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

Hedge, Frederic Henry
(1805-1890) US Unitarian clergyman and translator. He edited the Christian Examiner (1857-61) and taught at Harvard Divinity School (1857-76). His translation of Goethe's Faust appeared in 1882. Hedge was...

Hedin, Sven Anders
(1865-1952) Swedish archaeologist, geographer, and explorer in central Asia and China. Between 1891 and 1908 he explored routes across the Himalayas and produced the first maps of Tibet. During 1928-33 he...

hedonic calculus
Another term for felicific calculus, a technique in ethics. ...

hedonism
Ethical theory that pleasure or happiness is, or should be, the main goal in life. Hedonist sects in ancient Greece were the Cyrenaics, who held that the pleasure of the moment is the only human...

Hedwig, St
(1174-1243) East European religious leader. She was married at the age of 12 to the duke of Silesia, to whom she bore seven children. She and her husband did much to foster religious life in...

Heem, Jan Davidsz. de
(1606-c. 1683) Dutch still-life painter. He specialized in very rich and elaborate paintings of flowers or fruit, and he had many pupils and imitators. He was the son of David de Heem (1570-1632), a...

Heemskerk, Maerten Jacobsz van
(1498-1574) Dutch painter. Strongly influenced by Italian art of the early 16th century, he painted portraits and religious subjects such as St Luke Painting the Likeness of the Virgin and Child (Frans Hals...

Heenan, John Carmel
(1905-1975) English cardinal. He was ordained in 1930 and worked as a curate and parish priest in the East End of London, England, until 1947, when he became superior of t ...

Heere, Lucas de
(1534-1584) Flemish painter and designer. Born in Ghent, de Heere was taught by Frans Floris and he, in turn, taught Carel van Heffer, Eric Samuel
(1922-1991) British Labour politician, member of Parliament for Walton, Liverpool 1964-91. He held a ministerial post 1974-75, joined Michael Foot's shadow cabinet in 1981, and was regularly elected to...

Heflin, James (Thomas)
(1869-1951) US politician. A lawyer and state representative, he filled vacancies in the US House of Representatives as a Democrat representative of Alabama (1904-20) and the Senate (1920-31), afterward...

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
(1770-1831) German philosopher who conceived of mind and nature as two abstractions of one indivisible whole, Spirit. His system, which is a type of idealism, traces the emergence...

hegemony
Political dominance of one power over others in a group in which all are supposedly equal. The term was first used for the dominance of Athens over the other Greek city states, later applied to...

Hegira
Flight of the prophet Muhammad (see Hijrah). ...

Hehe
Member of a Bantu-speaking people of Tanzania. In 1905 the Hehe revolted against the brutality of the German colonialists, and were severely crushed. The revolt was known as Maji-maji...

Heian
In Japanese history, the period 794-1185, from the foundation of Kyoto as the new capital to the seizure of power by the Minamoto clan. The cut-off date may also be given as 1186, 1192, or 1200....

Heiberg, Johan Ludvig
(1791-1860) Danish dramatist, poet, and critic. He was director of the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen 1849-56, and an influential drama critic. He introduced French vaudeville to the Danish theatre. His works...

Heidegger, Martin
(1889-1976) German philosopher. He believed that Western philosophy had `forgotten` the fundamental question of the `meaning of being` and, in Sein und Zeit/Being and Time (1927), analysed the different...

Heidelberg man
Early hominid (member of the human family), 400,000-700,000 years old. Its existence is known from a fossil discovered near Heidelberg, Germany in 1907. Based on the age of the fossil, Heidelberg...

Heidelberg School
Group of Australian Impressionist artists (including Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, and Charles Conder) working near the village of Heidelberg in Melbourne in the 1880s-90s. The school had its most...

Heidenstam, Verner von
(1859-1940) Swedish poet and prose writer. His verse, Vallfart och vandringsÃÂ¥r/Pilgrimage and Years of Wandering (1888), Dikter/Poems (1895), and Nya Dikter/New Poems (1915), abounds in colour, exoticism, and...

