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

Armada
Fleet sent by Philip II of Spain against England in 1588. See Spanish Armada. ...

Armageddon
In the New Testament (Revelation 16:16), the site of the final battle between the nations that will end the world; it has been identified with Megiddo in Israel. ...

armature
In modelling and sculpture, the skeleton-like metal framework used to give internal support to the clay, wax, or other material, and prevent it from sagging or collapsing. Armature wire is...

armed forces
State military organizations; the army, navy, and air force. ...

armed resistance
In US history, period of militant opposition to slavery in the decade prior to the Civil War (1861-65). The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which tightened regulations for the arrest, trial, and...

Armelagos, George J(ohn)
(1936) US physical anthropologist. Armelagos made major contributions to paleopathology in human evolution, especially regarding effects of nutritional stress and infectious disease on bone development. ...

Armenia
Country in western Asia, bounded east by Azerbaijan, north by Georgia, west by Turkey, and south by Iran. Government Under the 1995 constitution, there is a directly elected executive president,...

Armenian
Member of the largest ethnic group inhabiting Armenia. There are Armenian minorities in Azerbaijan (see Nagorno-Karabakh), as well as in Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iran. Christianity was...

Armenian Church
Form of Christianity adopted in Armenia in the 3rd century. The Catholicos, or exarch, is the supreme head, and Echmiadzin (near Yerevan) is his traditional seat. Believers...

Armenian massacres
Series of massacres of Armenians by Turkish soldiers between 1895 and 1915. In 1894-96 demands for better treatment led to massacres of Armenians in eastern Asia Minor. Over 50,000 Armenians were...

Armin, Robert
(c. 1565-1610) English comic actor. A pupil of the clown Richard Tarleton, he joined the Lord Chamberlain's (later King's) Men, becoming principal comedian. He adopted the role of Dogberry in Much Ado About...

Arminian
Member of a religious group that reacted against the rigid Calvinism of the early 17th century and gained considerable influence at the courts of James I and Charles I of England. Arminians, who...

Arminianism
High church school of Christian theology opposed to Calvin's doctrine of predestination which flourished under James I and Charles I, and later formed the basis of Wesleyan Methodism. Named after a...

Arminius
(c. 18 BC-19 AD) German chieftain of the Cherusci tribe. An ex-soldier of the Roman army, he annihilated a Roman force led by Quintilius Varus in the Teutoburger Forest area in AD 9, and saved Germany from...

Arminius, Jacobus
(1560-1609) Dutch Protestant priest who founded Arminianism, a school of Christian theology opposed to John Calvin's doctrine of predestination. His views were developed by Simon Episcopius (1583-1643)....

armistice
Cessation of hostilities while awaiting a peace settlement. The Armistice refers specifically to the end of World War I between Germany and the Allies on 11 November 1918. On 22 June 1940, following...

Armistice Day
Anniversary of the armistice signed 11 November 1918, ending World War I. In the UK it is commemorated on the same day as Remembrance Sunday. ...

Armitage, Edward
(1817-1896) English painter. He produced paintings on historical and biblical subjects, including the frescoes Death of Marmion and Personification of the Thames in the House of Lords. Armitage was born in...

Armitage, Kenneth
(1916-2002) English sculptor. His works are mostly executed in bronze, and based on the human figure, characteristically depicted with large, flat, squarish bodies, small heads, and spindly limbs. His figures...

Armitage, Simon
(1963) English poet. He uses the honest, no-nonsense language and rhythms of the village where he lives, Marsden, near Huddersfield, England. He explores themes of belief, trust, creation, sacrifice, and...

armorial bearing
General term for heraldic insignia. See heraldry. ...

Armorica
Ancient northwestern Gaul, corresponding to modern Brittany and Normandy. ...

Armory Show
Exhibition of modern European art held February 1913 in New York. It marked the arrival of abstract art in the USA, and greatly influenced US artists. The exhibition provoked public outrage, and a...

armour
Body protection worn in battle. Body armour is depicted in Greek and Roman art. Chain mail was developed in the Middle Ages but the craft of the armourer in Europe reached its height in design in...

armoured car
Wheeled, armoured fighting vehicle, proof against bullets and shell splinters, and usually armed with machine guns and sometimes a light gun. Its high speed and manoeuvrability allows it to...

armoured fighting vehicle
Powered vehicle using wheels or chain tracks for motion, and mounting armour plate for protection against small arms and artillery fire, mines, and grenades. A weapons system incorporating machine...

armoured personnel carrier
Wheeled or tracked military vehicle with light to medium armour protection used to carry infantry into and out of battle; it carries up to ten people. Many APCs are amphibious and most mount light...

armoured train
Railway train protected by armour and usually carrying several guns. They were extensively used in World War I to protect vulnerable supply lines by patrolling or escorting supply trains,...

arms control
Attempts to limit the arms race between the superpowers by reaching agreements to restrict the production of certain weapons; see disarmament. ...

arms trade
Sale of conventional weapons, such as tanks, combat aircraft, and related technology, from a manufacturing country to another nation. Arms exports are known in the trade as `arms transfers`....

arms, coat of
In heraldry, ensign, or armorial bearing used as the distinguishing device to denote, for example, a particular family, corporate body, or kingdom. Though originally assumed at will by the bearer,...

