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

Lailat ul-Barah
Muslim festival which takes place two weeks before the beginning of the fast of Ramadan (the ninth month of the Islamic year) and is a time for asking and granting forgiveness. ...

Lailat ul-Isra Wal Mi'raj
Muslim festival that celebrates the prophet Muhammad's Night Journey. ...

Lailat ul-Qadr
Muslim festival that celebrates the giving of the Koran to Muhammad. It usually falls at the end of Ramadan. ...

laissez faire
Theory that the state should not intervene in economic affairs, except to break up a monopoly. The phrase originated with the Physiocrats, 18th-century French economists whose maxim was laissez...

Lajpat Rai, Lala
(1865-1928) Indian politician and writer. His published articles advocated technical education and industrial self-help and criticized the Congress as being a gathering of English-educated elites. Arguing...

Lake Balaton, Battle of
In World War II, last major German offensive on the Eastern Front 1945 based around a lake in West Hungary to head off a threatened Soviet attack and try and safeguard the Hungarian oilfields. They...

lake dwelling
Prehistoric habitation built on piles driven into the bottom of a lake or at the edge of a lake or river. Such villages are found throughout Europe, in West Africa, South America,...

Lake Mungo
Dry lake bed in southwestern New South Wales, Australia, site of the oldest evidence of ritual cremation in the world. In 1969 archaeologists found human bones there which have been dated as...

Lake, (William) Anthony (Kirsopp)
(1939-1996) US government official, national security adviser 1993-96. He helped to shape President Bill Clinton's foreign policy of support for the new market-based democracies in...

Lakota
Subgroup of the American Indian Sioux people and dialect of the Siouan language. ...

Lakshmi
Hindu goddess of wealth, beauty, and good fortune, consort of Vishnu, and mother of the world; her festival is Diwali. In temples Lakshmi is usually worshipped as the consort of Vishnu, where...

Lalique, René
(1860-1945) French designer and manufacturer of Art Nouveau glass, jewellery, and house interiors. The Lalique factory continues in production at Wingen-sur-Moder, Alsace, under his son Marc and...

Lam, Wifredo (Wilfredo)
(1902-1982) Cuban painter. Influenced by Surrealism in the 1930s (he lived in Paris 1937-41), he created a semi-abstract style using mysterious and sometimes menacing images and symbols, mainly taken from...

Lamachus
(died 414 BC) Athenian general. With the Athenian generals Nicias and Alcibiades, he was appointed to command the Sicilian expedition 415 BC in the Peloponnesian War. He correctly urged a direct assault on...

Lamar, Joseph R(ucker)
(1857-1916) US Supreme Court justice. He served on the Georgia state legislature (1886-89) and at the state supreme court (1904-06) before his appointment to the US Supreme Court (1911-16) by President...

Lamar, Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus
(1825-1893) US jurist and public official. He was a member of the Senate 1877-85 and served as President Cleveland's secretary of the interior 1885-88. He sat on the Supreme Court 1888-93. Lamar was born...

Lamar, Mirabeau Buonaparte
(1798-1859) US soldier and public official. After working as a politician and journalist in Georgia, he moved to Texas and commanded the Texas cavalry at San Jacinto (1836). He was vice-president (1836-38)...

Lamartine, Alphonse Marie Louis de
(1790-1869) French poet. He wrote romantic poems, including Méditations poétiques/Poetical Meditations (1820), followed by Nouvelles méditations/New Meditations (1823), and Harmonies poétiques et...

Lamb, Caroline
(1785-1828) English writer. Her gothic novel Glenarvon, published anonymously in 1816, reflects her passionate affair with Lord Byron during 1812-13, and contains a caricature portrait of the poet. On their...

Lamb, Charles
(1775-1834) English essayist and critic. He collaborated with his sister Mary Lamb (1764-1847) on Tales from Shakespeare (1807), and his Specimens of English Dramatic Poets Contemporary with Shakespeare, with...

Lamb, Mary Ann
(1764-1847) English writer. She was the elder sister of Charles Lamb. Mentally unstable, she stabbed and killed her mother 1796 and was placed in the custody of her brother. She wrote the 14 comedies and he the...

Lambarde, William
(1536-1601) English legal expert and archivist. His best-known work, A Perambulation of Kent, 1576, was the first published county history. In 1600 he...

Lambert, Francis
(1486-1530) French-born religious reformer. A Franciscan famous as a preacher, he abandoned his order and travelled to Zürich to meet Zwingli and then to Wittenberg in 1523 to meet Martin Luther. He was...

Lambert, John
(1619-1684) English general. He was a cavalry commander in the English Civil War under Oliver Cromwell (at the battles of Marston Moor, Preston, Dunbar, and Worcester). He supported Cromwell's assumption of the...