Heidi
Novel for children by the Swiss writer Johanna Spyri (1827-1901), published 1881 in Germany. Heidi, an orphan girl, shares a simple life with her grandfather high on a mountain, bringing happiness...

Heijermans, Herman
(1864-1924) Dutch author and dramatist. He also used the pseudonym Samuel Falkland. His international reputation is as the author of naturalist tragedies, exposing exploitation in the fisheries with Op hoop van...

Heike
Alternative name for Taira, an ancient Japanese clan. ...

Heike monogatari
Japanese chronicle, written down in the 14th century but based on oral legend describing events that took place 200 years earlier, recounting the struggle for control of the country between the...

Heilbron, Rose
(1914-2005) English judge. Appointed recorder of Burnley in 1956, she became the first woman recorder in the UK. In 1974 she was made a judge of the High Court in the Family Division. She chaired the home...

Heilbrun, Carolyn
(1926) US writer (under the pen-name Amanda Cross) and teacher. She published scholarly works, but is best known as a writer of popular mystery novels featuring Kate Fansler, also an urban college...

Heilmann, Harry (Edwin)
(1894-1951) US baseball player. During his 17-year career as an outfielder for the Detroit Tigers and Cincinnati Reds (1914-32), he posted a lifetime batting average of .342. One of the first players to...

Heilprin, Angelo
(1853-1907) Hungarian-born US geologist, palaeontologist, traveller, and explorer. He accompanied Robert Peary on his Arctic expedition of 1891. In 1902 he photographed the Mont Pelée volcano at close range...

Heilprin, Michael
(1823-1888) Polish-born US scholar and encyclopedist. He was engaged in 1858 to work on the New American Cyclopaedia, and this thorough revision of the American Cyclopaedia (1872-76) owes much to his...

Heimdall
In Norse mythology, the god of light and sentinel of the gods. Present at the creation of the world, it was believed that he would also usher in the twilight of...

Heine, Heinrich (Christian Johann)
(1797-1856) German Romantic poet and journalist. He wrote Reisebilder (1826-31), blending travel writing and satire, and Das Buch der Lieder/The Book of Songs (1827). Disillusioned by undercurrents of...

Heinemann, Gustav
(1899-1976) German politician and lawyer. From 1946 he was lord mayor of Essen, Germany, until, in 1949, he became minister of the Interior (1949-50). He was a founder member of the Christian Democratic...

Heinlein, Robert A(nson)
(1907-1988) US science fiction writer. Associated with the pulp magazines of the 1940s, he wrote the militaristic novel Starship Troopers (1959) and the utopian cult novel Stranger in a Strange Land (1961). His...

Heinsius, Anthony
(1641-1720) Dutch statesman and confidential agent of William of Orange. In 1688 he was grand pensionary of Holland and guided Dutch politics until his death. He was an implacable enemy of France and, after...

Heintz, Joseph
(1564-1609) Swiss painter and draughtsman. He trained in Basle, Switzerland, and finished his artistic education in Italy - in Rome about 1584-87 and Venice 1587-91. In 1591 Heintz was called to the court...

Heizer, Robert F(leming)
(1915-1979) US archaeologist and anthropologist. A pioneer in ecologically-oriented archaeology, he taught at the University of California, Berkeley (1946-75). He was a leading authority on pre-Columbian...

Hekmatyar, Gulbuddin
(1949) Afghani leader of the Mujahedin (Islamic fundamentalist guerrillas), prime minister 1993-94 and 1996. Strongly anticommunist and leading the Hezb-i-Islami (Islamic Party) faction, he resisted...

Hel
In Norse mythology, the goddess of the land of the dead, also named Hel or Niflheim, a northern region of ice, snow, and perpetual darkness and the lowest level of the Nine Worlds. Her realm was the...

