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

Halloween
Evening of 31 October, immediately preceding the Christian feast of All Hallows or All Saints' Day. Customs associated with Halloween in the USA and the UK include children wearing masks or...

Hallowell, Alfred Irving
(1892-1974) US cultural anthropologist who studied the Chippewa Indians. He published many studies of the native peoples and made an important contribution to culture-and-personality theory. His Culture and...

Hallowes, Odette Marie Celine
(1912-1995) French-born war heroine. From 1942 she worked as a British agent in German-occupied France. She was captured, tortured, and sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp. In 1945 she escaped. Her...

Hallstatt
Archaeological site in Upper Austria, southwest of Salzburg. The salt workings date from prehistoric times. In 1846 over 3,000 graves were discovered belonging to a 9th-5th century BC Celtic...

Hallstein, Walter
(1901-1982) German lawyer and international administrator. He was president of the Commission of the European Economic Community (1958-67). He was educated at the universities of Bonn, Munich, and Berlin. He...

Hallue River, Battle of
Battle of the Franco-Prussian War 23-24 December 1870 on a bend of the Hallue River 8 km/5 mi northeast of Amiens. Citizen armies had been raised all over France since the siege of Paris and the...

halo
Radiance encircling the heads of saints and holy persons in art. It is also called an aureole, especially when surrounding the whole figure. It may have originated in Egyptian art, where the Sun god...

Halonen, Tarja Kaarina
(1943) Finnish politician and president 2000-â€Æ`. A Social Democrat and former foreign minister and trade union lawyer, she was elected to be Finland's first woman president in February 2000. Halonen, a...

Halpert, Edith Gregor
(1900-1970) Russian-born US art dealer and collector. She worked in banking, and as a reorganizer of department stores before opening the Downtown Gallery of Contemporary Art with her husband, Samuel Halpert,...

Halprin, Lawrence
(1916) US landscape architect and writer. A disciple of Thomas Church, he founded his West coast firm in 1949, focusing on people's `spatial experience` of open areas and redesigning urban spaces like...

Hals, Frans
(c. 1581-1666) Flemish-born painter. The pioneer in the Dutch school of free, broad brushwork, he painted directly on to the canvas to create portraits that are spontaneous and full of life. His work includes...

Halsey, William Frederick
(1882-1959) US admiral. A highly skilled naval air tactician, his handling of carrier fleets in World War II played a significant role in the eventual defeat of Japan. He was appointed commander of US Task...

Ham House
Jacobean-style house near Petersham, Greater London, England, situated on the south bank of the Thames and owned by the National Trust. It was built in 1660 to an H-shaped Jacobean plan, and is...

hamadryad
In Greek mythology, a nymph who inhabits a tree. ...

Hamaguchi, Osachi (or Y?ko)
(1870-1931) Japanese politician, prime minister 1929-30. His policies created social unrest and alienated military interests. His acceptance of the terms of the London Naval Agreement...

hamam
In Islamic architecture, a bath house, either public or private. ...

Hamann, Johann Georg
(1730-1788) German author. He stressed the irrational in life, and greatly influenced Goethe and the Sturm und Drang movement. The obscurity of his writings earned him the name `Magus of the North`. He...

Hamas
Islamic fundamentalist organization formally founded by Sheikh Yassin Ahmed in 1988. Its militant wing, the Izzedine Al Qassam Brigades, played a major role...

hamasa
Title of several anthologies of Arabic poetry and, in particular, a collection compiled by abu-Tammam (807-c. 845), divided into ten books. This collection is of great historical value, and is...

Hamburger, Michael (Peter Leopold)
(1924-2007) German-born British poet, translator, and critic. He emigrated with his family to London in 1933, and began to write poetry in English while still at school. His verse was first published in Later...

Hamdi, Ibrahim Muhammad
(born 1943) Yemeni officer and politician. As deputy chief of staff he led a military coup against the government of Qadi Iryani in June 1974. He served in the armed forces from 1962. ...

