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

Lavin, Mary
(1912-1996) US-born Irish short-story writer and novelist. Her many collections, which focus on the complexities beneath the surface of small-town life in Ireland, include A Memory and Other Stories...

Lavinium
Town in the ancient region of Latium, Italy, on the Appian Way about 32 km/20 mi south of Rome. According to tradition it was originally the city of Latinus, and was refounded by Aeneas, the...

Lavisse, Ernest
(1842-1922) French historian who wrote numerous books on German history and was general editor of three major series of histories. The series for which Lavisse was responsible were:Histoire generale du IVe...

Lavrov, Petr Lavrovich
(1823-1900) Russian radical thinker, leader of the Populist movement that sought political change in Tsarist Russia. He was a professor of mathematics, but had wide-ranging intellectual interests,...

law
Body of rules and principles under which justice is administered or order enforced in a state or nation. In Western Europe there are two main systems: Roman law and English law. US law is a modified...

law courts
Bodies that adjudicate (make judgement) in legal disputes. Civil cases (generally non-criminal disputes that affect the interests of an individual) and criminal cases are usually dealt with by...

law lords
In England, the ten Lords of Appeal in Ordinary who, together with the Lord Chancellor and other peers, make up the House of Lords in its judicial capacity. The House of Lords is the final court of...

law of nature
Scientific generalization that both explains and predicts physical phenomena; laws of nature are generally assumed to be descriptive of, and applicable to, the world. The three laws of...

Law Society
Professional governing body of solicitors in England and Wales. It also functions as a trade union for its 51,000 members. The society, incorporated in 1831, regulates training, discipline, and...

Law, John
(1671-1729) Scottish economist. He persuaded the French to set up a Bank of France 1716 and to invest heavily in the colonization of the Mississippi delta before the collapse of the project 1720. ...

Law, William
(1686-1761) English cleric. His Jacobite opinions caused him to lose his fellowship at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1714. His work A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life 1728 influenced John Wesley, the...

Lawes, John Bennet
(1814-1900) English agriculturist who patented the first artificial `super-phosphate` fertilizer. In 1843 he established the Rothamsted Experimental Station (Hertfordshire) at...

Lawes, Lewis Edward
(1883-1947) US prison administrator and reformer, who was recognized as one of the USA's most liberal prison wardens. As warden of the notorious Sing Sing prison in Ossining, New York (1920-41), he introduced...

Lawler, Ray(mond) Evenor
(1921) Australian actor and dramatist. His work, which exemplified dramatic realism, includes The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (1955), a play about sugar-cane cutters,...

Lawley, Sue
(1946) English current affairs presenter and host of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) radio series Desert Island Discs. ...

Lawrence, D(avid) H(erbert)
(1885-1930) English writer. His work expresses his belief in emotion and the sexual impulse as creative and true to human nature. However, his ideal of the complete, passionate life is threatened by the...

Lawrence, David (Leo)
(1889-1966) US politician. After working for William J Brennan, the Democrat chief of Allegheny County, he became active in state and national Democrat Party affairs. He went on to serve an unprecedented four...

Lawrence, Gertrude
(1898-1952) English actor. She was much in demand for revues, both in London and in New York, where she co-starred with Beatrice Lillie (1894-1989). She was also successful in straight plays, appearing with...

Lawrence, Jacob (Armstead)
(1917-2000) US painter and arts educator. A well known African-American Social Realist, inspired by the Harlem Renaissance, Lawrence is noted primarily for his dynamic paintings depicting African-American...

Lawrence, James
(1781-1813) US naval officer during the War of 1812. Captain of...

Lawrence, St
Christian martyr. Probably born in Spain, he became a deacon of Rome under Pope Sixtus II and, when summoned to deliver the treasures of the church, displayed the beggars in his charge, for which he...

Lawrence, T(homas) E(dward)
(1888-1935) British soldier, scholar, and translator. Appointed to the military intelligence department in Cairo, Egypt, during World War I, he took part in negotiations for an Arab revolt against the Ottoman...

Lawrence, Thomas
(1769-1830) English painter. He was the leading portraitist of his day, becoming painter to George III in 1792 and president of the Royal Academy from 1820 to 1830. One of his finest portraits is Queen...

Laws, G(eorge) Malcolm (Jr)
(1919) US folklorist. He specialized in US and British ballads and folk songs and 19th-century English literature. His books include Native American Balladry (1950, revised 1964), American Balladry from...

Lawson, Henry
(1867-1922) Australian short-story writer. First noted for verse about bush life and social and political protest, he is now remembered chiefly for his stories. Direct experience of travell ...