Lambeth Conference
Meeting of bishops of the Anglican communion every ten years, presided over by the archbishop of Canterbury; its decisions on doctrinal matters are not binding. ...

Lambeth Palace
London residence of the archbishops of Canterbury, situated by Lambeth Bridge in the London borough of Lambeth. Building was begun by Archbishop Hubert Walter at the end of the 12th century,...

Lamburn, Richmal Crompton
Full name of English writer Richmal Crompton. ...

Lamia
In Greek mythology, queen of the Laestrygones in Libya. She was loved by Zeus whose jealous wife, Hera, robbed Lamia of her children. In revenge Lamia seized and killed every...

Lamian War
War fought 323-322 BC after the death of Alexander the Great, King of Macedonia, when many of the Greek city-states combined against Macedonia in an attempt to recover their independence. They...

Lamizana, Sangoulé
(1916-2005) Politician and army officer, second president of independent Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) from 1966-80. He came to power in a coup, and ruled autocratically; although he allowed political...

Lamm, Norman
(1927) US rabbi. He was the founder, in 1957, and editor of Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought. He taught Jewish philosophy at Yeshiva University in New York City from 1959, and became the...

Lammas
Medieval festival of harvest, celebrated 1 August. At one time it was an English quarter day (date for payment of quarterly rates or dues). ...

Lamming, George William
(1927) Barbadian novelist and poet. The autobiographical In the Castle of my Skin (1953) describes his upbringing in the small village where he was born. His imaginative explorations of Caribbean history...

lamp
Receptacle for a source of artificial light. Stone Age peoples appear to have discovered that a wick soaked in and fed by fat or oil would provide a lasting light and, using a hollowed-out s ...

Lampedusa, Giuseppe Tomasi di
(1896-1957) Italian aristocrat. He was the author of Il gattopardo/The Leopard (1958; translated into English 1960), a novel set in his native Sicily during the period following its annexation by Garibaldi in...

Lampman, Archibald
(1861-1899) Canadian poet. His collections of landscape and native poetry are Among the Millet and other Poems 1888, and Lyrics of Earth 1895. ...

Lampsacus
Ancient Greek colony in Mysia, Asia Minor, on the Hellespont and opposite the modern Gallipoli. It was produced good wine and was the chief seat of the worship of the fertility god Priapus. The...

Lancaster
British heavy bomber of World War II made by the Avro company. It was first flown in June 1941 and developed into the RAF's best heavy bomber of the war. Lancaster bombers were responsible for the...

Lancaster
English royal house, a branch of the Plantagenets. It originated in 1267 when Edmund (died 1296), the younger son of Henry III, was granted the earldom...

Lancaster House Agreement
Accord reached at a conference held in September 1979 at Lancaster House, London, between Britain and representative groups of Rhodesia, including the Rhodesian government under Ian Smith and black...

Lancaster, James
(c. 1554-1618) English navigator and statesman who commanded the Edward Bonaventure under Sir Francis Drake against the Spanish Armada, and later sailed in a pioneer expedition to the East Indies in 1591. The...

Lancaster, Joseph
(1778-1838) English educational reformer and member of the Society of Friends (`Quakers`). His radical experiment in the monitorial method of teaching, in which older pupils instructed groups of younger...

Lancaster, Osbert
(1908-1986) English cartoonist and writer. In 1939 he began producing daily `pocket cartoons` for the Daily Express, in which he satirized current social mores through such characters as Maudie...

Lancelot of the Lake
In British legend, one of King Arthur's knights of the Round Table. Originally a Celtic folk hero, he was first introduced into the Arthurian cycle of tales in the 12th century. He was designated...

Lanchester, Henry Vaughan
(1863-1953) English architect and town-planner. His most notable buildings were Deptford Town Hall (1901); the Wesleyan Central Hall, Westminster (1905-11); extensions of Leeds University (1926); Birmingham...

Lancret, Nicolas
(1690-1743) French painter. His graceful fêtes galantes (festive groups of courtly figures in fancy dress) followed a theme made popular by Watteau. He also illustrated amorous scenes from the...

land
In economics, the factor of production which comprises not just land itself but all natural resources. Shoals of fish, natural forests, the atmosphere, and rivers are examples of land. The reward...

Land
Federal state of Germany or Austria. ...

Land art
Type of modern art that uses natural substances such as rocks and soil as its raw materials. It is often inspired by natural processes. Land artists rejected the commercialization of art, and were...

Land League
Irish peasant-rights organization, formed in 1879 by Michael Davitt and Charles Stewart Parnell to fight against tenant evictions. Through its skilful use of the boycott against anyone who took a...

Land Registry, HM
Official body set up in 1925 to register legal rights to land in England and Wales. There has been a gradual introduction, since 1925, of compulsory registration of land in different areas of the...

land tax
In England, a tax on land, based on an assessment of 1692, which became the principal source of crown revenue in the 18th century. It averaged around 20% of rental income, although this could be...