Hamer, Fannie Lou
(1918-1977) US civil-rights leader. In 1962, she began work for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s she campaigned for voter registration and desegregation of...

Hamerling, Robert
(1839-1889) Austrian poet. In 1860 he published his first volume of lyrics, Sinnen und Minnen, which was followed by Amor und Psyche 1882 and Blätter im Winde 1887. Ahasverus in Rom 1866, and Der König von...

Hamilcar Barca
(died 229 BC) Carthaginian general, the father of Hannibal the Great. Hamilcar rose to prominence in 249 BC at the first Battle of Eryx, during the later stages of the First Punic War. He negotiated the peace...

Hamilton
Family name of the dukes of Abercorn. The family's seat is at Barons Court, County Tyrone. The 3rd duke was the great-grandfather of Diana, Princess of Wales. ...

Hamilton, Alexander
(1757-1804) US politician who influenced the adoption of a constitution with a strong central government and was the first secretary of the Treasury 1789-95. He led the Federalist Party, and incurred the...

Hamilton, Andrew
(c. 1676-1741) US lawyer and legislator. After settling in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he became attorney general and served in the colony's general assembly (1727-39). A man of many talents, he helped design...

Hamilton, Anthony
(c. 1646-1720) Irish-born French author. He wrote the Mémoires of his brother-in-law, the comte de Gramont, which gave an admirable picture of the court of Charles II of England and were published...

Hamilton, Anthony Walter Patrick
(1904-1962) English novelist and playwright. His early novels include Monday Morning 1923 and the trilogy Twenty Thousand Streets under the Sky 1935; later novels include Hangover Square 1941 and The Slaves of...

Hamilton, Charles
(1913-1998) US autograph authority. He established Charles Hamilton Galleries, Inc, in New York City in 1963, the first US auction gallery devoted exclusively to autographs. He wrote numerous books, including...

Hamilton, Charles (Memorial)
(1840-1875) US politician. A lawyer, he enlisted in the Union army in 1861 and went with the military government to Florida in 1865, serving as a Republican representative (1868-71), once Florida was...

Hamilton, Edith
(1867-1963) German-born US educator and classical scholar. She is best remembered as a collector and translator of ancient myths. Her anthologies Mythology (1942) and The Great Age of Greek Literature (1943)...

Hamilton, Elizabeth
(1758-1816) Scottish writer. Her works include Letters of a Hindoo Rajah 1796, Memoirs of Modern Philosophers 1801 (a satire on the enthusiasts of the French Revolution), Life of Agrippina 1804, and The...

Hamilton, Emma, Lady
(c. 1761-1815) English courtesan. In 1782 she became the mistress of Charles Greville and in 1786 of his uncle Sir William Hamilton (1730-1803), the British envoy to the court of Naples, who married her in 1791....

Hamilton, Gavin
(1723-1798) Scottish painter and antiquary who worked in Rome. He conducted excavations at Hadrian's villa at Tivoli and at Civita Vecchia. As a painter he produced large historical works in a neoclassical...

Hamilton, Ian Standish Monteith
(1853-1947) Scottish general. He was chief of staff and deputy to Lord Kitchener, commander-in-chief in the second South African War. In 1915 he directed the land operations in Gallipoli, Turkey, but was...

Hamilton, James
(1606-1649) Scottish adviser to Charles I. He led an army against the Covenanters (supporters of the National Covenant of 1638 to establish Presbyterianism) in 1639 and subsequently took part in the...

Hamilton, Mary Agnes
(1884-1966) English novelist and biographer. Her novels include Dead Yesterdays 1916, Murder in the House of Commons 1931, and Life Sentence 1935. She also wrote lives of Ramsay Macdonald 1925, Margaret...

Hamilton, Neil
(1949) British Conservative politician who was found to be corrupt by a high-court judge in December 1999. Hamilton had attempted to clear his name after t ...

Hamilton, Patrick
(c. 1504-1528) Scottish preacher. He was called the protomartyr of the Scottish Reformation and was burned at the stake on 29 February 1528. He was educated in Paris and at Aberdeen University. His Lutheran...

