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

Ives, James (Merritt)
(1824-1895) US publisher. He became bookkeeper to the printmaker Nathaniel Currier in 1852. Soon he was not only overseeing the various artists who produced the original drawings but he himself would make some...

Ives, Joseph Christmas
(1828-1868) US explorer and soldier. He led an exploration of the Colorado River 1857-58 and wrote a classic description of that area. He was the engineer and architect of the Washington National Monument...

IVF
Abbreviation for in vitro fertilization. ...

Iwaszkiewicz, Jaroslaw
(1894-1980) Polish writer. His work includes verse:Lato 1932 and Mapa pogody 1977, his greatest achievement; tales and short stories:Mlyn nad Utrat&acedil;/The Mill on the Utrata...

Iwo Jima, Battle of
Intense fighting between Japanese and US forces 19 February-17 March 1945 during World War II. In February 1945, US marines landed on the island of Iwo Jima, a Japanese air base, intending to use...

IWW
Abbreviation for Industrial Workers of the World. ...

Ixion
In Greek mythology, a king of Thessaly who dropped his father-in-law into a pit of buring coals to avoid paying bridal dues for his wife Dia. Purified and carried to Olympus by Zeus, he embraced...

Izanagi and Izanami
In Shinto, the primordial god and goddess, sister and brother, whose union brought into being Earth's divine rulers and the physical features (islands and mountains) of Japan. Izanagi gave birth to...

Izard, Ralph
(1742-1804) US diplomat and senator. As a diplomat in Paris, he secured warships for the American revolutionaries. A member of the Continental Congress 1782-83, South Carolina elected him to the first US...

Izetbegovic, Alija
(1925-2003) Bosnia-Herzegovinan politician, president 1990-96 and member of the rotating three-person collective presidency 1996-2000. A lifelong opponent of communism, he founded the Stranka...

Iznik
Modern name of ancient Nicaea, a town in Turkey noted for the richly decorated pottery and tiles produced there in the 15th and 16th centuries. ...

Jaafari, Ibrahim
(1947) Iraqi medical doctor and Shia politician, prime minister from 2005. A conservative Shia who had lived abroad during the regime of Saddam Hussein, he returned to Iraq after Saddam's overthrow by...

Jack and the Beanstalk
English fairy tale in which Jack is the lazy son of a poor widow. When he exchanges their cow for some magic beans, the beans grow into a beanstalk up which Jack climbs to a realm above the clouds....

Jack the Ripper
Popular name for the unidentified mutilator and murderer of at least five women prostitutes in the Whitechapel area of London in 1888. The murders understandably provoked public outrage; the police...

Jackson, (George) Holbrook
(1874-1948) English literary historian. He was joint editor with A R Orage of the political and literary journal New Age 1907, editor of T. P.'s Magazine 1911-12 and T. P.'s Weekly 1911-14, and owner and...

Jackson, Alexander Young
(1882-1974) Canadian landscape painter. He was a leading member of the `Group of Seven`, who aimed to create a specifically Canadian school of landscape art. ...

Jackson, Andrew
(1767-1845) 7th president of the USA 1829-37, a Democrat. A major general in the War of 1812, he defeated a British force in the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 and was involved in the war that led to the...

Jackson, Barry Vincent
(1879-1961) English theatre director. He built the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 1913 and ran it until his death. He also founded the Malvern Festival, providing the annual productions 1929-37. From 1945 to...

Jackson, Charles (Reginald)
(1903-1968) US novelist. He wrote the acclaimed The Lost Weekend 1944, a powerful and atmospheric psychological study of alcoholism set in Manhattan, which was made into an Academy Award-winning film 1945....

Jackson, George
(died 1971) US revolutionary. Convicted of a $70 robbery and sent to San Quentin prison, Jackson became a best-selling writer (with his book Blood in My Eye) and a `revolutionary hero` of the...

