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

Johnson, John Harold
(1918-2005) US publisher and consumer products executive. He founded Johnson Publishing Co. in 1942 and launched the Negro Digest in the same year, a successful compil ...

Johnson, John J
(1912) US political scientist and historian. He wrote such influential works as Political Change in Latin America (1958), The Military and Society in Latin America (1964), and A Hemisphere Apart (1990), a...

Johnson, Lady Bird (Claudia Alta)
(1912-2007) US first lady. She married Lyndon Johnson in 1934, and helped finance his first election campaign. She supported the `war on poverty`, the Headstart programme, and worked for the...

Johnson, Linton Kwesi
(1952) Jamaican-born British poet who emigrated to Britain in 1963. His dub poetry, characterized by an aggressive urban style, has a wide following. Recordings include Dread Beat An' Blood (1978),...

Johnson, Lionel Pigot
(1867-1902) English poet. His two volumes of poetry, Poems 1895 and Ireland, with Other Poems 1897, drew much of their inspiration from ancient Celtic legend. His best-known piece is `On the Statue of King...

Johnson, Louis
(1924-1988) New Zealand poet. His work rejects the traditional pastoral themes of New Zealand poetry in favour of suburban life; for example, in New Worlds for Old 1957 and Bread and a Pension 1964. He was also...

Johnson, Louis (Arthur)
(1891-1966) US administrator. As assistant secretary of war 1937-40, he modernized the army. He was finance chairman for President Truman's 1948 campaign, and was secretary of defence 1949-50, but his plans...

Johnson, Lyndon Baines
(1908-1973) 36th president of the USA 1963-69, a Democrat. He was a member of Congress 1937-49 and the Senate 1949-60. Born in Texas, he brought critical Southern support as J F Kennedy's...

Johnson, Magnus
(1871-1936) Swedish-born US agrarian reformer, senator, and representative. Active in the farmers' cooperative movement, as a Farmer Labor Party candidate he served in the Minnesota legislature, in the US...

Johnson, Nelson Trusler
(1887-1954) US diplomat. He was assistant secretary of state 1927-29, envoy to China 1929-41, and the wartime ambassador to Australia 1941-45. His long career in the State Department 1907-52 culminated...

Johnson, Nick (Nicholas)
(1934) US government official and broadcast activist. He fought for broadcast reform as a Federal Communications Commissioner (FCC) 1966-73. He wrote How to Talk Back To Your TV Set 1970, a manual for...

Johnson, Pamela Hansford, Lady Snow
(1912-1981) English novelist. Her works include This Bed Thy Centre 1935, which was judged shocking, Too Dear for My Possessing 1940, The Unspeakable Skipton 1959, based on Frederick Rolfe, and The Honours...

Johnson, Philip Cortelyou
(1906-2005) US architect and architectural historian. Originally designing in the international style of Mies van der Rohe, he later became an exponent of postmodernism. He designed the giant AT&T building in...

Johnson, Reverdy
(1796-1876) US lawyer and public official. He sat in the US Senate (Whig, Maryland) 1845-49 and was briefly attorney general. A pro-Union Democrat during the US Civil War, he returned to the Senate from...

Johnson, Richard Mentor
(1780-1850) 9th vice-president of the USA, 1836-41. He sat in Congress as a Republican member for Kentucky 1807-12 and 1814-19, and subsequently was a Democratic member of the Senate. He is best known...

Johnson, Robert Underwood
(1853-1937) US poet and editor. Among his volumes of mainly occasional verse are The Winter Hour 1891, Poems of Fifty Years 1931, and Aftermath 1933. From 1873 he was connected with the Century Magazine, of...

Johnson, Samuel
(1822-1882) US religious leader and author. Initially a Unitarian, he became minister of the Free Church in Lynn, Massachusetts. He opposed slavery, was a mystic and poet, and in the 1870s he published a series...

Johnson, Samuel
(1709-1784) English lexicographer (writer of dictionaries), author, and critic. He was also a brilliant conversationalist and dominant figure in 18th-century London literary society. His Dictionary (1755)...