Hamilton, Richard
(1922) English artist, a pioneer of pop art. His collage Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing? (1956; Kunsthalle, Tübingen, Germany) is often cited as the first pop-art...

Hamilton, Thomas
(1953-1996) Scottish murderer who entered the gym of a primary school in Dunblane, Scotland, in March 1996 and shot dead 16 children and a teacher and injured many other children. Hamilton shot and killed...

Hamlet
Tragedy by William Shakespeare, first performed in 1601-02. Hamlet, after much hesitation, avenges the murder of his father, the king of Denmark, by the king's brother Claudius, who has married...

Hamlin, Hannibal
(1809-1891) US political leader and vice-president 1861-65. Originally a Democrat, he served in the US House of Representatives 1843-47 and the US Senate 1848-61. Opposed to slavery, he joined the...

Hamlin, Talbot (Faulkner)
(1889-1956) US architect and architectural historian. He was a practising architect (1914-34) and Columbia University professor of architectural theory (1916-54). His writings, which included The American...

Hammerton, John Alexander
(1871-1949) Scottish editor and critic. He edited various books and magazines in London as well as many works of reference published in fortnightly or weekly parts, including the...

Hammett, (Samuel) Dashiell
(1894-1961) US crime novelist. He introduced the `hard-boiled` detective character into fiction and attracted a host of imitators, with works including The Maltese Falcon (1930, filmed 1941), The Glass...

Hammon, Jupiter
(1711-1806) US writer and poet. His first published poem, `An Evening Thought` (1761), preceded the work of Phyllis Wheatley by six years, thus earning him the distinction of being the first...

Hammond, John Lawrence Le Breton
(1872-1949) English journalist and author. He was successively editor of the Speaker and a leader-writer on the Tribune, the Daily News, and the Manchester Guardian. His works on industrial history include...

Hammond, Robert
(1621-1654) English soldier. He was colonel of a regiment of foot in the New Model Army. In the struggle between the army and the Parliament in 1647, Hammond supported...

Hammurabi
(died c. 1750 BC) Sixth ruler of the first dynasty of Babylon, reigned 1792-1750 or 1728-1686 BC. He united his country and took it to the height of its power. He authorized a legal code, of which a copy was...

Hamond, Andrew Snape
(1738-1828) English naval captain. After distinguishing himself during the American War of Independence, in 1780 he was appointed governor of Nova Scotia and commander-in-chief at Halifax. In 1794 he became...

Hamp, Pierre
(1876-1962) French novelist. His novels deal with aspects of working-class life and include Marée fraîche 1908, Le Rail 1912, Les Métiers blessés 1919, La Victoire mécanicienne 1920, Le Lin 1924. The...

Hampden, John
(1594-1643) English politician. His refusal in 1636 to pay ship money, a compulsory tax levied to support the navy, made him a national figure. In the Short and Long Parliaments he proved himself a skilful...

Hampshire, Stuart
(1914-2004) English philosopher. In 1970 he became Warden of Wadham College, Oxford. In his best-known work, Thought and Action (1959), he argued, against Descartes, that awareness of selfhood requires that a...

Hampton Court Conference
A conference of the Anglican Church held at Hampton Court Palace near London in 1604. Presided over by King James I, its aim was to consider the objections Puritans had raised to certain Anglican...

Hampton Court Gallery
Picture collection in Hampton Court Palace, London. It contains works from Charles I's and later royal collections, including Andrea Mantegna's nine Triumphs of Caesar. It also contains Peter Lely's...

Hampton Court Palace
Former royal residence near Richmond, England, 24 km/15 mi west of central London. Hampton Court is one of the greatest historical monuments in the UK, and contains some of the finest examples of...

Hampton Roads, Battle of
The first battle between armoured warships, known as ironclads; an inconclusive naval engagement in the American Civil War between the Confederate Merrimack and the Union battleship Monitor 8 March...

Hampton, Mark
(1940) US interior decorator. A graduate of New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, he established his own New York City practice in 1976. His historical re-creations brought commissions to restore...

