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

Jouett, Matthew (Harris)
(c. 1787-1827) US painter who was a noted portraitist. He spent most of his life in Lexington, Kentucky, and his subjects included the Marquis de Lafayette and Henry Clay. Born in Mercer County, Kentucky, he...

Jouhaux, Léon Henri
(1879-1954) French trade unionist, the most prominent non-communist trade-union leader in France in the 20th century. Jouhaux served as secretary general of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT)...

journalism
Profession of reporting, photographing, or editing news events for the mass media -newspapers, magazines, radio, television, documentary films,...

Journée des Barricades
A Catholic revolt in Paris on 12 May 1588 during the French Wars of Religion. Increasingly anxious about the threat from Huguenot force, and weary of the indecisiveness of Henry III, Catholic...

journeyman
A man who served his apprenticeship in a trade and worked as a fully qualified employee. The term originated in the regulations of the medieval trade guilds; it derives from the French journée...

Jouvet, Louis
(1887-1951) French actor and director. He set up his own company in 1922 at the Comédie des Champs-Elysées and became a director of the Comédie Française in 1940. He was long associated with the dramatist...

Jove
Another name for the Roman god Jupiter. ...

Jovellanos, Gaspar Melchor de
(1744-1811) Spanish writer and politician. His Diary (published 1953-55) gives a detailed account of conditions in rural Spain. He wrote numerous ess ...

Jovian, (Flavius Claudius Jovianus)
(c. 331-364) Roman emperor from 363. Captain of the imperial bodyguard, he was chosen as emperor by the troops after Julian's death. He concluded an unpopular peace with the Sassanian Empire and restored...

Jovinus
(lived 5th century AD) General of the Roman emperor Honorius. He assumed...

Jowell, Tessa
(1947) British Labour politician, minister for the Olympics and London from 2007 A moderate `Blairite`, she was minister for public health 1997-99 and employment 1999-2001, before being promoted to...

Joyce, James (Augustine Aloysius)
(1882-1941) Irish writer. His originality lies in evolving a literary form to express the complexity of the human mind, and he revolutionized the form of the English novel with his linguistic technique which...

Joyce, William
(1906-1946) Born in New York, son of a naturalized Irish-born American, he carried on fascist activity in the UK as a `British subject`. During World War II he made propaganda broadcasts from Germany to...

József, Attila
(1905-1937) Hungarian poet. He is regarded as one of the most important modern Hungarian lyric poets. He wrote about his working-class background, as in `Külvárosi éj/Night in the Slums` 1932, and...

JP
Abbreviation for justice of the peace. ...

Juan Carlos
(1938) King of Spain. The son of Don Juan, pretender to the Spanish throne, he married Princess Sofia, eldest daughter of King Paul of Greece, in 1962. In 1969 he was nominated by Franco to succeed on the...

Juan de Flandes
(died 1519) Flemish painter, active in Spain from 1496. He was appointed court painter to Queen Isabella that year and after her death spent the last years of his life in Palencia. A characteristic work is the...

Juárez, Benito Pablo
(1806-1872) Mexican politician, president 1861-65 and 1867-72. In 1861 he suspended repayments of Mexico's foreign debts, which prompted a joint French, British, and Spanish expedition to exert pressure....

Juba I
(died 46 BC) King of Numidia, North Africa (now eastern Algeria), an ally of the Roman soldier and politician Pompey and his faithful lieutenant Marcus Petreius, whom Juba supported against Julius Caesar. He...

Juba II
(died AD 23) King of Numidia, North Africa, about 30 BC, and of the African kingdom of Mauretania 25 BC, son of Juba I. He was transferred to Mauretania by the emperor Augustus when Numidia...

jube
In French architecture, the screen between the nave and chancel in a church; in English architecture the `rood-screen` (see rood). ...

Judaea
Name used in Graeco-Roman times for the southernmost region of Palestine, now divided between Israel and Jordan. The area takes the form of a long zigzag central spine which has a series of steep...

Judah
Name used in Graeco-Roman times for the southernmost district of Palestine, now divided between Israel and Jordan. After the death of King Solomon in 922 BC, Judah adhered to his son Rehoboam and...

Judah Ha-Nasi
(c.AD 135-c. 220) Jewish scholar who with a number of colleagues edited the collection of writings known as the Mishnah, which formed the basis of the ...

Judaism
The religion of the ancient Hebrews and their descendants the Jews, based, according to the Old Testament, on a covenant between God and Abraham about 2000 BC, and the renewal of the covenant with...