Jackson, Glenda
(1936) English actor and politician, Labour member of Parliament from 1992, and parliamentary undersecretary for transport 1997-99. Her many stage appearances for the Royal Shakespeare Company include...

Jackson, Helen Hunt
(1830-1885) US writer. Her works include two books championing the cause of American Indians, A Century of Dishonor 1881 and Ramona 1884. Another of her novels, Mercy Philbrick's Choice 1876, is said to be...

Jackson, Henry M(artin)
(1912-1983) US senator. He served in the US House of Representatives (Democrat, Washington) 1941-53 and in the US Senate 1953-83. Known as the `Senator from Boeing`, he was a staunch supporter of the...

Jackson, Howell Edmunds
(1832-1895) US jurist. Elected to the US Senate 1880, he was named federal district judge 1886 by Grover Cleveland and chief judge of the circuit court of appeals 1891 by Benjamin Harrison. In 1893 Jackson was...

Jackson, Jesse Louis
(1941) US Democratic politician, cleric, and campaigner for minority rights. He contested his party's 1984 and 1988 presidential nominations in an effort to increase voter registration and to put black...

Jackson, John B(rinckerhoff)
(1909-1996) French-born US landscape historian who promoted the idea of the Americann scene based on the value structures have to those who build and use them, not on a comparison to European developments....

Jackson, Lady
Title of English economist Barbara Ward. ...

Jackson, Martha
(c. 1907-c. 1969) US art dealer. She was the owner and director of the Martha Jackson Gallery, New York City 1953-69, and president of Red Parrot Films c. 1964-69. She was known as an early supporter of the...

Jackson, Maynard (Holbrook)
(1938-2003) US mayor and lawyer. He was an attorney and director of community relations for the Emory Neighborhood Law Office in Atlanta 1968-69 and a senior partner at Jackson, Patterson & Parks 1970-73....

Jackson, Robert (Houghwout)
(1892-1954) US Supreme Court justice. He served as counsel to the Bureau of Internal Revenue 1934-36 and to the Department of Justice 1936-40. He was US attorney general 1940-41 and served on the US...

Jacksonian Democracy
In US history, a period in which belief in equal political, economic, social, and civil rights for all people became more popular, characterized by the presidencies of Andrew Jackson and Martin Jacob
In the Old Testament, Hebrew patriarch, son of Isaac and Rebecca, who obtained the rights of seniority from his twin brother Esau by trickery. He married his cousins Leah and Rachel, serving their...

Jacob, Claud William
(1863-1948) British soldier. At the outbreak of World War I he went to France with the Meerut Division and was the only Indian army officer to rise to high command there. In 1915 he led the Dehra Dun Brigade at...

Jacob, Joseph
(1854-1916) Australian-born US folklorist and collector of fairy tales. He published collections of vividly re-told fairy stories such as English Fairy Tales 1890, Celtic Fairy Tales 1892 and 1894, and...

Jacob, Max
(1876-1944) French poet and prose writer. Among his books of poetry are Sacrifice impérial 1929 and Rivages 1931, while his prose poems include Cornet à dés 1917 and Visions infernales 1924. He also wrote...

Jacob, Naomi Ellington
(1889-1964) English novelist. Her books include Jacob Ussher 1926, Straws in Amber 1938, White Wool 1944, Passage Perilous 1948, and Morning Will Come 1953. She also wrote a series of autobiographical books,...

Jacob, Violet
(1863-1946) Scottish poet and novelist. Her first works were novels, but she is better known as a poet in the Angus dialect, with Songs of Angus 1916, 1918, Bonnie Joann 1922, and Northern Lights 1927. Her...

Jacobean
Style in the arts, influential upon architecture and furniture as well as literature, during the reign of James I (1603-25) in England. In the visual arts, Jacobean design follows the general...

Jacobello del Fiore
(c. 1370-1439) Italian painter. The son of Francesco del Fiore, Jacobello was a pupil of Gentile da Fabriano and adopted a similar style when he began painting in 1394. His earliest surviving work is the Madonna...