Hampton, Wade
(1818-1902) US politician and Confederate military leader. During the American Civil War 1861-65, he was appointed brigadier general in the cavalry 1862 and commander of the entire Confederate cavalry corps...

Hampton, Wade
(1751-1835) US soldier and politician. He fought in the American Revolution and afterwards served two terms in Congress. Reentering the army in 1808, Hampton received a share of blame for the failed US...

Hamsun, Knut
(1859-1952) Norwegian novelist. His first novel Sult/Hunger (1890) was largely autobiographical. Other works include Pan (1894) and Markens gr&osla;de/The Growth of the Soil (1917). He was the first of many...

Han
The majority ethnic group in China, numbering about 990 million. The Hans speak a wide variety of dialects of the same monosyllabic language, a member of the Sino-Tibetan family. Their religion...

Han dynasty
Chinese ruling family from 206 BC to AD 220 established by Liu Bang (256-195 BC) after he overthrew the Qin dynasty, and named after the Han River. There was territorial expansion to the west,...

Hanbury-Tenison, (Airling) Robin
(1936) Irish adventurer, explorer, and writer who made the first land crossing of South America at its widest point in 1958. In 1969 he became chair of Survival International, an organization campaigning...

Hancock, John
(1737-1793) US politician and a leader of the American Revolution. As president of the Continental Congress 1775-77, he was the first to sign the Declaration of Independence of 1776. Because he signed it in a...

Hancock, Sheila
(1933) English actor. Following popular acclaim as shop treasurer Carole in the television sitcom The Rag Trade (1961-62), she appeared in several series, such as Brighton Belles (1993-94) and The...

Hancock, Winfield Scott
(1824-1886) US soldier with the Union forces in the Civil War. At the outbreak of the Civil War 1861, he was appointed brigadier general of volunteers, and fought with distinction at Williamsburg,...

hand grenade
See grenade. ...

hand-loom weavers
Textile workers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries who used manually operated machines often as `out-workers`. They were in great demand and relatively highly paid until the advent of...

Hand, Augustus Noble
(1869-1954) US jurist. He was appointed a US district judge by President Woodrow Wilson for the Southern District of New York in 1914, where he served with his cousin, the jurist Learned Hand. Elected to the US...

Hand, Learned Billings
(1872-1961) US jurist. He became federal district judge under President Taft in 1909 and was appointed to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals by President Coolidge in 1924. He served as chief judge of that...

Handke, Peter
(1942) Austrian novelist and dramatist. His first play, Publikumsbeschimpfung/Insulting the Audience (1966), was an example of `anti-theatre writing`, in which four actors tell the audience that they...

Handlin, Oscar
(1915) US historian. His doctoral thesis, Boston's Immigrants 1790-1865 (1941), updated as The Uprooted (1951), won a Pulitzer Prize and established him as an authority on immigration. With his wife,...

Handsome Lake
(1735-1815) American Indian religious leader, belonging to the Seneca people, who preached a combination of Christianity and indigenous traditions. Handsome Lake became a typical victim of the arrival of white...

Hanfmann, George M(axim) A(nossov)
(1911-1988) Russian-born archaeologist. His monumental text, The Seasons Sarcophagus at Dumbarton Oaks (1951), was a seminal work in the iconography of ancient sarcophagi. He was the director of the...

hanging
Execution by suspension, usually with a drop of 0.6-2 m/2-6 ft, so that the powerful jerk of the tightened rope breaks the neck. This was once a common form of Hanging Gardens of Babylon
In antiquity, gardens at Babylon, the capital of Mesopotamia, considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World. According to legend, King Nebuchadnezzar constructed the gardens in the 6th century BC...

Hani, Chris (Martin Thembisile)
(1942-1993) South African communist and anti-apartheid activist; leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe (the military wing of the African National Congress (ANC)) from 1987 and secretary general of the South African...

Hanke, Lewis Ulysses
(1905-1993) US historian. Often credited with establishing Latin American history as a viable academic discipline in the USA, his international reputation is reflected by his numerous international honorary...

