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The History Channel - Encyclopedia Category: History and Culture > History Date & country: 02/12/2007, UK Words: 25833

Goldsmith, Oliver
(1728-1774) Irish playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist. His works include the novel The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), an outwardly artless and gentle story...

Goldwater, Barry (Morris)
(1909-1998) US Republican politician; presidential candidate in the 1964 election, when he was overwhelmingly defeated by Lyndon Johnson. As senator for Arizona 1953-65 and 1969-87, he voiced the views of...

golem
In Jewish thought, anything that has a potential which has not yet been achieved. Adam is sometimes described as golem when he had been created from the Earth but God had not yet...

Goliath
In the Old Testament, a champion of the Philistines, who was said to have been slain by a stone from a sling by the young David in single combat in front of their opposing armies. ...

Gollancz, Israel
(1864-1930) English scholar. He was lecturer in English at Cambridge from 1896-1906 and professor of English at King's College, London from 1906. Fellow and secretary of the British Academy from its...

Gollancz, Victor
(1893-1967) English left-wing writer and publisher, founder in 1936 of the Left Book Club. His own firm published plays by R C Sherriff and novels by Daphne Du Maurier, Elizabeth Bowen, and Dorothy L Sayers,...

Golovnin, Vasili Mikhailovich
(1776-1831) Russian vice-admiral and navigator who explored the coasts of Kamchatka and Alaska. In 1811 he was captured by the Japanese and held prisoner until 1813. In 1817-19 he circumnavigated the globe....

Goltzius, Hendrik
(1558-1617) Dutch engraver and painter. The style of his landscape drawings and portrait engravings is very naturalistic, but his paintings are more traditionally Mannerist. His engravings after Dürer...

Golub, Leon (Albert)
(1922) US painter. A political activist and artist, Golub creates narrative images that refer to current social issues such as sexism, racism, war, and politics; also common are references to violence and...

Golwalkar, Madhavrao Sadashivrao
(1906-1973) Indian Hindu nationalist. Trained as a zoologist and a lawyer, Golwalkar became head of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, National Volunteer Corps) in June 1940...

Gomar, Francis
(1563-1641) Flemish Calvinist theologian. Born in Bruges, he was educated in Germany and then England, graduating at Cambridge. He became a professor of theology at Leyden and the leading opponent of Arminius....

Gomarists
A goup of extreme Calvinists in early 17th-century Holland. They took their name from their leader Francis Gomar, the principal opponent of Arminianism. ...

Gombos, Gyula
(1886-1936) Hungarian Premier between October 1932 and October 1936. He brought Hungary closer to an alliance with Hitler's Germany and his internal policies were inspired by Italian fascism. ...

Gombrowicz, Witold
(1904-1969) Polish dramatist and novelist. His technique of grotesque and fantastic allegory was expressed in Iowna, Princess of Burgundy 1957, Marriage 1963, and Operetta 1969. He was an exile from 1939. ...

Gomez, Diego
(1440-1482) Portuguese navigator who discovered the coast of Liberia during a voyage sponsored by Henry the Navigator (1458-60). ...

Gómez, Juan Vicente
(1857-1935) Venezuelan dictator 1908-35 and president. The discovery of oil during his rule attracted US, British, and Dutch oil interests and made Venezuela one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America....

Gompers, Samuel
(1850-1924) English-born US labour leader. His early career in the Cigarmakers' Union led him to found and lead the American Federation of Labor in 1886. Gompers advocated nonpolitical activity within the...

Gonçalves, Nuno
(lived c. 1450-1471) Portuguese artist. He was court painter to Afonso V. What little of his work survives includes the St Vincent polyptych (c. 1465-67, National Museum of Art, Lisbon). Covering six panels, it...

Goncharov, Ivan Alexandrovitch
(1812-1891) Russian novelist. His first novel, A Common Story (1847), was followed in 1858 by his humorous masterpiece Oblomov, which satirized the indolent Russian landed gentry. From 1852-1855 he was...