Landers, Ann
(1918-2002) US journalist. In 1955 she inherited her job as a Chicago-based advice columnist from a previous `Ann Landers`, creating an international institution. She earned a devoted following for her...

landing craft
Specialized ships developed in World War II for the transport and delivery of troops and equipment in a seaborne assault. Landing ships were large craft capable of long sea voyages; they carried...

Landino, Cristoforo
(1424-1492) Italian humanist scholar. Born in Florence, Landino was one of the group of scholars who gathered round Lorenzo de' Medici in the Platonic Academy. He published commentaries on Virgil and Horace and...

Landis, James (McCauley)
(1899-1964) Japanese-born US legal scholar. He served as an adviser to three US presidents and as a professor (1926-33), then dean (1937-46), at Harvard Law School. He was appointed to the Securities and...

landlord and tenant
In law, the relationship that exists between an owner of land or buildings (the landlord) and a person granted the right to occupy them (the tenant). The landlord grants a lease or tenancy, which...

Landnamabok
An account of the colonization of Iceland from Norway in the late 9th and early 10th centuries. The names of about 400 of the first settlers are given, the extent...

Landon, Alf(red Mossman)
(1887-1987) US politician. A popular liberal Republican, he ran for president against the incumbent Franklin D Roosevelt in 1936 but was overwhelmingly defeated. He later accepted a presidential appointment as...

Landon, Letitia Elizabeth
(1802-1838) English poet. She contributed to literary journals, using the initials L E L, and published separately The Fate of Adelaide 1821, The Improvisatrice 1824, The Troubadour 1825, and The Venetian...

Landor, Walter Savage
(1775-1864) English poet and essayist. He lived much of his life abroad, dying in Florence, where he had fled to avoid a libel suit in 1858. His works include the epic poem Gebir (1798), the tragedy Count...

Landrum, Phillip Mitchell
(1907-1990) US politician. A high school superintendent (1937-41) and lawyer, he ran for Congress before enlisting in the army. After serving in Europe, he worked for the Veterans' Administration and for the...

Landsbergis, Vytautas
(1932) Lithuanian politician, president 1990-93. He became active in nationalist politics in the 1980s, founding and eventually chairing the anticommunist...

landscape archaeology
The study of human occupation and activities on landscapes, in particular the patterning of settlements and sites within that broad perspective through time. ...

landscape architecture
Designing artificial landscapes, composed of both natural and artificial elements. Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903), who was responsible for the layout of Central Park, New York, 1857, is...

Landseer, Edwin Henry
(1802-1873) English painter, sculptor, and engraver of animal studies. Much of his work reflects the Victorian taste for sentimental and moralistic pictures, for example Dignity and Impudence (1839; Tate...

Landsteiner, Karl
(1868-1943) Austrian-born US immunologist who was awarded a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1930 for his discovery of the ABO blood group system in the period 1900-02. He also aided in the...

Landsturm
In World War I, German third-line reserve troops composed of men who had completed their conscript or regular service, reserve service, and Landwehr service. They were then transferred to the...

Landtag
Legislature of each of the Länder (states) that form the federal republics of Germany and Austria. ...

Landwehr
In World War I, German second-line reserve troops. All German conscripts, on completion of their mandatory service, were transferred to the `first ban` of the Landwehr for five years, during...

Lane, Allen
(1902-1970) English publisher and pioneer of paperback books. He founded the paperback publishers Penguin Books Ltd in 1935, a revolutionary step in the trade. Starting with reprints of novels in paper covers...

Lane, Edward William
(1801-1876) English traveller and translator. He was one of the earliest English travellers to Egypt to learn Arabic; his pseudo-scholarly writings, including An Account of the Manners and Customs of the...

Lane, Elizabeth
(1905-1988) English lawyer. In 1960 she became the third woman to be appointed QC (Queen's Counsel), and in 1962 she was the first woman circuit court judge. She was made a master of...

Lane, Henry (Smith)
(1811-1881) US politician. A Whig appointee from Indiana, he served in Congress (1840-43), then left to fight in the Mexican-American war. Joining the Republican Party in support of its antislavery policy,...

Lane, Hugh Percy
(1875-1915) Irish art connoisseur and collector. His bequest provided the nucleus of the modern foreign collection in the Tate Gallery, London. Part of the collection is now in the National Gallery, London; the...

Lane, Joseph
(1801-1881) US governor and legislator. A farmer and merchant in Indiana, he emerged a hero from the Mexican War and was appointed first territorial governor of...

Lane, William Preston, Jr
(1892-1967) US governor. A lawyer and World War I veteran, he purchased newspapers in Hagerstown in 1922. A crusading Maryland attorney general (1930-34), he prosecuted a white lynch mob in 1933. As Democrat...