Hanna, Edward (Joseph)
(1860-1944) US Catholic prelate. Following his studies and ordination in Rome, Italy, he taught classics and theology, before being named named auxiliary bishop (1912) and then bishop (1915) of San Francisco,...

Hanna, Mark (Marcus Alonzo)
(1837-1904) US politician. A Republican, he supported James Garfield in his presidential campaign 1880. He served in the US Senate 1896-1904 and, as chair of the Republican National Committee, engineered...

Hannibal
(247-182 BC) Carthaginian general from 221 BC, son of Hamilcar Barca. His siege of Saguntum (now Sagunto, near Valencia) precipitated the Second ...

Hanno
(lived late 6th century BC) Carthaginian navigator. The surviving work Periplus attributed to him is believed by some to be a Greek translation of the Punic original that Hanno is known to have written. It describes a voyage...

Hanno
(lived 3rd century BC) Carthaginian general and politician. In 240 BC he caused a revolt of mercenaries by withholding their pay. He was the political leader of the aristocratic party and the principal adversary of the...

Hannover
German fighter aircraft made by the Hannoverische Wagenfabrik from 1917. A two-seater biplane, the Hannover CLII, was also used for ground attack and as an escort for bombers. Improved as the...

Hanotaux, Albert Auguste Gabriel
(1853-1944) French statesman and historian. He attracted the attention of French politician Léon Gambetta with an article in La Republique française, obtaining a post in the Foreign Office, and later in the...

Hanover, House of
German royal dynasty that ruled Great Britain and Ireland from 1714 to 1901. Under the Act of Settlement of 1701, the succession passed to the ruling family of Hannover, Germany, on the death of...

Hanratty, James
(1936-1962) Alleged English murderer. He was found guilty of the murder of Michael Gregsten, who was shot while in his car with his lover, Valerie Storie, in August 1961. After Hanratty was hanged in April...

Hansa-Brandenburg
German seaplanes, the most popular floatplanes with the German Navy in World War I. They continued in use after the war, and the chief designer, Ernst Heinkel, become famous as a manufacturer of...

Hansard
Official report of the proceedings of the British Houses of Parliament, named after Luke Hansard (1752-1828), printer of the House of Commons Journal from 1774. It is published by Her Majesty's...

Hansberry, Lorraine
(1930-1965) US playwright. Her first play, A Raisin in the Sun 1959, marked the emergence of black writers as a major force in the US theatre of the 1960s. Her second, The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, was...

Hanseatic League
Confederation of northern European trading cities from the 12th century to 1669. At its height in the late 14th century the Hanseatic League included over 160 cities and towns, among them Lübeck,...

Hansel and Gretel
Folk tale of a brother and sister abandoned by their destitute parents and taken in by a witch who lives in a gingerbread cottage. She plans to fatten up Hansel for eating, but is tricked by Gretel,...

Hansell, Haywood Shepherd, Jr
(1903-1988) US aviator. One of a group of officers that believed air power alone could win a war, he reported on the German Blitz from London and later, commanding B-17s, participated in the bombing campaign...

Hansen, Alvin Harvey
(1887-1975) US economist. He was instrumental in promoting Keynesian economic theory in the USA. During his years at Harvard University (1937-57), he also served as an adviser to the Council on Social...

Hansen, Hans Christian
(1906-1960) Danish politician. He trained as a compositor and became prominent in the Social Democratic party. Hansen was party secretary (1939-41, 1945), and chairman of the Socialist Youth International...

Hansen, Marcus Lee
(1892-1938) US historian. His study of cross-Atlantic immigration took him to European archives (1925-27), and his data on the ethnic composition of the USA in 1790 was used in formulating immigration...

Hansen, Martin Alfred
(1909-1955) Danish novelist and essayist. His early novels, including Jonathans Rejse/Jonathan's Journey 1941 and Lykkelige Kristoffer/Lucky Christopher 1945, are full of creative fantasy. A feeling of guilt...