Johnson, Thomas
(1732-1819) US Supreme Court justice. He represented Maryland at the First Continental Congress in 1774 and served as Maryland's first governor 1777-79. He was chief judge on Maryland's general court and...

Johnson, Tom Loftin
(1854-1911) US businessman, representative, and mayor. He made a fortune from the steel business during the 1880s. After the great flood in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in 1889, he gained national attention by...

Johnson, U(ral) Alexis
(1908-1997) US diplomat. He was praised for his role in the Korean truce negotiations. He was ambassador to Czechoslovakia 1953-58, Thailand 1958-61, and Japan 1966-69. An expert on Far Eastern affairs,...

Johnson, William
(1771-1834) US Supreme Court justice. He served in the South Carolina legislature 1794-98, the state's high court 1798-1804, and the US Supreme Court 1804-34. He established the model for recording...

Johnson, William
(1715-1774) Irish-born American colonial baron and Indian agent. He gained the full confidence of the Iroquois tribes, especially Mohawks. He became their agent in 1754 and led militiamen and Iroquois in a...

Johnson, William H
(1901-1970) US painter. In 1938 he settled in New York where he began to produce perhaps his most important work. It is recognized for its original fusion of such disparate strains as Van Gogh and African...

Johnson, Yormie
(1959) Liberian military veteran and rebel leader. He was educated at the Army Officers' School, Monrovia, and at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, USA. He joined the army in 1971 and was commander of the...

Johnston, Archibald, Lord Warriston
(1611-1663) Scottish advocate and statesman. He was employed by the Covenanters in framing their protests against the attacks of William Laud and his High Church policy, and in answering the aggressive...

Johnston, Arthur
(1587-1641) Scottish writer of Latin verse. His Latin version of the Psalms 1637 is less popular and probably less good than that of George Buchanan, but his contributions to the Deliciae Poetarum Scotorum...

Johnston, Brian Alexander
(1912-1994) English broadcaster, writer, and entertainer. Considered the `voice of cricket` for nearly half a century, Johnston began commentating for the BBC in 1946, and was a commentator on Radio 3's...

Johnston, Francis
(1760-1829) Irish architect. He was appointed architect of the Board of Works in 1805 and was one of the founders of the Royal Hibernian Academy, serving as its president 1824-1829. His works in Dublin...

Johnston, Harry Hamilton
(1858-1927) British explorer and administrator. After exploring Tunisia and Angola he penetrated into the Congo district above Stanley Pool in 1883, and the following year led a scientific expedition to...

Johnston, Henrietta Deering
(c. 1670-c. 1728) English-born American painter. She is considered one of the first important women painters in America. Her work consisted of pastel portraits, which lacked depth perception but were simple and...

Johnston, Henry Simpson
(1867-1970) US state governor. He served on the Oklahoma Territorial Council 1897-1904, becoming a state senator in 1907. As Democratic governor of Oklahoma 1927-29, he clashed with the legislature over...

Johnston, Jennifer Prudence
(1930) Irish writer, notable for her intimate portraits of struggling relationships between families, friends, lovers, and communities. Some of her best-known works are The Captains...

Johnston, Joseph Eggleston
(1807-1891) US military leader during the American Civil War 1861-65. Joining the Confederacy, he commanded the Army of Shenandoah 1861, the Army of Potomac 1861, and the Army of Tennessee 1863-64. Johnston...

Johnston, Joshua
(c. 1765-c. 1830) US painter. He painted the Maryland and Virginia gentry;Portrait of a Cleric is his only work thought to depict an African-American. Virtually unrecognized until 1939, he was the subject of a...

Johnstown Castle
Multi-towered Victorian castle at Murrinstown, County Wexford, Republic of Ireland. The present castle, dating from about 1840, was built around an older property that formerly belonged to the...

Joint Intelligence Committee
Weekly British cabinet meeting held to discuss international, military, and other covertly obtained information. From 1994 the committee was chaired by Pauline Neville-Jones. ...

jointure
A means by which a groom's family prescribed a certain amount of land or possessions for his widow. It prevented her from claiming a third of whatever the husband owned at his death. ...

Joliet, (or Jolliet) Louis
(1645-1700) French-born Canadian explorer. He and Jesuit missionary Jacques Marquette were the first to successfully chart the course of the Mississippi River down to its junction with the Arkansas River....

