Copy of `The History Channel - Encyclopedia`

The wordlist doesn't exist anymore, or, the website doesn't exist anymore. On this page you can find a copy of the original information. The information may have been taken offline because it is outdated.

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

Graves, Thomas
(c. 1747-1814) British admiral. In 1773 he went on a voyage of discovery in the Arctic Seas. He commanded the Bedford during the action in Chesapeake Bay in 1781 and...

Graves, Thomas
(c. 1725-1802) British admiral who served in many famous expeditions, and whose rigid adherence to tactical doctrine at the Battle of Chesapeake Bay on 5 September 1781 enabled the French fleet under de Grasse to...

Gravity's Rainbow
Novel 1973 by US writer Thomas Pynchon. It is an epic narrative of conspiracy, paranoia, science, and history set during World War II. Taking the trajectory of the German V2 rocket as its main...

Gray, (Kathleen) Eileen (Moray)
(1879-1976) Irish-born architect and furniture designer. Her art deco furniture explored the use of tubular metal, glass, and new materials such as aluminium. After training as a painter at the Slade School...

Gray, Alasdair James
(1934) Scottish novelist and short-story writer. Lanark (1981), begun when he was 18, is an inventive expression of nationalist and anti-nationalist feeling, brimful of literary jokes. 1982, Janine...

Gray, Alfred M
(1928) US marine officer. A combat veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars, he contributed articles on defence issues to professional journals. Gray was born...

Gray, David
(1838-1861) Scottish poet. His chief poem, The Luggie 1862, contains much beautiful description, closely imitating James Thomson'sThe Seasons, but his finest work was a series of 30 sonnets, In the Shadows,...

Gray, Harold (Lincoln)
(1894-1968) US cartoonist, who for 45 years worked on his widely syndicated cartoon strip `Little Orphan Annie`. His creation was adapted to a hit Broadway...

Gray, Horace
(1828-1902) US Supreme Court justice. He was active in Massachusetts politics as an organizer of the Free-Soil and then Republican parties. He served on the Massachusetts Supreme Court (1864-81) and was...

Gray, John Chipman
(1839-1915) US lawyer and university professor. He was a Judge advocate major for the Union army in the American Civil War, and subsequently joined John C Ropes in a successful Boston law practice while...

Gray, Robert
(1755-1806) US navigator and explorer. A naval veteran of the American Revolution and then a merchant seaman, he became a fur trader in Boston. He commanded the Columbia for most of its 42,000-mile voyage...

Gray, Thomas
(1716-1771) English poet. His Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751), a dignified contemplation of death, was instantly acclaimed and is one of the most quoted poems in the English language. Other poems...

Gray, William
(c. 1414-1478) English cleric, bishop of Ely from 1454. He commissioned and bought a large number of manuscripts, some from Vespasiano da Bisticci. He also patronized scholars, including...

Gray, William H(erbert), III
(1941) US politician and Baptist minister. Gray, a Democrat, represented the largely African-American second district of Philadelphia in the US House of Representatives (1979-91). He chaired the House...

Grayson, David
US writer; see Ray Stannard Baker. ...

Grayson, David
Pseudonym of US writer Ray Stannard Baker. ...

Grayson, Larry
(1923-1995) English comedian and entertainer who enjoyed peak time success as a host of the television gameshow The Generation Game (1978-82) for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). He was given his...

Graziani, Rodolfo, Marquess
(1882-1955) Italian general. He was commander-in-chief of Italian forces in North Africa during World War II and had some initial success in an advance into Egypt but was comprehensively defeated by British...

Grazzini, Anton Francesco
(1503-1584) Florentine writer. His realistic novelle (tales) about Florence collected in Le cene/The Suppers, were not published until 1756. To contemporaries he was best known as a poet of burlesque verses and...

Great American Desert
Historic name for the Great Plains region of the USA, lying between the Mississippi River in the east and the Rocky Mountains in the west. Named by US government-appointed explorer Major Stephen...

Great Awakening
Religious revival in the American colonies from the late 1730s to the 1760s, sparked off by George Whitefield (1714-1770), an itinerant English Methodist preacher whose evangelical fervour and...

Great Britain
Official name for England, Scotland, and Wales, and the adjacent islands (except the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man) from 1603, when the English and Scottish crowns were united under James I of...

Great Chamberlain, Lord
UK state official; see Lord Great Chamberlain. ...

Great Contract
In England, proposal of the Lord Treasurer Robert Cecil 1610 that the Crown's old feudal revenues be replaced with a fixed annual income of £200,000. The king's debts, a further...