Held, John, Jr
(1889-1958) US cartoonist, illustrator, and sculptor. He sold his first cartoon to Life magazine while still an adolescent. He worked for the Salt Lake City Tribune before moving (1912) to New York City to...

Helen
In Greek mythology, the most beautiful of women; daughter of Leda and Zeus (transformed as a swan). She was abducted as a young girl by Theseus, but rescued by her brothers Castor and Pollux (Greek...

Helena, St
(c. 248-c. 328) Roman empress, mother of Constantine the Great, and a convert to Christianity. According to legend, she discovered the true cross of Jesus in Jerusalem. Her feast day is 18 August. ...

Helenus
In Greek mythology, a Trojan who had prophetic powers. He went over to the Greek side (or was captured by Odysseus) during the Trojan War and revealed to the Greeks that Troy could only be taken...

Heliade-Radulescu, Ion
(1802-1872) Romanian writer, linguist, and translator. He helped to found Societatea literara (the Literary Society) in 1826 and three years later brought out the first journal in Wallachia (now part of...

Heliand, The
Ninth-century Old Saxon alliterative poem on the life of Christ, based on Tatian's Diatessaron. The Heliand and fragments of a version of the story of Genesis are all that survive of Old Saxon...

Helicon
Mountain in central Greece, on which was situated a spring and a sanctuary sacred to the Muses. ...

Heligoland Bight, Battle of
World War I naval battle between British and German forces 28 August 1914 fought in the Heligoland Bight, the stretch of water between Heligoland island and the German mainland used by the German...

Heliodorus
Ancient Greek novelist, born at Emesa, Syria. His Aethiopica (in ten books), a romance set in Delphi and Egypt, is generally considered the best of...

Heliogabalus
Alternative form of Elagabalus, Roman emperor from 218. ...

Heliopolis
Ancient Egyptian centre (the biblical On) of the worship of the sun god Ra, northeast of Cairo and near the village of Matariah. Heliopolis was also the Greek name for Baalbek. ...

Helios
In Greek mythology, the god of the Sun; a Titan who drove the Sun's chariot across the sky. He was the father of Phaethon, who almost set the Earth alight. From the 5th century BC, Helios was...

hell
In various religions, a place of punishment after death. In Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, hell is a transitory stage in the progress of the soul, but in Christian ...

Hell-Fire Club
18th-century club devoted to hedonism and debauchery established by Sir Francis Dashwood (1708-1781) in the village of Medmenham, Buckinghamshire, England. The club reputedly engaged in wild...

Helladic periods
Related to the Bronze Age cultures of mainland Greece, they are divided into Early (c. 3000-2000 BC), Middle (c. 2000-1550 BC), and Late (c. 1550-1050 BC). The Late phase is equated with the...

Helle
In Greek mythology, the daughter of Athamas, King of Thessaly, and sister of Phryxes. She and her brother ran away from Ino, their cruel stepmother, on a ram with a ...

Hellene
Alternative name for a Greek. ...

Hellenic period
(From Hellas, Greek name for Greece) classical period of ancient Greek civilization, from the first Olympic Games in 776 BC until the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC. ...

Hellenist
Person interested in and influenced by Greek culture. ...

Hellenistic period
Period in Greek civilization from the death of Alexander in 323 BC until the accession of the Roman emperor Augustus in 27 BC. Alexandria in Egypt was the centre of culture and commerce during this...

Hellenotamiae
In ancient Greece, the treasurers of the Delian League. There were ten of them, elected annually by the people of Athens, and subject to the directions of the Athenian...

Heller, Joseph
(1923-1999) US novelist. He drew on his experiences in the US air force in World War II to write his best-selling Catch-22 (1961), satirizing war, the conspiracy...

Heller, Maximilian
(1860-1929) Czech-born US rabbi. He was rabbi of Temple Sinai in New Orleans, Louisiana (1887-1927). A leader in Reform Judaism and an early Zionist, he was professor of Hebrew language and literature at...