Jonah
(lived 7th century BC) Hebrew prophet whose name is given to a book in the Old Testament. According to this, he fled by ship to evade his mission to prophesy the destruction of Nineveh, the ancient capital of Assyria. The...

Jónas Hallgrímsson
(1807-1845) Icelandic poet and naturalist. He was deeply influenced by German Romanticism and travelled widely in Iceland, describing his observations in lyrical nature poetry. He also made translations into...

Jonas, Justus
(1493-1555) German Lutheran jurist and theologian. A firm friend and admirer of Martin Luther, Jonas took a prominent part in the Protestant cause. He attended both the Colloquy...

Jonathan, Chief (Joseph) Leabua
(1914-1987) Lesotho politician. A leader in the drive for independence, Jonathan became prime minister of Lesotho in 1965. His rule was ended by a coup in 1986. As prime minister, Jonathan played a pragmatic...

Jones, (John Luther) Casey
(1864-1900) US railroad engineer and folk hero. His death on the `Cannonball Express`, while on an overnight run 1900, is the subject of popular legend. Colliding with a stalled freight train, he ordered...

Jones, Allen
(1937) English painter, sculptor, and printmaker. He was a leading figure in the pop art movement of the 1960s. His colourful paintings are executed in the style of commercial advertising, and unabashedly...

Jones, Catesby Ap Roger
(1821-1877) US naval officer. He served in the US navy 1836-61 and the Confederate States navy 1861-65. He commanded the CSS Virginia during the three-hour indecisive contest with the...

Jones, David
(1895-1974) English artist and writer. His lettering, together with his paintings and wood engravings, are inimitable and immediately recognizable. In 1937 he published the war novel In Parenthesis, a...

Jones, E(uine) Fay
(1921) US architect and educator. He designed artisan-built houses incorporating organic design and native materials. He designed Thorncrown Chapel, Eureka Springs, Arkansas in 1981, and won the American...

Jones, Henry Arthur
(1851-1929) English dramatist. Among some 60 of his melodramas, Mrs Dane's Defence 1900 is most notable as an early realist problem play. ...

Jones, Inigo
(1573-1652) English classical architect. He introduced the Palladian style to England. He was employed by James I to design scenery for Ben Jonson's masques and was appointed Surveyor of the King's Works...

Jones, James
(1921-1977) US writer. His first novel, From Here to Eternity 1951, won over both readers and critics by its sheer narrative force (and was also made into a popular film in 1953). But his subsequent work, with...

Jones, James Earl
(1931) US stage, film, and television actor. After his first major role in The Great White Hope in 1966, he went on to star in a wide variety of classic and contemporary plays. His varied film career...

Jones, Jesse Holman
(1874-1956) US businessman and government official. A lumber and real-estate magnate he provided financial support for the Democrats. Head of the Reconstruction Finance Committee 1932-40 he set loan terms...

Jones, John
(c.1765-1827) Welsh churchman and author of the first Ancient Greek-English dictionary (1823). Born in Carmarthenshire, Jones became a Unitarian minister. In 1795 he was appointed pastor at Plymouth Dock and...

Jones, John P(ercival)
(1830-1912) Welsh-born US senator and miner. He went to California in the gold rush of 1849, then moved to Nevada where he made his fortune in silver mining. He served in the US Senate (Republican, Nevada)...

Jones, Leonard (Augustus)
(1832-1909) US legal scholar. A prolific writer, his many works remain standard texts of law and are respected for their clarity and continued pertinence. He practiced law privately and served as a judge on the...

Jones, LeRoi
US poet; see Imamu Amiri Baraka. ...

Jones, Louis C(lark)
(1908) US folklorist. A specialist in New York state folklore, 18th-century social history, and American folk art, he directed the State University of New York's...

Jones, Robert Edmond
(1887-1954) US stage set designer, producer, and director. Beginning in 1915 with his set design for The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife, he was in rebellion against the trend toward realism. Eliminating...

Jones, Robert Trent, Sr
(1906-2000) English-born US golf course architect. He designed more than 400 of the world's outstanding golf courses, and wrote Great Golf Stories, Golf's Magnificent Challenge 1988. Born near Ince, he went...

