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 The information may have been taken offline because it is outdated.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

Hermes, Gertrude
(1901-1983) English printmaker and sculptor. A highly skilled technical engraver, whose style is predominantly post-cubist, her works include the bronze Kathleen Raine (1954) and Ring Net Fishers (1955), both...

hermeticism
The belief that there is a secret, ancient body of wisdom, surviving in written texts of the 2nd-3rd centuries AD, which accurately describes the workings of the natural...

Hermetism
Beliefs based on a collection of mystical texts of the 2nd-3rd centuries AD, supposed to have been the work of Hermias
(lived 4th century BC) Alternative spelling of Hermeias, tyrant of Atarneus and Assos. ...

Hermione
In Greek mythology, the daughter of Menelaus and Helen, and wife to Neoptolemus and subsequently Orestes. ...

hermit
Person living in seclusion, generally practising asceticism for religious reasons. The Christian monastic movement developed as a way of organizing into communities the ascetic hermits living in the...

Hermogenes
(lived 2nd century) Greek rhetorician, a native of Tarsus and child prodigy. Sections of his Art of Speaking which survive are `On Legal Issues`, `On the Invention of Arguments`, `On the Various Kinds of...

Hermolaus
(lived 4th century BC) Attendant of Alexander the Great, against whose life he conspired 328 BC. The plot was discovered and Hermolaus was stoned to death. ...

Hermonthis
Ancient town of Kena province, Upper Egypt, on the left bank of the Nile, 13 km/8 mi south of Thebes. It was famous for its worship of Mont, the hawk-headed warrior god. The site includes the...

Hernández Colón, Rafael
(1936) Puerto Rican centrist politician, governor 1973-77 and 1985-93. Active as a Popular Democratic Party (PDP) politician in the 1960s, he served as president of the senate 1969-72. A...

Hernández Martínez, Maximiliano
(1883-1966) El Salvadorean dictator, president 1931-44 during the inter-war Depression. An admirer of fascist theories, he ruthlessly suppressed opposition, killing an estimated 45,000 peasants who had...

Hernandez, José
(1834-1886) Argentine poet and journalist. His epic poem El gaucho Martin Fierro/The Gaucho Martin Fierro 1878 tells of an outlawed cattle herder. A sequel, La vuelta de Martin...

Hernández, Miguel
(1910-1942) Spanish poet. He showed an astonishing gift for imitating poetic movements of the 1930s, for example in Perito en lunas 1933, and the love sonnet of the 17th century, in El rayo que no cesa 1936....

Herne the Hunter
In medieval English legend, a keeper in Windsor Forest whose ghost was supposed to roam at midnight near an old oak, known as `Herne's Oak`. The oak was thought to have been blasted by the...

Hero and Leander
In Greek mythology, a pair of lovers. Hero, virgin priestess of Aphrodite, at Sestos on the Hellespont, fell in love at a festival with Leander on the opposite shore at Abydos. He used to swim to...

Hero of Alexandria
(lived AD 62) Greek mathematician and engineer, the greatest experimentalist of antiquity. Among his many inventions was an automatic fountain and a kind of stationary steam eng ...

Hero of Our Time, A
Novel by the Russian writer Mikhail Lermontov, published 1840. It consists of five stories about a bitter, cynical noblem ...

hero-tales
In medieval Irish literature, stories of mythical and pseudo-historical heroes, told in prose with some interspersed verse. They include tales of Celtic deities and the Herod Agrippa I
(10 BC-AD 44) Ruler of Palestine from AD 41. His real name was Marcus Julius Agrippa, erroneously called `Herod` in the Bible. Grandson of Herod the Great, he was made tetrarch (governor) of Palestine by the...

Herod Agrippa II
(c. 40-c. 93 AD) King of Chalcis (now southern Lebanon), son of Herod Agrippa I. He was appointed by the Roman emperor Claudius about AD 50, and in AD 60 tried the apostle Paul. He helped the Roman commander Titus...