Hellman, Lillian Florence
(1907-1984) US dramatist. Her work is concerned with contemporary political and social issues. The Children's Hour (1934) on accusations of lesbianism, The Little Foxes (1939) on industrialists, and Toys in the...

helmet
Protective utilitarian head covering, often with a strap that goes under the chin. It is worn for activities where the head might be damaged, such as building work, horse riding, motorcycling, or by...

Helms, Jesse
(1921) US Republican senator. Born in Monroe, North Carolina, he attended Wingate College and Wake Forest College and served in the US navy 1942-45. He was administrative assistant to US senator Willis...

Helms, Richard McGarrah
(1913-2002) US director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 1966-73, when he was dismissed by President Nixon. In 1977 he was convicted of lying before a congressional committee because his oath as chief...

Héloïse
(1101-1164) Abbess of Paraclete in Champagne, France, correspondent and lover of Abelard. She became deeply interested in intellectual study in her youth and was impressed by the brilliance of Abelard, her...

helot
Member of a class of serfs in ancient Messenia and Sparta who were probably the indigenous inhabitants. Their cruel treatment by the Spartans became proverbial. ...

Helps, Arthur
(1813-1875) English essayist and historian. Essays Written in the Intervals of Business appeared 1841, Friends in Council 1847-59, and Conversations on War and General Culture 1871. On history he wrote The...

Helsinki Conference
International meeting in 1975 at which 35 countries, including the USSR and the USA, attempted to reach agreement on cooperation in security, economics, science, technology, and human rights. This...

Helst, Bartholomeus van der
(1613-1670) Dutch portrait painter. His smoothly painted, well-composed works were very successful in his time. The large group Banquet of the Burgher Guard 1648 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)...

Helvetia
Region, corresponding to western Switzerland, occupied by the Celtic Helvetii 1st century BC-5th century AD. In 58 BC Caesar repulsed their invasion of southern Gaul at Bibracte (near Autun) and...

Helvetic Confessions
Two confessions of faith (1536, 1562), drawn up by the Reformed Church in Switzerland. The First Helvetic Confession was compiled by ...

Helvetius, Claude Adrien
(1715-1771) French philosopher. In De l'Esprit (1758) he argued, following David Hume, that self-interest, however disguised, is the mainspring of all human action and that, since conceptions of good and evil...

hem
Lower edge of textile and fabric items, such as clothing and curtains, which is folded over and sewn so as not to fray. When properly sewn, the hem is virtually invisible on the right...

Hemans, Felicia Dorothea
(1793-1835) English poet. Her works ran into numerous editions, much read by Victorian young ladies. They include The Forest Sanctuary (1825), Records of Woman (1828), and Songs of the Affections (1830). Her...

Heminge (or Hemmings), John
(1556-1630) English actor. He was a member of Richard Burbage's company and later his business manager. He held several shares in the Globe and Blackfriars playhouses. He and his fellow actor John Condell (died...

Hemingford (or Hemingburgh), Walter
(died c. 1347) English chronicler and sub-prior of St Mary's, Gisburn, Yorkshire. His De Gestis Regum Angliae extends from 1066 to 1346. ...

Hemingway, Ernest (Miller)
(1899-1961) US writer. War, bullfighting, and fishing are used symbolically in his work to represent honour, dignity, and primitivism - prominent themes in his short stories and novels, which include A...

Hemon, Louis
(1880-1913) French novelist. He is best known for Maria Chapdelaine 1916, based on his experiences among the settlers of French Canada. Among his other works, also published posthumously, are the tales La belle...

Hempel, Carl Gustav
(1905-1997) German-born US philosopher. He taught at Queens College (1940-48), Yale University (1948-55), and Princeton University (1955-73). In 1973 he became emeritus professor at Princeton, and from...

Hemy, Charles Napier
(1841-1917) English painter who specialized in marine subjects. He received his artistic training in Newcastle-on-Tyne, where he was born, and in Antwerp. He became a Royal Academician 1910. ...