Goncourt, de
French writers. The brothers collaborated in producing a compendium, L'Art du XVIIIème siècle/18th-Century Art 1859-75, historical studies, and a Journal published 1887-96 that depicts...

Gond
Member of a heterogenous people of central India, about half of whom speak unwritten languages belonging to the Dravidian family. The rest speak Indo-European languages such as Hindi. There are...

Góngora y Argote, Luis de
(1561-1627) Spanish poet. His early works, ballads and satires, were long considered his best and his sonnets remain among the finest in the language. His longer poems, however, caused a great furore. La...

Gonne, Maud
(1865-1953) Irish nationalist and actor, a founder-member of Sinn Fein. A celebrated society beauty, she became acquainted with the poet W B Yeats in the 1890s through her support for Irish nationalism. Gonne...

Gonzáles Víquez, Cleto
(1858-1937) Costa Rican liberal patriarchal politician, president 1906-10 and 1928-32. Along with Ricardo Jiménez Oreamuno, he dominated the country's politics between 1906 and 1937. In his second term he...

González Márquez, Felipe
(1942) Spanish socialist politician, leader of the Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), and prime minister 1982-96. His party was re-elected in 1989 and 1993, but his popularity suffered as a result of...

González, Julio
(1876-1942) Spanish sculptor and painter. He established the use of wrought and welded iron as an expressive sculptural medium. Influenced by the cubism of his close friend Pablo Picasso, and also by Russian...

Gooch, George Peabody
(1873-1968) British historian who was an authority in the diplomatic history and foreign policy of the modern period, and his extensive researches made his History of Modern Europe 1878-1919, 1923, one of the...

good
In philosophy, that property or characteristic of a thing giving rise to commendation. Intrinsic goods are those things that we value in themselves, for their own sakes or as ends. Extrinsic goods...

good
In economics, a term often used to denote any product, including services. Equally, a good is often distinguished from a service, as in `goods and services`. The opposite of a normal good, a...

Good Friday
In the Christian church, the Friday of Holy Week, before Easter, which is observed in memory of the crucifixion (the death of Jesus on the cross). It is called `Good` Friday because of the...

Good Friday Agreement
Multiparty settlement proposed on 10 April 1998 in the Northern Ireland peace process. ...

Good Life, The
British television sitcom 1975-78. The show followed the fortunes of Tom and Barbara Good (Richard Briers and Felicity Kendall), who opt out of the rat race of urban life and become...

Good Neighbor policy
The efforts of US administrations between the two world wars to improve relations with Latin American and Caribbean states. The phrase was first used by President F D Roosevelt in his inaugural...

Good Parliament
In England, Parliament of April-July 1376 which attacked Edward III's government for excessive expenditure and the lack of success in the Hundred Years' War. The king was forced to change his...

Good Soldier Svejk, The
Humorous Czech novel by Jaroslav Hašek, serially published 1921-23 but unfinished when the author died. An earthy picaresque narrative...

Goode, Willie
(1938) US politician. He became the first African-American mayor of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1985-91). A meticulous, sober man, he was much criticized for allowing police to bomb the headquarters of...

Goodhue, Benjamin
(1748-1814) US politician. A prosperous merchant, he was chosen to represent Massachusetts in the US House of Representatives (1789-96) and the US Senate (1796-1800), where he served as chairman of the...

Goodhue, Bertram Grosvenor
(1869-1924) US architect. An eclectic architectural stylist, he became a leading Gothic church architect in partnership with Ralph Adams Cram (1892-1913) and later embraced modernism. Goodhue designed...

Goodman, Morris
(1925) US physical anthropologist. A pioneer in molecular anthropology, he was associated with several midwestern medical institutions before joining Wayne State University (1966). His comparative...

Goodman, Nelson
(1906-1998) US philosopher who tried to dispel the confusions of everyday language by the use of formal logic. His alleged `new riddle of induction` (...

Goodman's paradox
Riddle of induction (reasoning from the particular to the general) formulated by US philosopher Nelson Goodman. He invents a property `grue`, which applies to any green thing examined before a...

