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

Gronlund, Laurence
(1846-1899) Danish-born US politician, lawyer, author, and lecturer. Originally influenced by Blaise Pascal, he became a Socialist and wrote the widely-read Cooperative Commonwealth (1884), a blend of...

Groom Lake
Dry lake-bed site in Nevada, USA, of US Air Force base used for the development of secret projects. In the 1980s it was used for testing of Stealth aircraft and Star...

Grooms, Red
(1937) US sculptor, painter, and performance artist. He founded Ruckus Productions in 1963, a multi-media environmental and performance company. He created lifesize installations and organized a range of...

Gropius, Walter Adolf
(1883-1969) German architect, in the USA from 1937. He was an early exponent of the international style, defined by glass curtain walls, cubic blocks, and unsupported corners. A founder director of the Bauhaus...

gros point
Embroidery that uses wool to fill netting (see petit point). It is normally used in colourful designs on widely spaced canvas. ...

Gros, Antoine Jean
(1771-1835) French painter. He was official painter to Napoleon Bonaparte and created works that anticipate Romanticism. Bonaparte at the Bridge of Arcola 1796 (Louvre, Paris) is typical. One of the most...

Grosman, Tatyana
(1904-1982) Russian-born US printmaker. She founded the Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE) workshop in East Islip, Long Island (1957), and encouraged such famous New York school artists as Larry Rivers,...

gross
A particular figure or price, calculated before the deduction of specific items such as commission, discounts, interest, and taxes. The opposite is net. ...

gross domestic product
Value of all final goods and services produced within a country within a given time period, usually one year. GDP thus includes the production of foreign-owned firms within the country, but...

gross national product
Measure of a country's total economic activity, or the wealth of the country. GNP is usually assessed quarterly or yearly, and is defined as the total value of all goods and services produced by...

gross pay
Or gross earnings or gross wages pay before deductions such as income tax and national insurance contributions. Net pay is pay after deductions. ...

gross profit
The difference between sales revenue and the direct cost of production for a business. It does not take...

Grossmith, George
(1847-1912) English actor and singer. Turning from journalism to the stage, in 1877 he began a long association with the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, in which he created a number of parts. He collaborated with...

Grosvenor
Family name of the dukes of Westminster. The family's seat is at Eaton Hall, Cheshire, England. ...

Grosvenor, Gilbert Hovey
(1875-1966) US publisher, named editor of National Geographic Magazine 1899. Its financial status was shaky, but Grosvenor soon transformed it to a mass circulation periodical through the use of colour...

Grosz, Károly
(1930-1996) Hungarian communist politician, prime minister 1987-88. As leader of the ruling Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (HSWP) 1988-89, he sought to establish a flexible...

Grote, George
(1794-1871) English historian, politician, and author. He was, with Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, one of the group of philosophical radicals whose principles he actively supported as a member of...

Grotell, Maija
(1899-1973) Finnish-born US ceramist. Ann innovative and gifted teacher, as well as a pioneer in glaze technology, in 1938 she began a 30 year tenure as head of the ceramics department at Cranbrook Academy of...

grotesque
In art, a style in which a profusion of human figures, imaginary monsters, animals, flowers, and fruit are mingled in a fanciful and eccentric way. It is found particularly in...

Grotewohl, Otto
(1894-1964) German politician. In 1949 he became prime minister of the German Democratic Republic. From 1925 to 1933 he was a Social Democratic member of the Reichstag and was subsequently imprisoned in a...

Grotius, Hugo
(1583-1645) Dutch jurist and politician. His book De Jure Belli et Pacis/On the Law of War and Peace (1625) is the foundation of international law. Grotius held that the rules governing human and international...

Groto, Luigi
(1541-1585) Blind Italian poet and playwright. He wrote mainly in Italian but also in Latin, Spanish, and Venetian dialect. His works include the extravagant and metrically complex verses of his collection...

Grotowski, Jerzy
(1933-1999) Polish theatre director. His ascetic theory of performance in Towards a Poor Theatre (1968) has had a great influence on experimental theatre in the USA and Europe. His most famous productions were...

Grouchy, Emanuel
(1766-1847) French general. He fought in the battles of Eylau, Friedland, and Wagram and was in command of the bodyguard of Napoleon during the Russian campaign. He fought at Leipzig and covered the retreat of...

ground
In art, the prepared surface of the canvas or panel on which a painter works. It is usually white paint (over which a warm tone such as Indian red is sometimes laid) or plaster (see gesso). In...

ground controlled interception
British term for the ground command of fighter aircraft during and after the Battle of Britain 1940. Using advanced radar, the British could see German air formations at considerable ranges which...

ground reconnaissance
A variety of methods for identifying archaeological sites, including consultation of documentary sources, place-name and folklore evidence, but primarily through actual fieldwork. ...

groundnuts scheme
In Britain, unsuccessful attempt by Clement Attlee's Labour government 1946 to grow groundnuts (peanuts) in East Africa. The scheme was intended partly to improve Britain's balance of payments and...