Great Depression
World economic crisis 1929-late 1930s, sparked by the Wall Street crash of 29 October 1929. It was the longest and most devastating depression in the Western world in modern history. The Great...

Great Exhibition
World fair held in Hyde Park, London, UK, in 1851, proclaimed by its originator Prince Albert as `the Great Exhibition of the Industries of All Nations`. In practice, it glorified British...

Great Expectations
Novel by Charles Dickens, publis ...

Great Gatsby, The
Novel (1925) by US writer F Scott Fitzgerald. It is the tale of the dazzling, enigmatic Gatsby who becomes a millionaire in order to win back his first love but whose dream ends in death and his own...

Great Leap Forward
Change in the economic policy of the People's Republic of China introduced by Mao Zedong under the second five-year plan of 1958 to 1962. The aim was to achieve rapid...

Great Marianas Turkey Shoot
In World War II, air battle during the naval Battle of the Philippine Sea 20 June 1944. A Japanese fleet of 6 aircraft carriers with 342 aircraft set out to trap a US fleet between itself and...

Great Migration
In US history, the mass migration of US settlers led by Walt Whitman from Independence, Missouri to the Williamette Valley, Oregon in 1843. The 3,200-km/2,000-mi journey was undertaken by a...

Great Patriotic War
War between the USSR and Germany during World War II. When Germany invaded the USSR in June 1941, the Soviet troops retreated, carrying out a scorched earth policy and relocating strategic...

Great Plains
Semi-arid region of about 3.2 million sq km/1.2 million sq mi in North America, to the east of the Rocky Mountains, stretching as far as the 100th meridian of longitude through Oklahoma, Kansas,...

Great Power
Any of the major European powers of the 19th century: Russia, Austria (Austria-Hungary), France, Britain, and Prussia. ...

Great Rebellion
Revolt against the English government in Ireland between 1641 and 1650. It was supported by the Old Irish (descendants of the original Gaelic inhabitants) and Norman-Irish (descendants of Norman...

Great Rollright
Village in Oxfordshire, England, 18 km/11 mi southwest of Banbury. Between Great Rollright and Little Rollright are the Rollright stones a megalith (prehistoric stone monument) consisting of the...

Great Schism
In European history, the period 1378-1417 in which rival popes had seats in Rome and in Avignon; it was ended by the election of Martin V during the Council of Constance 1414-17. ...

great seal
In Britain, royal seal used to authenticate the monarch's assent to official documents, required for all the most important acts of state, such as dissolving parliaments and signing treaties. It was...

Great Society
Political slogan coined 1965 by US President Lyndon B Johnson to describe the ideal society to be created by his administration (1963-68), and to which all other nations would aspire. The...

Great Trek
In South African history, the movement of 12,000-14,000 Boer (Dutch) settlers from Cape Colony in 1835 and 1845 to escape British rule. They established republics in Natal and the Transvaal. It is...

Great Wall of China
Continuous defensive wall stretching from western Gansu to the Gulf of Liaodong (2,250 km/1,450 mi). It was once even longer. It was built under the Qin dynasty from 214 BC to prevent incursions by...

Great War
Another name for World War I. ...

Greater London Council
Local authority that governed London 1965-86. When the GLC was abolished (see local government), its powers either devolved back...

Greaves, Walter
(1846-1930) English painter. He took to art under the influence of James Whistler, whose assistant he was for nearly 20 years. His most interesting works are the very early ones, such as Hammersmith Bridge on...

Grechko, Andrei Antonovich
(1903-1976) Soviet soldier, marshal of the Soviet Union and minister of defence from 1967. He had a successful career in the cavalry army and as a coordinator of multinational armies. A member of the Communist...

Greece
Country in southeast Europe, comprising the southern part of the Balkan peninsula, bounded to the north by the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria, to the northwest by Albania, to the...

Greece, ancient
Ancient civilization that flourished 2,500 years ago on the shores of the Ionian and Aegean Seas (modern Greece and the west coast of Turkey). Although its population never exceeded 2 million,...

Greek
The native peoples or inhabitants of ancient or modern Greece or people of Greek descent; also the language and culture. Modern Greek is an Indo-European language, spoken in Greece and by Greek...

Greek architecture
The architecture of ancient Greece is the base for virtually all architectural developments in Europe. The Greeks invented the entablature, which allowed roofs to be hipped (inverted V-shape), and...

Greek literature
Literature of Greece, ancient and modern. Ancient The Archaic period of ancient Greek literature (8th century-c. 480 BC) begins with Homer, reputed author of the epic narrative poems the Iliad and...