Henault, Charles Jean François
(1685-1770) French historian, who wrote Abrege chronologique de l'histoire de France, first published anonymously in 1744, comprising in two volumes the whole history of France from the earliest times to the...

Henderson Field
Airfield established on Guadalcanal island during World War II; originally begun by the Japanese, it was completed by US forces 1942 and named after a US Marine major killed at the Battle of Midway....

Henderson, Alexander
(1583-1646) Scottish ecclesiastic. As he was forced upon his parish by Archbishop George Gladstanes, and was known to sympathize with episcopacy, his settlement was at first unpopular, but he changed his views...

Henderson, Archibald
(1785-1859) US marine officer. In a long career of mostly peacetime service he was commandant of marines from 1820 until his death, and oversaw important reforms in the corps' organization. Commissioned in...

Henderson, David (Bremner)
(1840-1906) Scottish-born US politician. A Republican congressman (1883-1903), he served as Speaker of the House for two terms (1899-1903). He fought for veterans' benefits and supported protective...

Henderson, Loy W(esley)
(1892-1986) US diplomat and educator. He worked for the Red Cross in Europe (1918-21) and entered the Foreign Service in 1922. He was ambassador to India (1948-50) and Iran (1951-55), and served as...

Henderson, Neville Meyrick
(1882-1942) British diplomat. Henderson is principally remembered for his services as ambassador to Germany from 1937 until September 1939 and thus for his close association with Neville Chamberlain's policy of...

Henderson, Richard
(1735-1785) US colonizer. A lawyer and an associate justice of the North Carolina Superior Court (1768-73), he retired from the legal profession to form a land development company, the Richard Henderson &...

Henderson, William Hannam
(1845-1931) British admiral. He served under Edmund Fremantle in the punitive expedition against the Sultan of Vitu in East Africa (1890). He was commodore and senior officer in Jamaica...

Hendrick, Burton Jesse
(1871-1949) US historian and biographer. He wrote on US history and won three Pulitzer Prizes. His later books include two on the Civil War, Statesmen of the Lost Cause 1939 and Lincoln's War Cabinet 1947,...

Heng Samrin
(1934) Cambodian politician, national leader 1981-91. A Khmer Rouge commander 1976-78, he became disillusioned with its brutal tactics. He led an unsuccessful coup against Pol Pot in 1978 and...

henge monument
Prehistoric ritual enclosure distinguished by a ditch inside or, more usually, outside a circular bank. Most henges belong to the early Bronze Age, and some are found with megaliths:stone circles,...

Hengist
(died c. 488) Legendary leader, with his brother Horsa, of the Jutes, who originated in Jutland and settled in Kent about 450, the first Anglo-Saxon settlers in Britain. ...

Henlein, Konrad
(1898-1945) Sudeten-German leader of the Sudeten Nazi Party in Czechoslovakia, and closely allied with Hitler's Nazis. He was partly responsible for the destabilization of the Czechoslovak state in 1938,...

Henley, William Ernest
(1849-1903) English poet, critic, and editor. His finest work is London Voluntaries 1893, a collection of unconventional but stimulating and challenging poems. He was a friend of Robert Louis Stevenson, with...

Henner, Jean Jacques
(1832-1905) French painter. One of the most successful Academy painters of his day, he was noted in particular for his portraits and his sensuous, allegorical nudes. Born in Bernwiller, Alsace, he was educated...

Hennique, Léon
(1851-1935) French writer. A follower of the Naturalist school of writers, his novels include La Dévouée 1878, Un Caractère 1889, L'Argent d'autrui 1893, and Minnie Brandon 1899. He also wrote plays, such as...

Hennock, Frieda B(arkin)
(1904-1960) Polish-born US lawyer and public official. The first female member of the Federal Communications Commission (1948-55), she worked to reserve television channels for educational programming. She...