Jacobi, Derek George
(1938) English actor. His powerful and sensitive talent has ensured a succession of leading roles in Shakespearean and other mainly serious drama on stage, television, and film. In the theatre he has...

Jacobin
Member of an extremist republican club of the French Revolution founded in Versailles 1789. Helped by Danton's speeches, they proclaimed the French republic, had the king executed, and overthrew the...

Jacobite
In Britain, a supporter of the royal house of Stuart after the deposition of James II in 1688. They include the Scottish Highlanders, who rose unsuccessfully under Claverhouse in 1689, despite...

Jacobs, Jane
(1916) US urban theorist and author. As associate editor of Architectural Forum 1952-68, she gained a reputation for attacking urban planners for destroying older neighbourhoods with roads and housing...

Jacobs, W(illiam) W(ymark)
(1863-1943) English author. He used his childhood knowledge of London's docklands in amusing short stories such as `Many Cargoes` 1896 and Sea Urchins 1898. He also excelled in...

Jacobsen, Arne
(1902-1976) Danish architect and designer. One of the major figures of Scandinavian architecture, he introduced the ideas of the modernist pioneers Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe into Denmark, developing an...

Jacobson, Dan(iel)
(1929) South African-born British writer who established his literary reputation with two allegorical novellas, The Trap (1955) and A Dance in the Sun (1956). Both works explored the complex relationship...

Jacopone da Todi
(c. 1230-1306) Italian religious poet. He was a Franciscan and author of approximately 90 laudi (popular devotional poems in Latin and the Umbrian dialect). He is also accredited with authoring the Stabat Mater....

Jacquerie
French peasant uprising of 1358, caused by the ravages of the English army and French nobility during the Hundred Years' War, which reduced the rural population to destitution. The word derives from...

Jacques, Hattie
(1924-1980) English comic actor. Frequently called upon to play bossy figures of authority, she was also a highly respected foil to many comedians, notably in ITMA (1948-50)...

Jade Emperor
In Chinese religion, the supreme god of pantheistic Taoism, also known as the August Personage of Jade and Father Heaven, who watches over human actions and is the ruler of life and death. His court...

Jaeger, Werner (Wilhelm)
(1888-1961) German-born US classicist. Although his works on Aristotle and the Cappadocian Church Father Gregory of Nyssa are still highly regarded, he is best known for the less scholarly Paideia 1933, which...

Jagan, Cheddi Berret
(1918-1997) Guyanese left-wing politician, president 1992-97. With his wife, Janet Jagan, he co-founded the People's Progressive Party (PPA) in 1950, of which he was the leader, and was the first prime...

Jagan, Janet
(1920) Guyanese left-wing politician, president 1997-99. With her husband, Cheddi Jagan, she co-founded the left-wing People's Progressive Party (PPP) in 1950 and was its general secretary until...

Jagannath
Hindu god Vishnu in the form of the Lord of the Universe. The temple of Jagannath at Puri attracts thousands on Hindu feast days. ...

Jagdpanther
German tank destroyer of World War II, capable of defeating any Allied tank. It used a Panther tank chassis with a fixed superstructure mounting an 88 mm gun. It was protected by 80 mm/3 in of...

Jagdpanzer IV
German tank destroyer of World War II. Based on the chassis of the PzKwIV tank, it had a long 75 mm gun in a fixed superstructure of 80 mm/3 in armour, weighed 24 tons, and had a top speed of 39...

Jagdtiger
German tank destroyer, the most potent tank of World War II. Although only 38 of these massive vehicles were built they were virtually impervious to Allied tanks and could destroy...

Jagger, Charles Sargeant
(1885-1935) English sculptor. His Royal Artillery Memorial at Hyde Park Corner, London, is characteristically vigorous in its bronze gunners. ...