Greek medicine
Medicine of ancient Greece, the most powerful and advanced civilization in Europe around 1000-300 BC. Building on the traditions of ancient Egyptian medicine, and those of India, China, and...

Greek Orthodox Church
See Orthodox Church. ...

Greek religion
The religion of ancient Greece from the 8th to the 3rd century BC, with a well-defined pantheon of deities including the supreme ruler ...

Greek Revival
Architectural style that arose in the late 18th-century with the opening up of Greece and its ancient architectural heritage to the West; until then Roman architecture had been considered the only...

Greeley, Andrew M(oran)
(1928) US Catholic priest and sociologist. Ordained in 1954, he earned a sociology doctorate from the University of Chicago while doing parish work (1962). He then joined the university's National Opinion...

Greeley, Horace
(1811-1872) US editor, publisher, and politician. He founded the New York Tribune in 1841 and, as a strong supporter of the Whig party, advocated many reform causes in his newspaper - among them, feminism and...

Greely, Adolphus Washington
(1844-1935) US soldier, explorer, and scientist. In 1881, he led an army expedition to northeast Ellesmere Island, Canada. A detachment of his expedition sledged to a record northern latitude, 83°24'N. When...

green audit
Inspection of a company to assess the total environmental impact of its activities or of a particular product or process. For example, a green audit of a manufactured product looks at the impact of...

green belt
Area surrounding a large city, officially designated not to be built on but preserved where possible as open space for agricultural and recreational use. In the UK the first green belts were...

Green cross gas
German term used in World War I to identify `severely harmful` gases, from the mark painted on the shells. Principally lung injurants, the group included chlorine,...

Green Cross Society
British corps of women motor drivers in World War I, officially known as the Women's Reserve Ambulance, established June 1915. They collected wounded soldiers from the main London railway stations...

green lane
In the UK an unpaved road in country areas. Many green lanes were ancient highways abandoned after the building of new roads in the 18th and 19th centuries. Some are redundant local roads, but many...

Green Man
In English folklore, a figure dressed and covered in foliage, associated with festivities celebrating the arrival of spring. His face is represented in a variety of English church carvings, in wood...

Green Mountain Boys
In US history, irregular troops who fought to protect the Vermont part of what was then New Hampshire colony from land claims made by neighbouring New York. In the American Revolution they captured...

Green Paper
Publication issued by a British government department setting out various aspects of a matter on which legislation is contemplated, and inviting public discussion and suggestions. In due course it...

Green Party
Political party aiming to `preserve the planet and its people`, based on the premise that continual economic growth is unsustainable. The leaderless party structure reflects a general commitment...

green pound
Exchange rate used by the European Union (EU) for the conversion of EU agricultural prices to sterling. The prices for all EU members are set in European Currency Units (ECUs) and are then converted...

green room
In the theatre, a backstage area where performers can relax after a show and receive visitors. The green room was originally where ac ...

Green, Constance (McLaughlin)
(1897-1975) US historian. Her Holyoke, Massachusetts: A Case History of the Industrial Revolution in America (1939), based on her Yale PhD dissertation, established her as a pioneer in urban history. Green's...

Green, Henry
(1905-1973) English novelist. His works (for example Loving (1945), Nothing (1950), and Doting (1952) are characterized by an experimental colloquial prose style and extensive use of dialogue; he was greatly...

Green, James Stephen
(1817-1870) US politician and lawyer. A Democrat, he served on behalf of the state of Missouri in the US House of Representatives (1847-51), and was chargé d'affaires for Colombia (1853-54). In the Senate...

Green, John Richard
(1837-1883) English historian. In 1874 he published his Short History of the English People, a brilliant picture of the social and economic evolution of English life. In 1882 he wrote The Mak ...

Green, Julien
(1900-1998) French novelist, dramatist, and autobiographer, of American parentage. His first novel, Mont-Cinère/Avarice House (1926), was followed with a series of haunting and disturbing novels written in...

Green, Paul (Eliot)
(1894-1981) US playwright, who pioneered what he termed a `symphonic form of drama`, combining music, dance, mime, lighting, costumes, and other theatrical elements to capture some episode or theme in...

Green, Roger Lancelyn
(1918-1987) English author. His works included a critical biography of Andrew Lang (1946);Tellers of Tales (1965; accounts of the writers of children's books); an edition of The Diaries of Lewis Carroll (1954);...

Green, Samuel
(1615-c. 1701) English-born US printer. He was a bookseller in Boston and in 1649 became manager of the Cambridge press. The only colonial printer active at the time, Green is known to have been responsible for...