Goodnow, Frank Johnson
(1859-1939) US political scientist and educator. An expert in constitutional and administrative law, he served as an adviser to President William Taft (1911-12) and to the Republic of China (1913-14). He...

Goodrich, Lloyd
(1897-1987) US curator and art critic. He wrote extensively on such artists as Thomas Eakins and Winslow Homer, and was curator and director of the Whitney Museum of Art (1935-71). Goodrich was born in...

Goodrich, Samuel Griswold
(1793-1860) US author. He wrote under the pseudonym `Peter Parley`. He edited The Token 1828-42, to which he contributed tales, poems, and essays. Most of his publications were written for children, and...

Goodwin, Thomas
(1600-1680) English Puritan divine who was well thought of by Cromwell. Five volumes of his works were published in London (1682- 1704). Goodwin was born at Rollesby and studied at Cambridge, becoming a...

Goodwin, William Watson
(1831-1921) US classicist. He taught at Harvard (1856-1901) and was the first director of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens (1882-83). His publications include Syntax of Moods and Tenses of...

Goody Two-Shoes
Children's story of unknown authorship but possibly by Oliver Goldsmith, published 1765 by John Newbery (1713-1767). The heroine, Margery, is an orphan who is distraught when her brother goes to...

Googe, Barnabe
(1540-1594) English poet. He was a friend of George Turberville and imitated his style and the metres of his poems. His best-known work is Eclogues, Epitaphs and Sonnets (1563). The eclogues are among the...

Goose Green
In the Falklands War, British victory over Argentina at Goose Green, south of San Carlos, on 28 May 1982 during the advance on Port Stanley. British troops landed at and around Port San Carlos on...

Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich
(1931) Russian politician, leader and president of the USSR 1985-91. He attempted to revive the faltering Soviet economy through economic reforms (perestroika) and liberalize society and politics through...

Gorchakov, Alexandr Mikhailovich
(1798-1883) Russian statesman and foreign minister 1856-82. He headed the Russian delegation at the Berlin Congress (see Berlin, Conference of ) and signed the Berlin Treaty in 1878. He rejected the attempts...

Gordian I
(AD 158-238) Roman emperor AD 238. He was proclaimed emperor at the age of 79 while proconsul of Africa and he made his son Gordian II joint emperor. He reigned for 22 days, committing suicide when his son was...

Gordian III
(c.AD 224-244) Roman emperor AD 238-44. His grandfather Gordian I and his father, Gordian II, had been briefly joint emperors in 238. After their deaths, Gordian III was proclaimed emperor by the Praetorian...

Gordian knot
In Greek mythology, the knot tied by King Gordius of Phrygia that - so an oracle revealed - could be unravelled only by the future conqueror of Asia. According to tradition, Alexander the Great,...

Gordimer, Nadine
(1923) South African novelist and short-story writer. Internationally acclaimed for her fiction and regarded by many as South Africa's conscience, Gordimer was for many years one of the most prominent...

Gordis, Robert
(1908-1992) US rabbi and scholar. He was rabbi of Temple Beth-El, Rockaway Park, New York (1931-68) and professor of religion at Temple University, Columbia University, and the Jewish Theological Seminary....

Gordium
Ancient city in Phrygia, in Asia Minor. It was here that, according to legend, Alexander the Great, King of Macedonia, cut the Gordon-Lennox
Family name of dukes of Richmond; seated at Goodwood, Sussex; descended from King Charles II by his mistress Louise de Keroualle. ...

Gordon, Anna Adams
(1853-1931) US temperance reformer. An indefatigable crusader for the temperance movement, campaigning for world prohibition, she was also author of numerous inspirational songs and books. Gordon was the chief...

Gordon, Charles George
(1833-1885) British general sent to Khartoum in the Sudan in 1884 to rescue English garrisons that were under attack by the Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmed; he was himself besieged for ten months by the Mahdi's army. A...