Judas Iscariot
(lived 1st century AD) In the New Testament, the disciple who betrayed Jesus Christ. Judas was the treasurer of the group. At the last Pesach (Passover) supper, he arranged, for 30 pieces of silver, to point out Jesus to...

Judas Maccabaeus
(died 161 BC) Hebrew leader, member of the prominent Jewish Maccabee family that fought against Syrian rule in Palestine. Taking command of rebel forces on the death of his father in 166 BC, he won a series of...

Judd, Donald (Clarence)
(1928) US sculptor. Based in New York City, he began as a painter, then became a sculptor in 1961, specializing in abstract and geometric forms in various media, as in Untitled 1965, one of his stacked...

Jude, St
(lived 1st century AD) Supposed half-brother of Jesus and writer of the Epistle of Jude in the New Testament; patron saint of lost causes. Feast day 28 October. ...

judge
Person invested with power to hear and determine legal disputes. In the UK, judges are chosen from barristers of long standing, but solicitors can be appointed circuit judges. Judges of the High...

Judgement Day
In Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, the day on which people who have died are resurrected by God, who will judge everyone according to how they have lived, and the world will end. In Islam and...

Judgement of Paris
In Greek mythology, the story of the Trojan prince Paris who was called on to judge which was the most attractive of the three goddesses...

Judgement of Sisamnes
Pair of paintings by the Flemish artist Gerard David (1498, Musée Communal, Bruges, Belgium). The subjects were taken from the Greek historian Herodotus, according to whom Sisamnes, one of King...

Judges
Book of the Old Testament, describing the history of the Israelites from the death of Joshua to the reign of Saul, under the command of several leaders known as Judges (who deliver the people from...

judicial review
In English law, action in the High Court to review the decisions of lower courts, tribunals, and administrative bodies. Various court orders can be made:certiorari...

judicial separation
Action in a court by either husband or wife, in which it is not necessary to prove an irreconcilable breakdown of a marriage, but in which the grounds are otherwise the same as for divorce. It does...

judiciary
In constitutional terms, the system of courts and body of judges in a country. The independence of the judiciary from other branches of the central authority is generally considered to be an...

Judith
In the Old Testament, a Jewish widow who saved her community from a Babylonian siege by pretending to seduce, and then beheading, the enemy general Holofernes. Her story is much represented in...

Judith of Bavaria
(800-843) Empress of the French. The wife of Louis the Pious (Louis I of France) from 819, she exercised power over her husband to the benefit of their son Charles the Bold. ...

Judson, Adoniram
(1788-1850) US missionary. In 1812 he went to Burma as a Baptist missionary. He was imprisoned as a spy during the Anglo-Burmese War (1824-26). He translated the Bible into Burmese and claimed to have...

Judson, Edward Zane Carroll
(1823-1886) US author. Specializing in short adventure stories, he developed a stereotyped frontier hero in the pages of his own periodicals Ned Buntline's Magazine and Buntline's Own. In his dime novels in the...

Judson, Margaret Atwood
(1899-1991) US historian and educator. Her Crisis of the Constitution: An Essay in Constitutional and Political Thought in England, 1603-45 1949, is widely respected. She published Breaking the Barrier: A...

Juel, Niels
(1629-1697) Danish admiral, who helped build his country's navy into an effective fighting force. He served the Dutch navy in their first war (1652-54) against Britain and fought in subsequent conflicts in...

Jugendstil
The art nouveau style in Germany and Austria, named after the Munich review Die Jugend/Youth founded in 1896. It flourished in cosmopolitan Vienna at the end of the century, and became known as the...

Juggernaut
A name for Vishnu, the Hindu god, meaning `Lord of the World`. His temple is in Puri, Orissa, India. A statue of the god, dating from about 318, is annually carried in procession on a large...

Jugurtha
(died 104 BC) King of Numidia, North Africa, who, after a long resistance, was betrayed to the Romans and put to death. ...

Juin, Alphonse Pierre
(1888-1967) French general. A fellow-student of de Gaulle at...

Jukun
Member of a people of eastern Nigeria. They are descendants of the 17th-century Sudanese kingdom of Kororofa. Traditionally, their king, who was equated or associated with the Moon, and was...

Julia
(lived 1st century BC) Roman noble, sister of Julius Caesar and grandmother of the emperor Augustus. ...

Julia
(died AD 59) Roman noble, daughter of Drusus Caesar and Livilla, granddaughter of the emperor Tiberius. ...

Julia
(c. 19 BC-AD 28) Roman noble, daughter of Julia (the daughter of Augustus) and Agrippa. She was banished AD 8 by Augustus, who disapproved of her behaviour, to Trimerus, an island off Apulia (southeastern Italy). ...