Armstead, Henry Hugh
(1828-1905) English sculptor. His public monuments include part of the frieze at the base of the Albert Memorial, London; the effigy of Lord John Thynne in Westminster Abbey, London; and a marble statuette,...

Armstrong, Hamilton Fish
(1893-1973) US editor and political author. In 1922 Armstrong became managing editor and then in 1928, editor of Foreign Affairs. He wrote Europe Between Two Wars (1934) and The Calculated Risk (1947). He often...

Armstrong, Harry George
(1899-1983) US physician and airman. Commissioned in the Medical Reserve Corps in 1929, he opted to specialize in the new field of aviation medicine. He was air surgeon, US 8th Air Force, in England during...

Armstrong, Henry Edward
(1848-1937) English chemist. His pioneering work in a number of areas of organic chemistry, included investigations into the structure and reactions of benzene and naphthalene compounds. He also speculated on...

Armstrong, Hilary
(1945) British Labour politician, minister for the cabinet office and social exclusion, and chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster from May 2006. A former college lecturer and community worker, she became an...

Armstrong, John
(1755-1816) US soldier and explorer. A militia officer in the American Revolution, Armstrong then served in the regular army from 1784. He commanded Fort Pitt, 1785-86, and fought heroically in General...

Armstrong, Robert Temple
(1927) English civil servant, cabinet secretary in Margaret Thatcher's government. He achieved notoriety as a key witness in the Spycatcher trial in Australia 1987. Defending the British government's...

army
Organized military force for fighting on the ground. A national army is used to further a political policy by force either within the state or on the territory of...

Arnall, Ellis (Gibbs)
(1907-1992) US governor. A progressive governor of Georgia, 1943-47), he ended prison chain gangs, abolished the poll tax, and restored accreditation of the University of Georgia. Arnall went on to serve as...

Arnaud, Henri
(1641-1721) French pastor and leader of the Waldenses, or Vaudois, of Piedmont after their expulsion by Victor Amadeus of Savoy. In 1689 he led an unsuccessful expedition to restore them to their home...

Arnaud, Yvonne Germaine
(1892-1958) French actor. She trained as a pianist and toured Europe as a child prodigy. At 18 she appeared in London in The Quaker Girl and had a long and distinguished career on the English stage. In 1963 a...

Arnauld, Angélique
(c. 1624-1684) Granddaughter of the elder Antoine Arnauld. She was elected prioress of Port Royal 1673, and by her piety and courage set an example to all the sisters during the...

Arnauld, Angélique
(1591-1661) Second daughter of the elder Antoine Arnauld. She became abbess of Port Royal at the age of 11 through her father's influence. Later she served as prioress under her sister Agnès (1593-1671). Her...

Arnauld, Antoine
(1612-1694) French theologian. He became a Jansenist (see Jansenism) and...

Arnauld, Antoine
(1560-1619) French advocate of Jansenism. Strongly critical of the Jesuits, he produced not only Jansenist pamphlets, but works on logic, grammar, and geometry. Many of his 20 children were associated with the...

Arndt, Ernst Moritz
(1769-1860) German poet, historian, and patriot. In 1803 he published Versüch einer Geschichte der Leibeigenschaft in Pommern und Rügen, a history of serfdom which led to its abolition in Pomerania...

Arneson, Robert
(1930) US ceramist. A controversial innovator whose intentionally crude sculptural works reflected such modern trends as abstract expressionism, surrealism, and pop art. Arneson helped to raise the status...

Arnhem, Battle of
In World War II, airborne operation by the Allies, 17-26 September 1944, to secure a bridgehead over the Rhine, thereby opening the way for a thrust towards...

Arnim (or Arnheim), Hans Georg von
(1581-1641) German soldier. He served in the Swedish army under Gustavus Adolphus 1613, and in the Polish army, and in 1626 entered the service of the German emperor in the Thirty Years' War, under General...

Arnim, Bettina von
(1785-1859) German writer, sister of Clemens Brentano. She married the writer Ludwig Achim von Arnim (1811). Her publication Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde/Goethe's Correspondence with a Child 1835...

Arnim, Jurgen von
(1889-1971) German general in World War II. He commanded a division during the invasion of the USSR 1941 and then a corps. Late in 1942 he was appointed to command the 5th Panzer Army in Africa, and in March...