Lanfranc
(c. 1010-1089) Italian archbishop of Canterbury from 1070. Following the Norman Conquest, he was the adviser of William (I) the Conqueror. As archbishop he rebuilt Canterbury Cathedral, replaced English clergy...

Lanfranco, Giovanni
(1582-1647) Italian baroque painter. Influenced by the ceiling paintings of Antonio Correggio in Parma, he decorated the domes and apses of many churches in Rome and Naples, developing a striking baroque...

Lang, Andrew
(1844-1912) Scottish historian and folklore scholar. His writings include historical works; anthropological studies, such as Myth, Ritual and Religion (1887) and The Making of Religion (1898), which involved...

Lang, Cosmo Gordon
(1864-1945) Scottish churchman, archbishop of Canterbury 1928-42. He was renowned as an important reformer of the Anglican Church, and as one of the finest preachers...

Lang, Matheson
(1879-1948) Canadian-born British actor and theatre manager. He formed his own company in 1911 and toured in South Africa and the Far East, with occasional visits to London. His productions of Shakespeare at...

langar
Free communal kitchen of the gurdwara (Sikh temple). The langar symbolizes Sikh belief in community values, the duty to serve others, and the equality of all people, regardless of birth, caste,...

Langdell, Christopher (Columbus)
(1826-1906) US legal scholar. He is best known for pioneering the case study method of teaching law and for his trend-setting book, Casebook on Contracts (1871). He practised law in New York City before...

Langdon, John
(1741-1819) American politican. A member of the Continental Congress, he served for a time in the American Revolution and took part in the Constitutional Convention. He was in Congress for several terms, and...

Lange, Christian Louis
(1869-1938) Norwegian pacifist and historian. He was active in fostering international understanding, especially through his work with the Inter-Parliamentary Union, forerunner of the League of Nations. He...

Lange, David Russell
(1942-2005) New Zealand Labour centre-left politician, prime minister 1983-89. A skilled parliamentary debater, he became Labour's deputy leader in 1979, and in 1983 replaced Wallace Rowling as party...

Lange, Friedrich Albert
(1828-1875) German historian of philosophy. He is known mainly for his work Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedeutung in der Gegenwart/History of Materialism and Critique of its Present...

Lange, Oskar Ryszard
(1904-1965) Polish economist and politician. He was Polish ambassador to the USA 1945-47, and delegate to the United Nations (UN) Security Council. From 1957 to 1959 he was chair of the UN Economic Commission...

Langensalza, Battle of
In the Austro-Prussian (Seven Weeks') War, Prussian victory 27 June 1866 over a Hanoverian army fighting on the Austrian side. The site is about 32 km/20 mi northwest of Erfurt, Germany. The...

Langer Emil
In World War I, German 38-cm naval gun mounted on the ground, installed on the Belgian coast 1915 and used to bombard Dunkirk, about 40 km/25 mi away. In spite of aerial reconnaissance and bombing...

Langer, Susanne (Katherina)
(1895-1985) US philosopher. Her seminal work Philosophy in a New Key (1942) portrayed symbolism as the key in uniting such fields as logic, psychology, and art. Langer traced the development of the mind in...

Langer, William
(1886-1959) US politician. A lawyer and Republican attorney general (1916-20) he enforced prohibition laws in North Dakota. Elected governor in 1933, he was removed in 1934 for soliciting funds from state...

Langer, William (Leonard)
(1896-1977) US historian. He was one of the nation's leading authorities on European diplomatic history, military history, and US foreign policy. During World War II he worked with the Office of Strategic...

Langford, Nathaniel Pitt
(1832-1911) US explorer and conservationist. He explored the Yellowstone area in 1870 and, after playing an influential role in having it designated a national park in 1872, he served, without pay, as the first...

Langgässer, Elisabeth
(1899-1950) German writer. In her existentialist novels (see existentialism) unity of time and continuity of action...

Langham, Simon de
(c.1310-1376) English churchman, archbishop of Canterbury 1366-69. In 1368 he was made a cardinal and summoned to Avignon, where the Popes had their residence 1309-78. He died in Avignon, but his body was...

Langhorne, John
(1735-1779) English poet, translator, and clergyman. He wrote for the Monthly Review and published several volumes of popular poetry including Genius and Valour 1764. His most important work is the translation...

Langland, William
(c. 1332-c. 1400) English poet. His alliterative The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman (see Piers Plowman) was written in three (or possibly four) versions between about 1367 and 1386. The poem forms a...

Langlie, Arthur (Bernard)
(1900-1966) US lawyer and governor. A Republican attorney, he was a budget cutting mayor of Seattle, Washington (1939-41). As Washington's governor (1941-45, 1949-57), he opposed social welfare funding...