Julia
(AD 18-c. 42) Roman noble, youngest daughter of Germanicus Caesar...

Julia
(39 BC-AD 14) Roman noble, only child of the emperor Augustus and his first wife Scribonia. She married her cousin Marcus Marcellus 25 BC, and after his death two years later, she married Marcus Vipsanius...

Julia gens
Patrician clan (gens) of ancient Rome. Its best-known family was that of the Julii Caesares, which included Gaius Julius Caesar. The Julia gens claimed descent from Iulus (sometimes called...

Julian of Norwich
(c. 1342-after 1413) English mystic. She lived as a recluse, and recorded her visions in The Revelation of Divine Love (1403), which shows the influence of neo-Platonism. ...

Julian the Apostate
(332-363) Roman emperor. Born in Constantinople, the nephew of Constantine the Great, he was brought up as a Christian but early in life became a convert to paganism. Sent by Constantius to govern Gaul in...

Juliana
(1909-2004) Queen of the Netherlands 1948-80. The daughter of Queen Wilhelmina (1880-1962), she married Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld in 1937. She abdicated in 1980 and was succeeded by her...

Julius II
(1443-1513) Pope (1503-13). A politician who wanted to make the Papal States the leading power in Italy, he formed international alliances first against Venice and then against France. He began the building...

July Plot
In German history, an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the dictator Adolf Hitler and overthrow the Nazi regime on 20 July 1944. Colonel von Stauffenberg planted a bomb under the conference table...

July Revolution
Revolution 27-29 July 1830 in France that overthrew the restored Bourbon monarchy of Charles X and substituted the constitutional monarchy of Louis Philippe, whose rule (1830-48) is sometimes...

Jungle Book, The
Collection of short stories for children by Rudyard Kipling, published in two volumes in 1894 and 1895. Set in India, the stories feature a boy, Mowgli, reared by wolves and the animals he...

Juni, Juan de
(c. 1507-1577) French-born Spanish sculptor. His early works include architectural portrait medallions (1536) for the facade of the Church of San Marcos, León. He is best known for the polychromed wood carving...

Junius, Letters of
Series of 70 letters published in the English Public Advertiser 1769-72, under the pseudonym Junius. Written in a pungent, epigrammatic style, they attacked the `king's friends` and even...

Junk art
Any art - usually sculpture - which is made from waste or scrap materials of any kind, domestic or industrial. It has its origins in cubist and Dadaist collage, and in particular the works of...

junk bond
Derogatory term for a security officially rated as `below investment grade`. Junk bonds are fixed interest loans paying above average levels of interest with corresponding above average levels...

Junker
Member of the landed aristocracy in Prussia; favoured by Frederick the Great and Bismarck, they controlled land, industry, trade, and the army, and exhibited privilege and arrogance. From the 15th...

Junker, Wilhelm
(1840-1892) German explorer. In 1874 he visited Tunis and Egypt, and explored the upper Nile where he identified the Nile-Congo/Zaire watershed. In 1883 he was prevented from returning to Europe by the...

Junkers, Hugo
(1859-1935) German aeroplane designer. In 1919 he founded in Dessau the aircraft works named after him. Junkers planes, including dive bombers, night fighters, and troop carriers, were used by the Germans in...

Juno
In Roman mythology, the principal goddess, identified with the Greek Hera. The wife of Jupiter and queen of heaven, she was concerned with all aspects of women's lives and also regarded as a...

Juno Beach
Beach in Normandy used by Canadian troops during the D-Day landings, on 6 June 1944, although it was technically in the centre of the British sector. Initial resistance by the Germans caused a...

Junot, Andoche
(1771-1813) French general in the Napoleonic Wars. He enjoyed great success as commander of the invasion of Portugal in 1807, and was briefly governor of the conquered country, but was defeated by Wellington in...

Junot, Laure Sainte-Martin-Permon
(1784-1838) French writer. Her considerable wit and intelligence attracted to her salon most of the influential political figures of the Napoleonic era. She is remembered for her Mémoires sur Napoléon, le...

Junqueiro, Abilio Manuel Guerra
(1850-1923) Portuguese poet. His best-known works are Os simples 1896, full of vigorous, radical sentiments about the state of the nation, and a declamatory patriotic piece, A patria 1890, written against...

junta
The military rulers of a country, especially after an army takeover, as in Turkey in 1980. Other examples include Argentina, under Juan Perón and his successors; Chile, under Augusto Pinochet;...