Arnim, Ludwig Achim von
(1781-1831) German Romantic poet and novelist. He wrote short stories, a romance Armut, Schuld und Busse der Gräfin Dolores/Countess Dolores (1810), and plays, but left the historical novel Die Kronenwächter...

Arnobius
(died c.AD 330) Teacher of rhetoric at Sicca Venerea in Numidia, North Africa. Soon after his conversion to Christianity, he published his celebrated work Adversus Nationes/Against the Pagansc. 303. This was...

Arnold of Brescia
(1100-1155) Italian Augustinian monk. He attacked the holding of property by the Catholic Church, for which he was hanged and burned, and his ashes thrown into the River Tiber. Born in Brescia of noble parents,...

Arnold, (Henry Harley) `Hap`
(1886-1950) US soldier and aviator. Arnold became a leading advocate of air power during the 1920s and 1930s. As commander of the Army Air Corps and, from 1941 onward, chief of the Army Air Forces, he built a...

Arnold, Benedict
(1741-1801) US soldier and military strategist who, during the American Revolution, won the turning-point battle at Saratoga in 1777 for the Americans. He is chiefly remembered as a traitor to the American...

Arnold, Edwin
(1832-1904) English scholar and poet. He wrote The Light of Asia (1879), a rendering of the life and teaching of the Buddha in blank verse. The Light of the World (1891) retells the life of Jesus. Arnold was...

Arnold, Eve
(c. 1925) US photographer and photojournalist. In the 1950s, the heyday of US magazine photojournalism, Arnold joined the prestigious picture agency Magnum (1954), becoming its first US woman member. She...

Arnold, General Henry `Hap`
(1886-1950) US general and aviator; he was largely responsible for preparing the US aviation industry for the war and the training programme which allowed the air corps to expand. A firm believer in the ability...

Arnold, Joseph
(1782-1818) English botanist. In 1818 he discovered the largest flower known, at Pulau Lebar, Sumatra. The plant, measuring nearly a metre across and weighing almost 7 kg/15 lb, was later named Rafflesia...

Arnold, Matthew
(1822-1888) English poet and critic. His poem `Dover Beach` (1867) was widely regarded as one of the most eloquent expressions of the spiritual anxieties of Victorian England. In his highly influential...

Arnold, Thurman (Wesley)
(1891-1969) US lawyer and government official. Dean of the University of Virginia Law School, 1927-30, and law professor at Yale, 1930-37, Arnold's works include The Folklore of Capitalism (1937). Assistant...

Arnoldson, Klas Pontus
(1844-1916) Swedish railway worker, politician, political activist, writer, and peace worker. He shared the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1908 with Danish politician Fredrik Bajer for 35 years of peace work...

Arnolfo di Cambio
(c. 1245-c. 1302) Italian sculptor and architect, born at Colle di Val d'Elsa. He was a pupil of Nicola di Pisano, whom he assisted in his work on Siena Cathedral. He designed the facade of Florence Cathedral, as...

Aroer
Name of several places in the Old Testament. One was in Jordan on the northern bank of the River Arnon. It was in ancient times the frontier town of the Amorites and later of the tribe of Reuben. It...

Aronson, Boris
(1900-1980) Russian-born set designer. Aronson began his New York career in 1924 working for the Unser Theatre and for the Yiddish Art Theatre. He was the winner of the New York Drama Critics Award in 1964...

Arp, Hans (or Jean)
(1887-1966) French abstract painter, sculptor, and poet. He was one of the founders of the Dada movement in 1916, and was later associated with the Surrealists. Using chance and automatism, Arp developed an...

Arpino, Giuseppe Cesari
(1568-1640) Italian Mannerist painter. He was employed by successive popes 1590-1615, mainly executing fresco decorations and designing the mosaics in the dome of St Peter's basilica, Rome. His early works...

Arrabal, Fernando
(1932) Spanish-born dramatist and novelist, living in France. His plays show many of the elements characteristic of the Theatre of the Absurd (see Absurd, Theatre of the). He has, however, developed a...

Arrabbiati
Faction hostile to the religious leader Girolamo Savonarola in 15th-century Florence. Its leaders were men of wealth, who, while they did not want Medici rule, detested Savonarola's property tax...

arraignment
English legal term signifying the calling of the prisoner to the bar of the court to plead `guilty` or `not guilty` to the indictment against him or her. It corresponds to the Scottish legal...

Arran, James Stewart, Earl of Arran
(died 1595) Scottish statesman who claimed the earldom and estates of Arran during the insanity of his cousin, the 3rd Earl. He overthrew the Earl of Morton, who had been Regent of Scotland for Mary Queen of...

Arras, Battle of
In World War II, Allied attack on German forces holding the French town of Arras on 21 May 1940. Although the Allies were eventually beaten off, the German general Rommel's report of being attacked...