Herod Antipas
(21 BC-AD 39) Tetrarch (governor) of the Roman province of Galilee, northern Palestine, 4 BC-AD 39, son of Herod the Great. He divorced his wife to marry his niece Herodias, and was responsible for the death of...

Herod the Great
(74-4 BC) King of the Roman province of Judaea, southern Palestine, from 40 BC. With the aid of Mark Antony, he established his government in Jerusalem in 37 BC. He rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem, but his...

Herodianus, Aelius
(lived 2nd century AD) Greek historian. He was the author of a history of the Roman empire from the death of the emperor Marcus Aurelius to the accession of Gordian AD 238. ...

Herodotus
(lived 5th century BC) Greek historian, described as the `Father of History`. He wrote a nine-book account of the Greek-Persian struggle that culminated in the defeat of the Persian invasion attempts in 490 and...

heroic play
Tragedy of the English Restoration period, fashionable 1660-80. The chief characteristics of heroic drama were strict observance of the unities and careful adaptation of French models, largely...

heroism
Outstanding bravery or courage on the part of an individual, often in exceptional circumstances. Heroism is frequently displayed in a military context and official honours such as the British...

Heron, Patrick
(1920-1999) English painter, designer, and writer on art. Most of his work is abstract and vibrantly coloured. He was art critic for several journals, including the New Statesman, and wrote...

Herondas
Greek author of mimes. Eight short works survive, each about 100 lines long, revealing a realistic eye for seedy transactions and human motives. It is not clear whether they were intended for...

Herr, Michael
(1940) US writer. Dispatches (1977), his book of Vietnam reportage, became an international best-seller, praised for its bold and savage depiction of war. Co-author of several screenplays, including...

Herrera, Fernando de
(c. 1534-1597) Spanish poet. Admiring the Italian poets, he was largely responsible for introducing their metrical systems into Spain. His lyrical poetry, influenced by ...

Herrera, Francisco de
(1576-1656) Spanish painter, etcher, and medallist. A painter of frescoes and history pictures, he represents the transition from Mannerism to baroque in Spain. He worked in a coarse and forcible style of which...

Herrera, Juan de
(c. 1530-1597) Spanish architect who built El Escorial (beginning in 1572). It was there he developed the plain and austere style for which he is remembered, known as desnudo (`bare`) or desornamentado...

Herres, Robert Tralles
(1932) US aviator. A 1954 Naval Academy graduate, he transferred to the Air Force and served in Germany, France, and Thailand. In the 1970s he directed the Strategic Air Command's command and control...

Herrick, Robert
(1868-1938) US novelist. His novels, which explore the problems and corruptions of modern industrial civilization, include The Common Lot 1904, The Master of the Inn 1908, A Life for a Life 1910, Clark's Field...

Herrick, Robert
(1591-1674) English poet and cleric. He published Hesperides: or the Works both Humane and Divine of Robert Herrick (1648), a collection of verse admired for its lyric quality, including the well-known poems...

Herries, John Maxwell
(c. 1512-1583) Scottish politician. In early life he was a supporter of the Reformed party and a friend of the leading Scottish Protestant reformer John Knox, but in 1566 he cast in his lot with Mary Queen of...

Herriman, George
(1880-1944) US cartoonist. In 1910 he created his first successful newspaper comic strip, `The Dingbat Family`, which included animal characters. This eventually evolved into `Krazy Kat` (1913), the...

Herring, E(dward) Pendelton
(1903-2004) US political scientist. He taught at Harvard University (1928-47) before embarking on a second career as president of the Social Science Research Council (1948-68). He solicited leading social...

Herriot, Edouard
(1872-1957) French radical politician. A leading parliamentarian of the inter-war period, Herriot was president of his party (1919-26, 1931-35, and 1945-56) and prime minister (1924-25, 1926, and...

Herriot, James
(1916-1995) English writer. A practising veterinary surgeon in Yorkshire from 1939, he wrote of his experiences in a series of humorous books which described the life of a young vet working in a Yorkshire...

Herron, Ron(ald James)
(1930-1994) English architect and founder member of Archigram, a radical architectural group of the 1960s. He designed Walking City, a proposed city on wheels with full environmental controls, inspired by space...