Jahangir
(1569-1627) Fourth Mogul emperor of India (1605-27), succeeding his father Akbar the Great. The first part of his reign was marked by peace, prosperity, and a flowering of the arts, but the latter half by...

Jahilliyah
The time that predates the emergence of Islam in the 7th century; Arabic `state of ignorance`. The legacy of that pagan period is called jahili to indicate its lack of knowledge about Islam. ...

Jahn, Helmut
(1940) German-born US architect. He designed primarily midwestern commercial buildings, making extensive use of glass sheathing. Born in Nuremberg, he emigrated in 1966 and worked at C F Murphy...

Jahn, Johann Friedrich Ludwig
(1778-1852) German gymnast and politician. He first served in the Prussian Army and, in 1811, founded the first gymnasium in Berlin. His system did much to revive patriotism and attracted the Prussian youth,...

Jahnn, Hans Henny
(1894-1959) German playwright and novelist. His plays and novels blend primitive, instinctive eroticism with a belief in archaic, mythological forms of love and death. Pastor Ephraim Magnus 1919 deals with the...

Jahweh
Another spelling of Jehovah, the Lord (meaning God) in the Hebrew Bible. ...

Jainism
Ancient Indian religion, sometimes regarded as an offshoot of Hinduism. Jains emphasize the importance of not injuring living beings, and their code of ethics is based on sympathy and compassion for...

Jakeš, Miloš
(1922) Czech communist politician, a member of the Politburo from 1981 and party leader 1987-89. A conservative, he supported the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. He was forced to resign in...

Jalal-al-Din Rumi
(1207-1273) Persian poet and Sufi religious mystic. He founded the Mevlevi dervish order of mendicants, in memory of Shams al-Din Tabrizi, from whom he received esoteric teaching. This order is characterized...

Jallianwallah Bagh massacre
Alternative name for the Amritsar Massacre. ...

Jamaica
Island in the Caribbean Sea, south of Cuba and west of Haiti. Government The 1962 constitution follows closely the unwritten British model, with a resident constitutional head of state, the governor...

Jamblichus
Alternative spelling of Iamblichus, the ancient Greek neoplatonist philosopher. ...

James (I) the Conqueror
(1208-1276) King of Aragón from 1213, when he succeeded his father. He conquered the Balearic Islands and took Valencia from the Moors, dividing it with Alfonso X of Castile by a treaty of 1244. Both these...

James I
(1566-1625) King of England from 1603 and Scotland (as James VI) from 1567. The son of Mary Queen of Scots and her second husband, Lord Darnley, he succeeded to the Scottish throne on the enforced abdication of...

James I
(1394-1437) King of Scotland (1406-37), who assumed power in 1424. He was a cultured and strong monarch whose improvements in the administration of justice brought him popularity among the common people. He...

James II
(1633-1701) King of England and Scotland (as James VII) from 1685. The second son of Charles I, he succeeded his brother, Charles II. In 1660 James married Anne Hyde (1637-1671; mother of Mary II...

James II
(1430-1460) King of Scotland from 1437, who assumed power in 1449. The only surviving son of James I, he was supported by most of the nobles and parliament. He sympathized with the Lancastrians during the Wars...

James III
(1451-1488) King of Scotland from 1460, who assumed power in 1469. His reign was marked by rebellions by the nobles, including his brother Alexander, Duke of Albany. He was murdered during a rebellion supported...

James IV
(1473-1513) King of Scotland from 1488. He came to the throne after his followers murdered his father, James III, at Sauchieburn. His reign was internally peaceful, but he allied himself with France against...

James V
(1512-1542) King of Scotland from 1513, who assumed power in 1528. During the long period of his minority, he was caught in a struggle between pro-French and pro-English factions. When he assumed power, he...

James VI
Of Scotland. See James I of England. ...

James VII
Of Scotland. See James II of England. ...