Group Areas Act
In South Africa, a legislative act of 1950 under which the different races in South Africa were assigned to separate areas. Demonstrations and inter-ethnic riots resulted from...

group of companies
A number of companies owned by the same shareholders. ...

Group of Eight
The eight leading industrial nations of the world: the USA, Japan, Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Canada, and Russia, which account for more than three-fifths...

Group of Fifteen
Forum of the world's industrializing states to agree cooperative policies to bridge the North-South economic divide. Leaders of 17 countries (originally 15, but the name has remained) - Algeria,...

Group of Rio
Organization founded in 1987 from the Contadora Group (an alliance between Colombia, Mexico, Panama, and Venezuela) to draw up a general peace treaty...

Group of Seven
Former name 1975-98 of the Group of Eight (G8), the eight leading industrial nations. ...

Grove, Frederick Philip
(1879-1948) Canadian novelist and essayist. His experiences as an itinerant farm hand and schoolteacher on the prairies gave substance to his evocative sketches `Over Prairie Trails` 1922 and his realist...

Grove, William Robert
(1811-1896) Welsh scientist and lawyer. He became a barrister in 1835, and also devoted himself to scientific studies. He invented a voltaic cell, the Grove cell, and anticipated methods of electric lighting....

Grow, Galusha Aaron
(1822-1907) US politician. He represented Pennsylvania in the US House of Representatives both as a Free-Soil Democrat (1851-57) and a Republican (1857-63; 1894-1903). He was Speaker of the House...

growth
In economics, see economic growth. ...

growth pole
Point within an area where economic growth is concentrated. This growth may encourage further development in the surrounding area (through the multiplier effect), especially in areas of industrial...

Grub Street
Road on the north side of the city of London. It became the squalid resort of hack writers in the 17th century, and the term was applied by metaphorical extension to all literary work thought to be...

Gruber, Francis
(1912-1948) French painter. He came to prominence after World War I for his austere realism, which gave a certain impressiveness to his sad and wasted figures and desolate landscapes. Job 1944 (Tate Gallery,...

Grueby, William H
(1867-1925) US potter. He trained in Chelsea, Massachusetts, and then set up his Grueby Faience Company in 1894 (incorporated in 1897). His hand-thrown pottery won many awards internationally and the L C...

Gruelle, Johnny (John)
(1880-1938) US author, illustrator, and cartoonist. He was famous for the `Raggedy Ann and Andy` series that he began in 1918, and for Beloved Belindy (1926), among other books he produced for young...

Gruen, Erich S(tephen)
(1935) Austrian-born US historian. An award-winning scholar, his book Last Generation of the Roman Republic (1974) was nominated for a National Book Award, and his Hellenistic World and the Coming of...

Gruening, Ernest
(1887-1974) US politician. He was territorial governor of Alaska (1939-53), and worked to get Alaska accepted into the Union as a state, writing The State of Alaska (1954). A Democrat, he became one of the...

Gruffydd ap Cynan
(c. 1054-1137) King of Gwynedd from 1081 to 1137. He was raised in Ireland, but came to claim the throne of Gwynedd in 1075 and helped halt Norman penetration of Wales. Although defeated and exiled by the Normans...

Gruffydd ap Llewellyn
(died 1063) King of Gwynedd. He had gained control of Gwynedd and Powys by 1039, Deheubarth by 1044, and extended his influence to Gwent by 1055. By the middle of the 11th century, most of Wales was either...

Grundtvig, Nicolai Frederik Severin
(1783-1872) Danish poet, preacher, and educationalist. He championed civil and religious freedom, advocated the separation of church and state, and originated the ideas which led to the high school system of...

Grundy, Felix
(1777-1840) US politician. He served in the Kentucky legislature (1801-06) before becoming a successful criminal lawyer in Nashville, Tennessee (1807-40). A Whig representative (1811-15) and senator...

Grundy, Mrs
Symbol of rigid moral propriety, first introduced as a character in Thomas Morton's play Speed the Plough 1798. ...