Hersey, John (Richard)
(1914-1993) Chinese-born US journalist and writer. During World War II he saw considerable action as a correspondent and he drew on his experiences for several of his works, including the novel A Bell for...

Hershey, Lewis (Blaine)
(1893-1977) US soldier. A serving officer from 1917-73, he directed the Selective Service System (1941-70), the agency that drafted millions of young American men into military service during the 1940s,...

Herskovits, Melville J(ean)
(1895-1963) US anthropologist. He pioneered the cultural anthropological study of American blacks by identifying them as a distinct cultural group in such early works as The American Negro (1928). His fieldwork...

Herter, Christian
(1840-1883) German-born US furniture maker. He joined half brother Gustav Herter's New York firm, which in 1866 was renamed Herter Brothers. After studying design...

Herter, Christian Archibald
(1895-1967) US Republican politician and diplomat. From 1943 he was a member of the House of Representatives, and he was governor of Massachusetts 1953-57. He was under ...

Hertling, Count Georg Friedrich von
(1843-1919) German politician who was appointed imperial chancellor in November 1917. He maintained a degree of support in the Reichstag (parliament) but was powerless to control the...

Hertz, Henrik
(1798-1870) Danish poet and dramatist. His collection of rhyming letters Gjengangerbreve/Letters of a Ghost 1830 satirizes the contemporary Danish literary scene. His plays include the romantic national drama...

Hertz, Joseph Herman
(1872-1946) Hungarian-born chief rabbi. He was rabbi of the Congregation Adath Jeshurun at Syracuse, New York (1894-98). He then became rabbi of the Witwatersrand Old Hebrew Congregation in Johannesburg,...

Hertzberger, Herman
(1932) Dutch architect. His work is in the tradition of Brutalism but with...

Hervieu, Paul Ernest
(1857-1915) French dramatist and novelist. He dealt with family problems, the relations between parents and children, and the problems of divorce. Among his plays are Les Tenailles/The Chains 1895, La Loi de...

Herzen, Aleksandr Ivanovich
(1812-1870) Russian thinker and publicist. From 1847 he lived mostly in London, England, where he established the Free Russian Press and published The Bell, the first Russian emigré journal, which had...

Herzog
Novel 1964 by US writer Saul Bellow. It is the story of a twice-divorced Jewish college professor who suffers intense, but comically treated, emotional and intellectual crises. After failing to...

Herzog, Chaim
(1918-1997) Irish-Israeli soldier, lawyer, writer, politician, and president of Israel (1983-93). He served as Israel's ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations between 1975-78....

Herzog, Jacques
(1950) Swiss architect. He formed a partnership with Pierre de Meuron in 1978, and they became well known for their precision, fine craftsmanship, and innovative, highly original use of materials and...

Hesburgh, Theodore (Martin)
(1917) US clergyman and university president. An ordained Roman Catholic priest, he became indelibly identified with Notre Dame University, where he was president (1952-87) in a term that secularized and...

Heseltine, Michael Ray Dibdin
(1933) British Conservative politician, defence secretary 1983-86 and deputy prime minister 1995-97. A charismatic speaker and strong supporter of closer British integration within t ...

Hesiod
(lived 8th century BC) Greek poet. The earliest of the Greek didactic poets, he is often contrasted with Homer as the other main representative of the early epic. He is the author of Works and Days, a moralizing and...

Hesione
In Greek mythology, the daughter of Laomedon, King of Troy,...

Hesperides
In Greek mythology, the maidens who tended a tree bearing the golden apples of immortality, a wedding present to the goddess Hera from Gaia, mother of the Earth. Their garden was guarded by Ladon, a...

Hess, (Walter Richard) Rudolf
(1894-1987) German Nazi leader. Imprisoned with Adolf Hitler 1924-25, he became his private secretary, taking down Mein Kampf from his dictation. In 1933 he was appointed deputy Führer to Hitler, a post he...