Gordon, Douglas
(1967) Scottish artist. He came to prominence in 1993 with 24 Hour Psycho, in which Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho was shown in slow motion over a 24-hour period. In 1996 he became the first video artist...

Gordon, George Angier
(1853-1929) Scottish-born US Protestant clergyman and author. From 1884 until his death he was pastor of Old South Church, Boston. His The Christ of Today (1895) expressed a liberal t ...

Gordon, Lord George
(1751-1793) British anti-Catholic activist. He organized the so-called Gordon Riots of 1780, a protest against removal of penalties imposed on Roman Catholics in the Catholic Relief Act of 1778; he was...

Gordon, Noele
(1922-1985) English actor. Following a successful career on the London stage, most notably in Diamond Lil (1948) and Brigadoon (1949-51), she turned to television, hosting the series Lunch Box (1955) and...

Gordon, Patrick
(1635-1699) Scottish soldier who fought in the Swedish-Polish wars on each side in turn. Gordon attained a high rank in the Russian army which he joined in 1661. He was a protege of Peter the Great and helped...

Gordon, Richard
(1921) British author. He produced a series of light-hearted novels on the career of a young doctor, beginning with Doctor in the House (1952), many of which were filmed. ...

Gore, Al(bert Arnold, Jr)
(1948) US Democratic politician and environmentalist, vice-president 1993-2001. A member of the House of Representatives 1977-85 and senator for Tennessee 1985-93, he was on the conservative wing...

Gore, Catherine
(1799-1861) English novelist. She published about 70 works 1824-62, the most successful being `silver-fork` novels of fashionable English life. These include Women as They Are: or, The Manners of the...

Gore, Spencer
(1878-1914) English painter. He was a friend of English artist Walter Sickert and one of his most talented followers in introducing Impressionism and post-Impressionism to English art. Like Sickert, he...

Gore, Thomas Pryor
(1870-1949) US senator. He settled in Oklahoma Territory in 1901, becoming the region's most influential politician. He led the territory to statehood, and as a Democrat candidate he became one of its first two...

Gorell, Ronald Gorell Barnes
(1884-1963) English poet and novelist. He worked for The Times 1910-15 and edited the Cornhill Magazine 1933-39. His books include Babes in the African Wood 1911, Days of Destiny 1917, Many Mansions 1926,...

Gorey, Edward (St John)
(1925-2000) US publisher, illustrator, writer, and designer. He established his own Fantod Press (1962) in order to publish his own distinctive work with its macabre subjects, Gothic illustrations, and black...

Gorgas, Josiah
(1818-1883) US soldier. He commanded the US arsenal near Mobile, Alabama, but came to loathe abolitionists, and with the secession he resigned his commission and joined the Confederate army as chief of...

Gorgey, Arthur
(1818-1916) Hungarian general. who fought for Hungary in the 1848 revolution and rose to be commander-in-chief in 1849, but surrendered to the Russians at Vilagos. He was interned at Klagenfurt until 1867....

Gorgias
(c. 483-c. 380 BC) Greek orator and sophist from Sicily. He was the subject of a dialogue by Plato, who was deeply critical of his cynical view of the powers of persuasion. Gorgias was renowned for his obscure and...

Gorgon
In Greek mythology according to the Greek poet Hesiod, any of three monsters; the sisters Stheno and Euryale, daughters of the sea god Phorcys and Ceto, and the mortal Medusa. They had wings, claws,...

Goria, Giovanni
(1943-1994) Italian Christian Democrat (DC) politician, prime minister 1987-88. He entered the chamber of deputies in 1976 and held a number of posts, including treasury minister, until he was asked to form a...

Goring, George Goring, Lord
(1608-1657) English Royalist commander who was appointed governor of Portsmouth in 1639, and was concerned in the Army Plot, which he betrayed to Parliament. Nevertheless, when the Civil War broke out he...

Goring, Marius
(1912-1998) English stage and screen actor. Primarily a stage actor, Goring performed in English, French, and German, and was as equally adept at playing dramatic leads as he was in comic supporting roles. He...