Green, Theodore (Francis)
(1867-1966) US politician. A lawyer by training, he went on to work in the financial sector (1912-27). A Democrat, his initial bids to become governor and a US representative failed, but he eventually became...

Green, Thomas Hill
(1836-1882) English philosopher. He attempted to show the limitations of Herbert Spencer and John Stuart Mill, and advocated the study of the German philosophers Immanuel Kant and G W F Hegel. Green was born in...

Green, William
(1873-1952) US labour leader. He was president of the American Federation of Labor (1924-52), and helped shape the National Industrial Recovery Act (1933) and the National Labor Relations Act (1935). An...

Greenaway Medal
(Full name Library Association Kate Greenaway Medal) annual award for an outstanding illustrated book for children published in the UK, first awarded in 1956 to Edward Ardizzone. Subsequent winners...

Greenaway, Kate (Catherine)
(1846-1901) English illustrator. She specialized in drawings of children. In 1877 she first exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, and began her collaboration with the colour printer Edmund Evans...

greenback
Paper money issued by the US government 1862-65 to help finance the Civil War. It was legal tender but could not be converted into gold. Greenback is also a popular term for the US dollar...

Greenbacker
In US history, a supporter of an alliance of agrarian and industrial organizations 1874-88, known as the Greenback Labor Party, which campaigned for currency inflation by increasing the paper...

Greenberg, Irving
(1933) US rabbi and educator. He was the rabbi of the Riverdale Jewish Center, New York (1965-72). He taught history and Jewish studies at Brandeis University, Yeshiva...

Greenberg, Jack
(1924) US lawyer and educator. As assistant counsel, then director-counsel of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Legal Defense and Education Fund (1949-84), he argued many...

Greenberg, Joseph H(arold)
(1915-2001) US anthropologist and linguist. He directed the West African Languages Survey (1959-66) and taught at Stanford University (1962-85). He used `multilateral comparison` in his groundbreaking...

Greenblatt, Stephen
(1943) US literary historian. He joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley in 1969, and soon emerged as the most brilliant proponent of a new school of literary historians-critics that...

Greene, (Henry) Graham
(1904-1991) English writer. His novels of guilt, despair, and penitence are set in a world of urban seediness or political corruption in many parts of the world. They include ...

Greene, Charles Sumner Greene
(1868-1957) and Henry Mather Greene (1870-1954) US architects. The brothers attended the manual training program at Washington University, St Louis, and then studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In partnership in Pasadena and Los...

Greene, Hugh Carleton
(1910-1987) English journalist and administrator. He was director of administration for the BBC (1956-58), director of news and current affairs (1958-59), and director general (1960-69). Educated at...

Greene, Hughie
(1920-1997) Canadian-born presenter and quiz show host who compered the Independent Television (ITV) talent show Opportunity Knocks for 21 years from 1956. He also hosted Double Your Money between 1955 and...

Greene, John Holden
(1777-1850) US builder and architect. He changed the face of Providence, Rhode Island, by designing and building 50 buildings, chiefly residential, in the Federal, Georgian, and Greek Revival styles...

Greene, Nathanael
(1742-1786) American military leader. During the American Revolution 1775-83 he was commander of the Rhode Island regiments and later brigadier general in the Continental Army, seeing action at the siege of...

Greene, Robert
(1558-1592) English dramatist and pamphleteer. His most popular play was the patriotic comedy Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, printed in 1594. Among his prose romances, Pandosto (1588) gave Shakespeare the plot...

Greenhow, Rose O'Neal
(died 1864) US spy, who passed information on Union battle strategy to Confederate generals during the American Civil War. Greenhow was tried for treason in 1862; exiled, she moved to England and amassed gold...

Greenleaf, Simon
(1783-1853) US lawyer and professor. He read and practised law in Maine from 1806. When Maine became a state, he was the reporter to its supreme judicial court (1820-32). He then became a professor of law at...

greenmail
Payment made by a target company to avoid a takeover; for example, buying back a portion of its own shares from a potential predator (either a person or a company) at an inflated price. ...

Greenough, Horatio
(1805-1852) US sculptor. He was one of the first American neoclassicists. His works include a colossal statue of George Washington for the Rotunda of the US Capitol 1843, a work heavily criticized at the time...

Greenpeace
International environmental pressure group, founded in Vancouver, Canada, in 1971, with a policy of non-violent direct action backed by scientific research. During a protest against French...

Greenspan, Alan
(1926) US economist, who succeeded US banker Paul Volcker as chair of the US Federal Reserve System in 1987 and successfully pumped liquidity into the market to avert a sudden `free fall` into...