Hesse, Hermann
(1877-1962) German writer, a Swiss citizen from 1923. A conscientious objector in World War I and a pacifist opponent of Hitler, he published short stories, poetry, and novels, including Peter Camenzind (1904),...

Hesselius, Gustavus
(1682-1755) Swedish-born US painter. An important religious and secular painter, his sympathetic and dignified portraits of American Indians, such as Chief Lapowinska (1735) and Chief Tishcohan (1735), have...

Hesselius, John
(1728-1778) US painter. The son of fellow painter Gustavus Hesselius, he born either in Philadelphia or Maryland. Less well known than his father, he is remembered for his portraits, notably the charming and...

Hestia
In Greek mythology, goddess of the hearth-fire (Roman Vesta); protector of the home; and eldest daughter of the Titans Kronos and Rhea. Sometimes regarded as the personification...

Hesychius of Miletus
(lived 5th century) Greek chronicler. Although his history of the reign of Justin I and of Justinian is lost, an extremely valuable fragment of his universal history survives, giving the story of Byzantium...

hetaira (or hetaera)
In ancient Greece, a female prostitute. Hetairai were often protected by law and were subject to taxation. Most were simply prostitutes, but others were mistresses of distinguished men. Hetairai...

Heuneburg
Large Iron Age hill fort on the Danube, 15 km/9 mi downstream of Sigmaringen, western Germany. Its unusual mud-brick rampart and towers show a Greek influence, and evidence from nearby burials...

Heuser, Herman J
(1852-1933) German-born US Catholic priest and editor. In 1889 he founded the American Ecclesiastical Review, a professional journal for priests, which he actively edited until 1914. In 1927 he relinquished...

Heuss, Theodor
(1884-1963) German politician and writer, first president of the Federal German Republic 1949-59. After World War II he became leader of the Free Democratic party...

Hever Castle
Castle in Kent, England, 3 km/2 mi east of Edenbridge. It was the Boleyn family home in Tudor times but sank into obscurity with the family's decline after the dissolution of Anne Hewitt, Don(ald S)
(1922) US journalist and television producer. At CBS, he directed Douglas Edwards with the News (1948-62), making the news more visually exciting, then became executive director for the Evening News with...

Hewitt, Henry (Kent)
(1887-1972) US admiral. An expert in amphibious operations, he commanded the successful landings at Casablanca in 1942, after which he took charge of the US 8th Fleet in North African waters. He was responsible...

Hewlett, James
US stage actor. A free African-American, he was a tailor by trade who in 1821 became a principal actor in William Henry Brown's newly formed African Theatre in New York City. He starred as Richard...

Hewlett, Maurice Henry
(1861-1923) English novelist and poet. His first book, The Forest Lovers, appeared 1898. Richard Yea-and-Nay 1900 and The Queen's Quair 1904 are historical romances about Richard I and Mary Queen of Scots....

hexameter
Verse line of six metrical feet. The hexameter was the metre of the Greek epic poet Homer, and became the standard verse form for all ancient epic writers. It was also used in other kinds of poetry,...

Heyden, Jan van der
(1637-1712) Dutch artist and inventor. He made his name in the 1660s with a series of town views based on his travels in Holland, Flanders, and the Rhineland. He developed ideas for street lighting and fire...

Heydrich, Reinhard Tristan Eugen
(1904-1942) German Nazi, head of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the party's security service, and Heinrich Himmler's deputy. He was instrumental in organizing the final solution, the policy of genocide used...

Heyer, Georgette
(1902-1974) English novelist. She wrote her first historical novel, The Black Moth in 1921, to amuse a sick brother. Her best, such as These Old Shades (1926) and Regency Buck (1935), are Regency romances based...

Heyerdahl, Thor
(1914-2002) Norwegian ethnologist. He sailed on the ancient-Peruvian-style raft Kon-Tiki from Peru to the Tuamotu Archipelago along the Humboldt Current in 1947, and in 1969-70 used...