Junto
Pejorative name (from the Spanish, junta) given to a group of Whig ministers who held power under William III 1696-97 and Queen Anne 1708-10. The group included Lords Somers, Sunderland,...

Jupiter
In Roman mythology, the supreme god reigning on Mount Olympus, identified with the Greek Zeus; son of Saturn and Ops; and husband of Juno, his sister. His titles included Fulgur (thrower of...

Juppé, Alain Marie
(1945) French neo-Gaullist politician, foreign minister 1993-95 and prime minister 1995-97. In 1976, as a close lieutenant of Jacques Chirac, he helped to found the right-of-centre Rally for the...

jurisprudence
The science of law in the abstract - that is, not the study of any particular laws or legal system, but of the principles upon which legal systems are founded. ...

jury
Body of lay people (usually 12) sworn to decide the facts of a case and reach a verdict in a court of law. Juries, used mainly in English-speaking countries, are implemented primarily in criminal...

just price
Traditional economic belief that everything bought and sold has a `natural` price, which is the price unaffected by adverse conditions, or by individual or monopoly influence. The belief dates...

Just So Stories
Collection of stories for small children by Rudyard Kipling, published in 1902. Many of the stories offer amusing explanations of how certain animals acquired their characteristic appearance, such...

Just William
Children's book published in 1922, the first of a series by English author Richmal Crompton, featuring the character William. A radio adaptation read by Martin Jarvis in the 1980s gave the books a...

justice
A goal of political activity and a subject of political enquiry since Plato. The term has been variously defined as fairness, equity, rightness, the equal distribution of resources, and positive...

justice of the peace
In England, an unpaid magistrate. In the USA, where JPs receive fees and are usually elected, their courts are the lowest in the states, and deal only with minor offences, such as traffic...

Justice, Department of
US government department created in 1870. Its tasks are to enforce the law, ensure public safety against domestic and foreign threats, prevent and control crime, administer and enforce immigration...

justiciar
The chief justice minister of Norman and early Angevin kings, second in power only to the king. By 1265, the government had been divided into various departments, such as the Exchequer and Chancery,...

Justin, St
(c. 100-c. 163) One of the early Christian leaders and writers known as the Fathers of the Church. Born in Palestine of a Greek family, he was converted to Christianity and wrote two Apologies in its defence. He...

Justinian
(c. 483-565) East Roman emperor 527-565, renowned for overseeing the reconquest of Africa, Italy, and parts of Spain. He ordered the codification of Roman law, which has influenced European jurisprudence; he...

Justinus, Marcus Junianus
(lived 2nd or 3rd century AD) Roman historian. He wrote an abridged version of the work of the Augustan historian Pompeius Trogus, who wrote a Historiae Philippicae/Universal History in 44 books. The work of Justinus found great...

Justo, Agustin Pedro
(1876-1943) Argentine military leader and president 1932-38. During his administration, economic and political problems, left over from the previous administrations, were rife. He was instrumental - along...

Justus of Ghent
(lived 15th century) Flemish painter, active in Urbino, Italy in the 1460s-1480s. He was, according to Vesapasiano da Bisticci, called to Italy by Federigo da Montefeltro of Urbino, and for him Justus produced, among...

Jute
Member of a Germanic people who originated in Jutland but later settled in Frankish territory. They occupied Kent, southeast England, in about 450, according to tradition under Hengist...

Jutland, Battle of
World War I naval battle between British and German forces on 31 May 1916, off the west coast of Jutland. Its outcome was indecisive, but the German fleet remained in port for the...

Juturna
In Roman mythology, the nymph of a fountain in Latium renowned for its healing properties. Its water was used in sacrifices, and a shrine was dedicated to the nymph in the Campus...

Juvenal
(c.AD 60-140) Roman satirical poet. His 16 surviving Satires give an explicit and sometimes brutal picture of the corrupt Roman society of his time. Very little is known of...

juvenile court
Magistrates' court in which a juvenile offender (a young person under the age of 17 who has committed a criminal offence) is tried under UK law. Members of the public are not allowed in a juvenile...

juvenile delinquency
Offences against the law that are committed by young people. ...

juvenile offender
Young person who commits a criminal offence. In UK law, young people under the age of 17 are commonly referred to as juveniles, although for some purposes a distinction is made between...

Juxon, William
(1582-1663) English cleric. Juxon was an ardent Royalist in the English Civil War, and ministered to King Charles I at his execution. He was stripped of all his offices during Cromwell's rule, but was appointed...

juzu
Buddhist concept of interpenetration. Pure Land Buddhists believe that all things are dependent on each other for their existence, so that everyone will be reborn in the Pure Land if only one person...