James, Daniel, Jr
(1920-1978) US aviator. He joined the Army Air Corps in 1943 and served as a fighter pilot and instructor. He saw combat in Korea and Vietnam, headed the North American Air Defense Command 1975-78, and became...

James, Edison C
(1943) Dominican left-of-centre politician, prime minister 1995-2000. He formed the United Workers' Party (UWP) in 1988, leading it in 1990 to become the main opposition to Eugenia Charles's Dominica...

James, Edwin Leland
(1890-1951) US journalist. Joining the New York Times in 1915, he was a war correspondent and European correspondent. As managing editor from 1932 he stressed objectivity in reporting; he was also an...

James, George Payne Rainsford
(1801-1860) English novelist. His Life of the Black Prince 1822 was followed over the next 30 years by more than 100 books, mostly novels, as well as hi ...

James, Henry
(1843-1916) US novelist, who lived in Europe from 1875 and became a naturalized British subject in 1915. His novels deal with the social, moral, and aesthetic issues arising from the complex relationship...

James, Henry, Sr
(1811-1882) US religious philosopher. He was at first attracted to Sandemanism, a sect encountered on a trip to England, but his writings were more permanently influenced by the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg,...

James, Jesse Woodson
(1847-1882) US bank and train robber. He was a leader, with his brother Frank (1843-1915), of the Quantrill raiders, a Confederate guerrilla band in the Civil War. Jesse was killed by Bob Ford, an accomplice;...

James, P(hyllis) D(orothy)
(1920) English detective novelist. Her first novel, Cover Her Face (1962), introduced her hero Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh, and she introduced her heroine, private investigator Cordelia Gray, in An...

James, Sid
(1913-1976) British comedy actor. His early films included the comic classics The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) and The Titfield Thunderbolt (1952), but he is best remembered for his performances in 19 Carry On...

James, St
(lived 1st century AD) The New Testament brother of Jesus, to whom Jesus appeared after the Resurrection. Leader of the Christian church in Jerusalem, he was the author of the biblical Epistle of James. ...

James, St
(lived 1st century AD) In the New Testament, a disciple of Christ, son of Alphaeus. Feast day 3 May. ...

James, St
(lived 1st century AD) New Testament apostle, originally a Galilean fisherman. He was the son of Zebedee and brother of the apostle John. He was put to death by Herod Agrippa. James is the patron saint of Spain. His feast...

Jameson, (Margaret) Storm
(1897-1986) English novelist. Among her finest books are The Lovely Ship (1927), The Voyage Home (1930), and A Richer Dust (1931), which form a trilogy telling of a shipbuilding family like her own; others are...

Jameson, Anna Brownell
(1794-1860) Irish writer and art critic. Her reputation chiefly rests on the book Sacred and Legendary Art (first part published 1848). This was completed, after her death, by Lady Eastlake, under the title of...

Jamestown
First permanent British settlement in North America, established by Captain John Smith in 1607. It was capital of Virginia from 1624-99. In...

Jami
(1414-1492) Persian poet, scholar, and mystic. He wrote lyrical poems and odes, seven romantic or didactic mathnavi (long poems), such as `Yusuf u Zulaikha` and `Salaman u Absal`, and many other works,...

Jammes, Francis
(1868-1938) French poet and novelist. In his earlier style are the poems De l'angélus de l'aube à l'angélus du soir 1898 and Le Deuil des primevères 1901, and in his later Catholic style Les Géorgiques...

Jammu and Kashmir
State of north India; area 222,200 sq km/85,791 sq mi including area occupied by Pakistan and China; population (2001 est) 10,069,900 (Indian-occupied territory). The main cities are Jammu (winter...

Janam Sakhis
Collection of stories about the life of Nanak, the first guru (teacher) of Sikhism. ...

janapada
In northern and western India, any of 16 large territories or kingdoms that were established by about 600 BC. By the 5th century BC three of these, Kosala, Magadha, and Vatsa, had expanded to become...