Gorky, Arshile
(1904-1948) Armenian-born US painter. He painted in several modernist styles before developing a semi-abstract surreal style, using organic shapes and vigorous brushwork. His works, such as The Liver Is the...

Gorky, Maxim
(1868-1936) Russian writer. Born in Nizhniy-Novgorod (named Gorky 1932-90 in his honour), he was exiled 1906-13 for his revolutionary principles. His works, which include the play The Lower Depths (1902)...

Gorman, R(udolph) C(arl)
(1931-2005) US artist. He is arguably the first American Indian artist to be internationally recognized as simply a major US artist. Although he usually drew on southwest American Indian...

Gorman, Teresa
(1931) British Conservative politician. She became Conservative member of Parliament for Billericay in 1987. An outspoken supporter of free-market principles (or Thatcherism) she was also chair of the...

Gormley, Antony
(1950) English sculptor. In his most characteristic works, he has cast his own body in plaster, lead, and fibreglass to create faceless, featureless nudes, often with outstretched arms. His best-known...

Gorsedd
Society of Welsh bards founded 1792 by the Glamorgan bard Iolo Morganwg (1747-1826). It was devised to replace a long-defunct medieval order of the same name. Iolo merged the Gorsedd ceremonial...

Gorshkov, Sergei Georgievich
(1910-1988) Soviet admiral, commander-in-chief of the navy 1956-85. ...

Gorst, J(ohn) E(ldon)
(1835-1916) English Conservative Party administrator. A supporter of Disraeli, Gorst was largely responsible for extending the Victorian Conservative Party electoral base to include middle- and...

Gorter, Herman
(1864-1927) Dutch poet. An awareness of the transience of natural beauty, supremely expressed in his long poem Mei/May 1889, drove him to the hypersensitive and abstract extremes of De...

Gorton, John Grey
(1911-2002) Australian Liberal politician, prime minister 1968-71. A member of the Senate, he was elected party leader and prime minister following the death of Harold Holt in 1968. He then transferred to the...

Goschen, George Joachim
(1831-1907) British politician. Originally a Liberal, he held several cabinet posts under William Gladstone 1868-74, but broke with him in 1886 over Irish home rule. In Salisbury's Unionist government of...

Goshen, Land of
Historical republic, now part of Northwest Province, South Africa. In 1882 Dutch settlers founded an unofficial republic in the land of Goshen, which was subsequently recognised by President Kruger...

Gosnold, Bartholomew
(c. 1572-1607) English navigator and colonist. Looking for a western passage to Asia, he led an expedition in the Concord, visiting Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Elizabeth's Isle, all of which he named (1602)....

Gospel
In the New Testament generally, the message of Christian salvation; in particular the four written accounts of the life of Jesus in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Although the first...

Gossaert, Jan
Flemish painter, known as Mabuse. ...

Gosse, (Laura) Sylvia
(1881-1968) English artist and printmaker. A founder-member of the avant-garde London Group in 1914, she was influenced by the Impressionist painter Walter Sickert and post-Impressionist Spencer Gore...

Gosse, Edmund William
(1849-1928) English writer and critic. His strict Victorian upbringing is reflected in his masterly autobiographical work Father and Son (published anonymously in 1907). His father was a member of the Plymouth...

Gossen, Herman Heinrich
(1810-1858) German economist. In a treatise published in 1854 he derived all the principles of individual utility maximization which were later to form the basis of neoclassical economic analysis, but his ideas...

Gosson, Stephen
(c. 1554-1624) English playwright, satirist, and clergyman. Moved by a sermon preached in London during an outbreak of the plague, he abandoned the theatre and became one of its severest critics in his prose...

Gotbaum, Victor H
(1921) US labour leader. In 1955 he became assistant education director of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters in Chicago, the first of several union jobs that took him to several cities. He returned to New York...

Goth
East Germanic people who settled near the Black Sea around AD 2nd century. There are two branches, the eastern Ostrogoths and the western Visigoths. The Ostrogoths were conquered by the Huns in 372....