Gruzenberg, Mikhail
(1884-1952) Russian communist. From 1918 he worked as an agent of the Communist International. In 1923 he was invited by Sun Zhong Shan (Sun Yat-sen) to China, and until 1927 acted as high adviser to the...

Grünewald, Matthias
(c. 1475-1528) German painter, architect, and engineer. His altarpiece at Isenheim, southern Alsace, (1515, Unterlinden Museum, Colmar, France), with its grotesquely tortured figure of Jesus and its radiant...

Gryphius, Sebastian
(1493-1556) German printer. He printed about 300 books in languages including Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, and French. Among his most noted works are the fine Latin Bible (1550) and Dolet's Commentaria...

GSMD
Abbreviation for Guildhall School of Music and Drama. ...

Guadalcanal, Battle of
In World War II, important US operation 1942-43 on the largest of the Solomon Islands. The battle for control of the area began when the US discovered the Japanese were building an airfield and...

Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of
Treaty that ended the Mexican War (1846-48) between Mexico and the USA. Under the terms of the treaty, signed on 2 February 1848 at the Villa de Guadalupe Hidalgo, now part of Mexico City, the USA...

Guantánamo Bay
Bay in southeastern Cuba, one of the world's largest natural harbours and a site of strategic importance, with a US naval base (116 sq km/45 sq mi in area) established here since 1903. In the...

Guanyin
In Chinese Buddhism, the goddess of mercy. In Japan she is Kannon or Kwannon, an attendant of the Amida Buddha (Amitabha). Her origins were in India as the male bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara. ...

Guaraní
Member of an American Indian people who formerly inhabited the area that is now Paraguay, southern Brazil, and Bolivia. The Guaraní live mainly in reserves; few retain the traditional ways of...

guarantee
A manufacturer's written promise as to the extent they will replace or otherwise compensate a purchaser for defective goods. ...

Guardi, Francesco
(1712-1793) Italian painter. He produced souvenir views of his native Venice that were commercially less successful than Canaletto's but are now considered more atmospheric, with subtler...

guardian
In Scotland, title given to official regent appointed when there is no monarch or the monarch is deemed incapable of governing. ...

guardian spirit
Supernatural being that protects people or places. Belief in guardian spirits is found worldwide and has a long history. Such spirits may be thought to dwell in rocks, rivers, or trees; others are...

Guardian, The
British newspaper, established as a weekly in 1821 and which started appearing daily in 1855. Formerly the Manchester Guardian, it was founded to `advocate the cause of reform` and `fight...

Guare, John
(1938) US dramatist. His stage plays include House of Blue Leaves (1971; winner of both an Obie and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for the Best American Play of 1970-71), and Six Degrees of...

Guareschi, Giovanni
(1909-1968) Italian author. His short stories feature the friendly feud between parish priest Don Camillo and the communist village mayor. ...

Guarini, Giovanni Battista
(1538-1612) Italian poet, author of a blank verse pastoral drama Il pastor fido/The Faithful Shepherd (1589). His other works include a comedy, lyric poems, and his Trattato della politica libertà/Treatise on...

Guarini, Giovanni Guarino
(1624-1683) Italian architect, mathematician, monk, and professor of philosophy and literature. He designed many baroque buildings in a late and complicated style, including the Accademia delle Scienze, the...

Guarino, Battista
(1434-1503) Italian humanist scholar and educator. He was the son of Guarino da Verona and he followed his father's footsteps in his native Ferrara, teaching Greek to scholars who came to him from...

Guatemala
Country in Central America, bounded north and northwest by Mexico, east by Belize and the Caribbean Sea, southeast by Honduras and El Salvador, and southwest by the Pacific Ocean. Government The...

Guccione, Bob
(1930) US publisher and editor-in-chief of Penthouse magazine. After an early career as a painter, Guccione founded Penthouse in London in 1965, to compete with US publisher Hugh Hefner's Playboy...

Guderian, Heinz Wilhelm
(1888-1954) German general in World War II. He created the Panzer (German `armour`) divisions that formed the ground spearhead of Hitler's Blitzkrieg attack strategy, achieving a significant breakthrough at...

Gudrun
In Norse mythology, the wife of Sigurd and later of Atli. She corresponds to Kriemhild in the Niebelungenlied. ...

Guei, Robert
(1941-2002) Côte d'Ivoire soldier and politician, military ruler 1999-2000. He led a military coup in December 1999 that ended four decades of rule by the Democratic Party of Côte d'Ivoire (PDCI). Guei had...

Guelph and Ghibelline
Rival parties in medieval Germany and Italy, which supported the papal party and the Holy Roman emperors respectively. They originated in the 12th century as partisans...