Arras, Battle of
Battle of World War I, April-May 1917; an effective but costly British attack on German forces in support of a French offensive, which was only partially successful, on the Siegfried Line. British...

Arras, Congress and Treaty of
Meeting in northern France in 1435 between representatives of Henry VI of England, Charles VII of France, and Philip the Good of Burgundy to settle the Hundred Years' War. The outcome was a...

array, commission of
In England, system of universal military conscription dating from the 13th century, when the obligation to serve the king was extended to serfs. Able-bodied men between the ages of 15 and 60 in...

arrest
Apprehension and detention of a person suspected of a crime. In Britain, an arrest may be made on a magistrate's warrant, but a police constable is empowered to arrest without warrant in all cases...

arrestment
In Scots law, the process by which a creditor detains the goods or effects of the debtor in the hands of a third party till he or she is paid. It is divided into two kinds:arrestment in security,...

Arretium
One of the 12 cities of Etruria, especially famous for its red pottery, Arretine ware, copied in Gaul in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. The celebrated bronze chimera (5th century BC) now in the...

Arrhidaeus
(died 317 BC) Natural son of Philip II of Macedon, and half-brother to Alexander the Great. On the latter's death 323 BC, he was named successor by Alexander's soldiers in Babylon. He married Eurydice,...

Arria
Wife of Caecina Paetus. When her husband was implicated AD 42 in a plot against the Roman emperor Claudius and condemned to death, she committed suicide. Her daughter Arria was married to Thrasea...

Arriaga, Manuel José de
(1842-1917) Portuguese president 1911-15. He was elected deputy for Funchal as a Republican in the parliament of 1882-84 and for Lisbon 1890-92. He took part in the revolution that drove King Manuel II...

Arrian
(lived 2nd century AD) Greek historian. His Anabasis/Expedition is the chief literary source of information on the campaigns of Alexander the Great, drawn with care from much earlier material. Arrian was a governor and...

Arrianus, Flavius
(c.AD 96-c. 175) Greek historian and philosopher. He was governor of Cappadocia 131-37 and archon of Athens 147-48. The latter years of his life were spent at Nicomedia, where he wrote Anabasis of Alexander, a...

arris
In architecture, the sharp edge produced by the intersection of two plane or curved surfaces. ...

Arrow, Kenneth Joseph
(1921) US economist. With French-born US economist Gerard Debreu he developed the first rigorous proof of the existence of general equilibrium in a capitalist economy. Earlier, however, he had proved the...

Arrowsmith, Aaron
(1750-1823) English cartographer born in Winston, County Durham. By 1790 he had founded a cartography business in London, raising the execution of maps to a level never before attained. ...

Arroyo, Gloria Macapagal
(1947) Filipino politician, president from 2001. The daughter of former president Diosdado Macapagal, she was elected vice- ...

Ars poetica
Poem by Horace, of uncertain date. It is a discussion of dramatic poetry based on Greek textbooks but full of the poet's own observations. It was regarded as an authoritative treatise and had an...

Arsaces
Founder of the Arsacid dynasty. About 250 BC he raised the standard of revolt against the rule of the Seleucid Antiochus II, was elected king, and ruled Parthia c. 250-211 BC. All Parthian kings...

Arsacid dynasty
Rulers of ancient Parthia c. 250 BC-AD 226, who took their titles from their founder Arsaces. At its peak the dynasty controlled a territory from eastern India to western Mesopotamia, with a...

Arsenius Autorianus
(c. 1200-1273) Patriarch of Constantinople 1255-59 and Nicaea 1255 and 1261-65. He excommunicated the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII in 1265 for blinding John, his ward, the rightful heir to the throne, and...

Arsinoë
Name given to various towns and villages founded in Ptolemaic times, and mostly named after Arsinoë II, wife of Ptolemy II. ...

Arsinoë I
(died 247 BC) Daughter of Lysimachus, King of Thrace, and first wife of Ptolemy II. She was banished to Coptos for conspiring against her husband, following accusations made by Arsinoë II. Her son afterwards...

Arsinoë II
(316-270 BC) Daughter of Ptolemy I and Berenice I. She married Lysimachus, King of Thrace, and murdered her stepson, Agathocles, in order to secure the succession. Ptolemy Keraunos then murdered Lysimachus and...

Arsinoë IV
Youngest daughter of Ptolemy XII and sister of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. During Caesar's attack on Alexandria, the inhabitants recognized her as their queen. After Caesar's victory she was taken to...

arson
Malicious and wilful setting fire to property. In Britain arson is covered by the Criminal Damage Act 1971. In Scotland arson is known as `wilful fire-raising`. ...

art
In the broadest sense, all the processes and products of human skill, imagination, and invention. In contemporary usage, definitions of art usually reflect art theory, and the term may encompass...

art brut
Term coined by the French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe various types of art produced outside the conventional art world. Literally the term means `raw art`, but it is sometimes translated...