Heylin (or Heylyn), Peter
(1600-1662) English writer and cleric. His works number more than 50 and are chiefly theological and controversial. He belonged to the High Church party and wrote Ecclesia Vindicata: or the Church of England...

Heym, Georg
(1887-1912) German poet. His expressionist verse is filled with powerful demonic forces bringing death and destruction, as in Der ewige Tag 1911 and Umbra vitae 1912. Cities in particular are conceived as...

Heyn, Piet
(1578-1629) Dutch admiral. After an adventurous career at sea, he was made vice-admiral and defeated the Spaniards off Brazil in 1624 and 1626. In 1628 he was successful in capturing the Spanish fleet...

Heyse, Paul von
(1830-1914) German author. He excelled as a writer of short stories, enhanced by humour, their rendering of detail, and a graceful style. Das Buch der Freundschaft (1883) is a collection of stories; his...

Heyward, Du Bose
(1885-1940) US novelist. His first novel, Porgy 1925, was a notable success, and he wrote a dramatic version of the story with his wife, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1927. It was made into an opera by George...

Heywood, Charles
(1839-1915) US marine officer. Appointed colonel commandant in 1891, he improved Marine Corps administration and oversaw an expansion in which the service quadrupled in size to 7,800 officers and men. Heywood...

Heywood, John
(c. 1497-c. 1580) English poet and playwright. He is chiefly remembered as a writer of interludes, which differed from those of his predecessors in that he portrayed social types rather than qualities personified. He...

Heywood, Thomas
(c. 1570-c. 1650) English actor and dramatist. He wrote or adapted over 220 plays, including the domestic tragedy A Woman Kilde with Kindnesse (1602-03). He also wrote an Apology for Actors (1612), in answer to...

Hezbollah
Extremist Muslim organization founded by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who were sent to Lebanon after the 1979 Iranian revolution. Its aim is to spread the Islamic revolution of Iran among the...

Hezekiah
In the Old Testament, King of Judah from 719 BC. Against the advice of the prophet Isaiah he rebelled against Assyrian suzerainty in alliance with Egypt, but was defeated by Sennacherib and had to...

Hiawatha
(lived 15th century) 16th-century American Indian teacher and Onondaga chieftain. He is said to have welded the Five Nations (later joined by a sixth) of the Iroquois into the league of the Long House, as the...

Hichens, Robert Smythe
(1864-1950) English novelist. His first novel, The Green Carnation 1894, was a satire on the mannerisms of Oscar Wilde. The Garden of Allah 1904 was even more successful and was dramatized. Other publications...

Hickey, William
(1749-1830) Irish writer. His entertaining Memoirs were first published 1913-25. ...

Hickok, Laurens Perseus
(1799-1888) US clergyman and philosopher. He taught theology at Western Reserve College (1836-44) and Auburn Theological Seminary (1844-52), and was associated with Union College in Schenectady, New York,...

Hickok, Wild Bill
(1837-1876) US pioneer and law enforcer, a legendary figure in the West. In the Civil War he was a sharpshooter and scout for the Union army. He then served as marshal in Kansas, killing as many as 27 people....

Hicks, (Edward) Seymour
(1871-1949) English actor and theatre manager. He was chief light comedian at the Gaiety Theatre 1894-97. He wrote numerous plays, including Bluebell in Fairyland (1901),...

Hicks, Edward
(1780-1849) US folk artist. His favourite subject was The Peaceable Kingdom (based on the Old Testament Book of Isaiah), showing wild and tame animals living peacefully together in paradise. He is said to have...

Hicks, John Richard
(1904-1989) English economist. Hicks is celebrated for his invention of the IS-LM diagram, which expounds the true meaning of English economist John Maynard Keynes's General Theory. He shared the Nobel Prize...

Hicks, William
(1830-1883) British soldier. He entered the army in 1849, and served with distinction through the Indian Mutiny. He took part in the Abyssinian War (1867-68). In 1882...

Hicks, Wilson
(1897-1970) US photographic editor. At Life Magazine (1937-1950), he built the staff from 4 to 40 photographers, and developed the photo essay for which the magazine became famous. He was a professor of...