,000

fountain: Medieval European: A noteworthy example is the Schöne Brunnen at Nürnberg (1398), distinguished by its high, rich Gothic spirelet with many statues and ironwork railing.

Wilhelm Müller: …for his verse cycles “Die schöne Müllerin” and “Die Winterreise,” which Franz Schubert set to music.

Franz Schubert: Maturity of Franz Schubert: …however, was the song cycle Die schöne Müllerin (“The Fair Maid of the Mill”), representing the epitome of Schubert’s lyrical art. Schubert spent part of the summer in the hospital and probably started work—while still a patient—on his most ambitious opera, Fierrabras. The work was rejected by the directorate of…

Johann Friedrich Schönemann was an actor-manager who was influential in the development of Germany’s public theatre. Schönemann made his professional debut in 1725 with a traveling Harlequin troupe and in 1730 joined Caroline Neuber’s theatre company, where he was admired for his comedic abilities.

Georg, Ritter (knight) von Schönerer was an Austrian political extremist, founder of the Pan-German Party (1885). He was a virulent anti-Semite and was perhaps the best-known spokesman for popular antidemocratic sentiments in the late empire. A left-wing Liberal when first elected to the Reichsrat

Martin Schongauer was a painter and printmaker who was the finest German engraver before Albrecht Dürer. Schongauer was the son of Caspar Schongauer, a goldsmith of Augsburg. In 1465 he registered at the University of Leipzig but apparently remained there only for a short time. It is not clear

Karl Schönherr was an Austrian writer known for his simple, robust plays dealing with the political and religious problems of peasant life. Schönherr was the son of a country schoolmaster and became a practicing physician in Vienna. His first publications (1895) were unassuming dialect poems and

fascism: Germany: …by another former Waffen-SS member, Franz Schönhuber. Like Almirante in Italy, Schönhuber strove to give his party a more respectable image, and his efforts extended to denying his own previous connection with the Waffen-SS. “I have no Nazi past,” he said. “I regard the National Socialist state as absolutely incompatible…

John George IV: …reign his chief adviser was Hans Adam von Schöning (1641–96), who counselled a union between Saxony and Brandenburg and a more independent attitude toward the emperor Leopold I. In accordance with this advice certain proposals were put before Leopold to which he refused to agree; consequently the Saxon troops withdrew…

Johann Lukas Schönlein was a German physician whose attempts to establish medicine as a natural science helped create modern methods for the teaching and practice of clinical medicine. A professor of medicine at the universities of Würzburg (1824–33), Zürich (1833–40), and Berlin (1840–59),

Albert Siklós was a Hungarian cellist, composer, and musicologist. Siklós began composing at the age of six and started studying the pianoforte and music theory at seven. He took up the cello in 1891 and began lecturing while a student at the Hungarian Music School in 1895. He joined the staff of

education: Spanish and Portuguese America: The first elementary school in the New World was organized in Mexico by the Franciscan Pedro de Gante in 1523 in Texcoco, followed in 1525 by a similar school in San Francisco. Because such schools in Mexico were designed for Indian children, the monks learned the native languages…

education: Education and personal growth: As he propounded in The School and Society (1899) and The Child and the Curriculum (1902), education must be tied to experience, not abstract thought, and must be built upon the interests and developmental needs of the child. He argued for a student-centred, not subject-centred, curriculum and stressed the…

School Board of Nassau County v. Arline, case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on March 3, 1987, ruled (7–2) that an individual with the contagious disease tuberculosis could be considered handicapped under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The case centred on Gene Arline, an elementary

bullying: School bullying: Bullying in educational settings remains a commonplace everyday experience. In Europe significant attention to school bullying began in the early 1970s, in part because of the efforts of Olweus, as well as a widely publicized trio of victim suicides in Norway in 1983.…

bus: Modern buses: School buses generally consist of a 50-passenger bus body, with special signal lamp and safety provisions, mounted on a long-wheelbase truck chassis. As fuel costs increased during the 1990s and 2000s, bus ridership increased in many urban regions around the world.

School Committee of the Town of Burlington v. Massachusetts Department of Education, case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on April 29, 1985, ruled (9–0) that, under the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA; now the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act [IDEA]), parents could be

education: The Netherlands: The first modern school law in the Netherlands was passed in 1801, when the government laid down the principle that each parish had the right to open and maintain schools. A debate between the proponents of denominational and nondenominational schools went on during the 19th century. The controversy…

Chuck Berry: …“Roll Over Beethoven” (1956), “School Day” (1957), “Rock and Roll Music” (1957), “Sweet Little Sixteen” (1958), “Johnny B. Goode” (1958), and “Reelin’ and Rockin’” (1958). His vivid descriptions of consumer culture and teenage life, the distinctive sounds he coaxed from his guitar, and the rhythmic and melodic virtuosity of…

Chuck Berry: …“Roll Over Beethoven” (1956), “School Day” (1957), “Rock and Roll Music” (1957), “Sweet Little Sixteen” (1958), “Johnny B. Goode” (1958), and “Reelin’ and Rockin’” (1958). His vivid descriptions of consumer culture and teenage life, the distinctive sounds he coaxed from his guitar, and the rhythmic and melodic virtuosity of…

stepping: …step show in the film School Daze (1988).

School District of Abington Township v. Schempp, legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on June 17, 1963, ruled (8–1) that legally or officially mandated Bible reading or prayer in public schools is unconstitutional. Whether required by state laws or by rules adopted by local school boards,

school drama, any play performed by students in schools and colleges throughout Europe during the Renaissance. At first these plays were written by scholars in Latin as educational works, especially in Jesuit schools, but they later were viewed as entertainment as well. The works included

figure skating: Recent trends and changes: The elimination of compulsory figures from competition in 1990 gave an advantage to the more athletic freestyle skaters. Until the late 1980s, skaters who were good at figures could win competitions without having strong freestyle-skating techniques, since compulsory figures were the most important part of the sport. They…