Jones, Rufus (Matthew)
(1863-1948) US philosopher, historian, and social reformer. A prolific author, he was best known for the four volumes he published (1905-21) on the history of Quakerism and related religions. A militant...

Jones, Sam Houston
(1897-1978) US state governor and lawyer. As Louisiana's governor (Democrat) 1940-44, he instituted a civil service system that resulted in a US$15 million surplus. He served on Louisiana's first biracial...

Jones, Steve
(1944) Welsh writer, lecturer, and evolutionary biologist. Professor of Genetics in the Department of Biology at University College, London, England, Jones gave the Reith Lectures in 1991, presented a BBC...

Jones, Thomas
(1870-1955) Welsh administrator and political adviser. He gave up an academic career (professor of economics at Queen's University, Belfast, in 1909) to become a political adviser. He acted first for Lloyd...

Jones, Thomas Gwynn
(1871-1949) Welsh poet. He won the National Eisteddfod chair at Bangor in 1902 with `Ymadawiad Arthur` (`The Passing of Arthur`), a poem which, for its application of a modern creative mind to...

Jones, Thomas P
(1774-1848) English-born US engineer and publisher. He was cofounder (1825), publisher, and editor of American Mechanics Magazine. He took a teaching post at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia in 1826 and...

Jones, Wesley L(ivsey)
(1863-1932) US senator. He served in the US House of Representatives (Republican, Washington) 1899-1909 and in the US Senate (1909-32). He supported prohibition, the merchant marine, and law enforcement. He...

Jong, Erica Mann
(1942) US novelist and poet. She won a reputation as a feminist poet with her first collection Fruits & Vegetables (1971). Her novel Fear of Flying (1973) depicted a liberated woman's sexual adventures and...

Jongkind, Johan Barthold
(1819-1891) Dutch painter. He was active mainly in France, his studies of the Normandy coast showing a keen observation of the natural effects of light. He worked closely with the painters of the jongleur
In medieval France, a wandering minstrel and entertainer. The jongleurs' talents varied greatly: some were jugglers, acrobats, mime artists, or exhibitors of animals; some recited and sang,...

Jonson, Ben(jamin)
(1572-1637) English dramatist, poet, and critic. Every Man in his Humour (1598) established the English `comedy of humours`, in which each character embodies a `humour`, or vice, such as greed, lust, or...

Jordaens, Jacob
(1593-1678) Flemish painter. His style follows Rubens, whom he assisted in various commissions. Much of his work is exuberant and on a large scale, including scenes of peasant life and mythological subjects, as...

Jordan
Country in southwest Asia, bounded north by Syria, northeast by Iraq, east, southeast, and south by Saudi Arabia, south by the Gulf of Aqaba, and west by Israel. Government Jordan is a...

Jordan, Barbara (Charline)
(1936-1996) US representative. She served in the Texas Senate 1967-72, and in the US House of Representatives 1973-79. A compelling orator, she electrified the 1976 Democratic convention. She became a...

Jordan, Dorothea
(1762-1816) Irish actor. She made her debut 1777, and retired 1815. She was a mistress of the Duke of Clarence (later William IV); they had ten children with the name FitzClarence. ...

Jordan, June
(1936) US poet and writer. She was influenced by mainstream poetry as well as by the Black arts movement of the 1970s. She also wrote books for children. She taught at many institutions, notably at State...

Jordan, Thomas
(c. 1612-1685) English poet and pamphleteer. He published his first volume of poems, Poeticall Varieties, 1637. In 1671 he was appointed laureate to the corporati ...

Jordy, William H(enry)
(1917) US architectural historian. His contributions to 20th-century architectural history include the comprehensive American Buildings and their Architects 1970-72 (with William H Pierson) and the...

Jorgenson, Dale W
(1933) US economist. Originator of a neoclassical theory of investment and the neoclassical theory of development of a dual economy, he taught at the University of California, Berkeley 1959-69 before...

Jorn, Asgar
(1914-1973) Danish painter. One of the founders of the Cobra group, he is best known for thickly-painted canvases, often produced by automatism or random means, and related to action painting. He also made...