Guercino, Il
(1591-1666) Italian baroque painter. He was active chiefly in Rome. In his ceiling painting of Aurora (1621-23; Villa Ludovisi, Rome), the chariot-borne figure of Dawn rides across the heavens; the...

Guérin, Georges Maurice de
(1810-1839)...

Guernica
Large oil painting (3.5 m x 7.8 m/11 ft 5 in x 25 ft 6 in) by Pablo Picasso as a mural for the Spanish pavilion at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1937 (now in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte...

Guerrazzi
(1804-1873) Italian writer and patriot. His chief works are La battaglia di Benevento 1827, a historical novel;L'assedio di Firenze 1836, recounting the downfall of the republic of Florence;...

guerrilla
Irregular soldier fighting in a small, unofficial unit, typically against an established or occupying power, and engaging in sabotage, ambush, and the like, rather than pitched battles against an...

Guesde, Jules
(1845-1922) French socialist leader from the 1880s who espoused Marxism and revolutionary change. His movement, the Partie Ouvrier Français (French Workers' Party), was eventually incorporated in the...

Guess, George
US American Indian leader; see Sequoya. ...

Guest, Charlotte
(1812-1895) English scholar. She translated and edited several old Welsh manuscripts of which the best known was The Mabinogion 1838-49. This did much to stimulate interest in Celtic literature. She also...

Guevara, Fray Antonio de
(1480-1545) Spanish writer and historian. His best-known book is Libro áureo de Marco Aurelio/Golden Book of Marcus Aurelius (1528). First published anonymously and extremely popular in Spain and elsewhere...

Guffey, Joseph F(rank)
(1870-1959) US politician. A strong supporter of Woodrow Wilson, he financed Wilson's 1919 national speaking tour. A Democrat representing Pennsylvania, he was elected to the US Senate (1935-47), where he...

Guggenheim Museum
Museum of modern art. Founded by Solomon R Guggenheim, it opened in 1937 in New York and in 1959 moved to a highly original building on 5th Avenue, designed by US architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Its...

Guggenheim, Peggy
(1896-1979) US art patron. Born into a family of wealthy industrialists, she was educated in Paris, where during the 1920s and 1930s she collected works by avant-garde artists such as Pablo Picasso, Vasily...

Guggenheim, Simon
(1867-1941) US business executive and philanthropist. He worked for his father's large mining and metal-processing firm, eventually becoming president of the American Smelting and Refining Company...

Guglielmi, Louis (O)
(1906-1956) Egyptian-born US painter. His painting of people under a glass bell in the desolate streets of New York, Terror in Brooklyn (1941), is typical of his combination of surrealism and social...

Guicciardini, Francesco
(1483-1540) Italian historian and statesman. His major work Storia d'Italia/History of Italy (1561) - covering events from the first French invasion to the death of Pope Clement VII (in other words...

Guidi, Alessandro
(1650-1712) Italian poet. He is essentially a lyric poet specializing in occasional poems; he also wrote numerous dramas. ...

Guido da Siena
(lived 13th century) Italian painter. A forerunner of Duccio di Buoninsegna and the Sienese School, he worked in the Byzantine style. The date 1221 appears on a Madonna signed by him in the Palazzo Pubblico (town hall),...

Guido, Reni
Italian painter, see Reni. ...

Guienne
Ancient province of southwestern France which formed the duchy of Aquitaine with Gascony in the 12th century. Its capital was Bordeaux. It became English 1154 and passed to France 1453. ...

guild
Medieval association, particularly of artisans or merchants, formed for mutual aid and protection and the pursuit of a common purpose, whether religious or economic. Guilds became politically...

Guilday, Peter (Keenan)
(1884-1947) US Catholic priest and historian. He taught at Catholic University (from 1914), and was principal editor of the Catholic Historical Review (from 1915), and cofounder of the American Catholic...

Guildhall
Council hall of the Corporation (governing body) of the City of London, England. The Great Hall of the present building dates from 1954, designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, and is the venue for...

Guilford, Battle of
In the costly British victory March 1781 over American forces at Guilford Court House, a few miles northwest of what is now Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Lord Cornwallis' force of 1,300 British...

Guillaume de Lorris
(lived c. 1235) French poet. He wrote the first 4,058 lines of the allegorical poem Roman de la Rose which, completed about 40 years later by Jean de Meung, is one...

Guillaume de Poitiers
(1071-1127) French poet, the earliest known troubadour. Eleven of his poems remain, some bawdy, some refined and courtly. ...