Joscelin of Furness
Alternative spelling of Jocelin, medieval English writer. ...

Joseph
In the Old Testament, the 11th and favourite son of Jacob, sold into Egypt by his jealous half-brothers. After he had risen to power there, they and his father joined him to escape...

Joseph
In the New Testament, the husband of the Virgin Mary, a descendant of King David of the Tribe of Judah, and a carpenter by trade. Although, according to Christian faith, Jesus was not the son of...

Joseph I
(1678-1711) Holy Roman Emperor from 1705 and king of Austria, of the house of Habsburg. He spent most of his reign involved in fighting the War of the Spanish Succession. ...

Joseph II
(1741-1790) Holy Roman Emperor from 1765, son of Francis I (1708-1765). The reforms he carried out after the death of his mother, Maria Theresa in 1780 provoked revolts from those who lost privileges. ...

Joseph of Arimathaea, St
(lived 1st century AD) In the New Testament, a wealthy Jew, member of the Sanhedrin (supreme court), and secret supporter of Jesus. On the evening of the Crucifixion he asked the Roman procurator Pilate for Jesus' body...

Joseph of Exeter
(died c. 1210) English Latin poet. His great work, De Bello Troiano, shows the influence of Lucan and was used by Chaucer in Troilus and Criseyde. Joseph accompanied Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury on the Third...

Joseph, Chief
(c. 1840-1904) American Indian chief of the Nez Percé people. After initially agreeing to leave tribal lands 1877, he later led his people in armed resistance. Defeated, Joseph ordered a mass retreat to Canada,...

Joseph, Jacob
(c. 1840-1902) US rabbi born in Lithuania. He was brought to the USA in 1888 by the Association of Orthodox Congregations to become the chief rabbi of New York City. His presence was desired by the Orthodox Jews...

Joseph, Keith Sinjohn
(1918-1994) British Conservative politician. A barrister, he entered Parliament in 1956. He held ministerial posts in 1962-64, 1970-74, 1979-81, and was secretary of state for education and science...

Joseph, Mother
(1823-1902) Canadian-born US nun, architect, and pioneer. She became an all-purpose architect in the creation of 11 hospitals, seven academies, five Indian schools, and two orphanages. She travelled...

Joseph, Père
(1577-1638) French Catholic Capuchin monk. He was the influential secretary and agent to Louis XIII's chief minister Cardinal Richelieu, and nicknamed L'Eminence Grise (`the Grey Eminence`) in reference to...

Josey, E(llonie) J(unius)
(1924) US librarian. He planned teacher-librarian curricula at Savannah State College, Georgia, and became a recognized expert in research library services. He headed the New York State Education...

Joshua
(lived 13th century BC) In the Old Testament, successor of Moses, who led the Jews in their return to, and conquest of, the land of Canaan. The city of Jericho was the first to fall - according to the Book of Joshua, the...

Josiah
(c. 647-609 BC) King of Judah. Grandson of Manasseh and son of Amon, he succeeded to the throne at the age of eight. The discovery of a Book of Instruction (probably Deuteronomy, a book of the Old Testament) during...

Jospin, Lionel Robert
(1937) French socialist politician, first secretary of the Socialist Party (PS) 1981-88 and 1995-97, then prime minister 1997-2002, under President Jacques Chirac, heading a `pluralist left`...

Jost, Isaac Markus
(1793-1860) German historian. Jost was born into a Jewish family in Bernburg, Saxony-Anhalt. He specialized in the history of the Israelites, and his main work was the three-volume Geschichte des Judentums...

Jotun
In Scandinavian mythology, a giant who lived in Fofunheim or Utgard, rocky and forested mountain regions surrounding the world. ...

Joubert, Joseph
(1754-1824) French moralist and critic. In 1778 he was adopted by literary circles in Paris and became a friend of Chateaubriand who published his work for the first time (Recueil des pensées 1838). Other...

Joubert, Piet (Petrus Jacobus)
(1831-1900) Boer general in South Africa. He opposed British annexation of the Transvaal 1877, proclaimed its independence in 1880, led the Boer forces in the First South African War against the British...