Lawson, John Howard
(1895-1977) US playwright. He was a socially conscious dramatist. His early work was expressionist (Roger Bloomer 1923), while his later plays were more directly proletarian (Success Story...

Lawton, Henry Ware
(1843-1899) US soldier. A Civil War veteran, he commanded cavalry on the western plains and took part in the campaign (1885-86) that ended in Geronimo's capture. He commanded a division that fought in Cuba...

lawyer
A member of the legal profession who provides counsel to clients on matters of civil or criminal law and who represents clients on such matters in negotiations with others, before government...

Laxness, Halldór Gudjónsson
(1902-1998) Icelandic novelist. He wrote about Icelandic life in the style of the early sagas. His novel Salka Valka (1931-32) is a vivid, realistic portrayal of a small fishing community and centres on a...

Laxton
Village in Nottinghamshire, England. It is the only remaining site in England where open-field farming is practised, although the 2,000 plus strips have been reduced to 164, and the communal...

lay reader
In the Church of England, an unordained member of the church who is permitted under licence from the bishop of the diocese to conduct some public services. ...

lay-off
Temporary suspension of a contract of employment, usually because of a lack of work. ...

Layamon
(lived c. 1200) English poet. His name means `law man` or `judge`, and according to his own account he was a priest of Areley (now Areley Kings), Worcestershire. He was the author...

Layard, Austen Henry
(1817-1894) British archaeologist, politician, and diplomat. He conducted expeditions to Nineveh, where he found a library of cuneiform tablets, and to Babylon 1845-51. His collection of ancient Assyrian...

laying on of hands
In the Christian church, sacramental imposition of hands for healing or other purposes. In some Christian denominations, the ceremony is conducted during the ordination of Layton, Irving
(1912-2006) Canadian poet. He produced more than 50 volumes of poetry, including A Red Carpet for the Sun (1959), Collected Poems (1971), and Fornalutx: Selected Poems 1928-1990 (1992). He had a flamboyant,...

Lazarillo de Tormes
Spanish novel by an unknown writer, first published in 1554. Although the author does not describe the narrator Lazarillo as a pícaro (`rogue`), some have considered this the first picaresque...

Lazarillo de Tormes
Spanish novel published anonymously in 1554 and recognized as the masterpiece of the picaresque tradition. It recounts the progress of an astute urchin through the society of his day, and is notable...

Lazarus
In the New Testament, the brother of Martha, a friend of Jesus, raised by him from the dead. Lazarus is also the name of a beggar in a parable told by Jesus (Luke 16). ...

Lazarus, Emma
(1849-1887) US poet. She was the author of the poem on the base of the Statue of Liberty that begins:`Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.` ...

Le Bossu, René
(1631-1680) French writer and critic. His Traité du poème épique/Monsieur Bossu's Treatise of the Epick Poem 1675 argued that the subject of an epic poem should be chosen before the characters, and the...

Le Brun, Charles
(1619-1690) French baroque artist. Court painter to Louis XIV from 1662, he became director of the French Academy and of the Gobelins factory, which produced art, tapestries, and furnishings for the new palace...

Le Carré, John
(1931) English writer of thrillers. His low-key and realistic accounts of complex espionage, many of which were filmed, include The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963, filmed 1965); the trilogy Tinker...

Le Cateau, Battles of
In World War I, two battles between British and German forces near Le Cateau, a French town in the département of Nord, occupied by the Germans throughout the war. first battle 26-27 August 1914....

Le Corbusier
(1887-1965) Swiss-born French architect. He was an early and influential exponent of the Modern Movement and one of the most innovative of 20th-century architects. His distinct brand of Functionalism first...

Le Duc Anh
(1920) Vietnamese soldier and communist politician, president 1992-97. A member of the politburo's military faction, he is regarded as a conservative, anxious to maintain tight party control over...

Le Duc Tho
(1911-1990) North Vietnamese diplomat who shared the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1973 with Henry Kissinger for his part in the negotiations to end the Vietnam War. He indefinitely postponed receiving the award. ...

Le Fanu, (Joseph) Sheridan
(1814-1873) Irish writer. He wrote tales of mystery and suspense, included in Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery 1851 and In a Glass Darkly 1872, and the dark psychological novel Uncle Silas 1864. He excelled...

Le Fort, Gertrud von
(1876-1971) German novelist and poet. A belief that God's presence must be acknowledged and proclaimed infuses Der Papst aus dem Ghetto/The Pope from the Ghetto 1930 and Die magdeburgische Hochzeit/Wedding in...

Le Gallienne, Eva
(1899-1991) English stage actor. She founded the Civic Repertory Theater in New York (1926-32) and later the American Repertory Theater Company. In addition to translations and stage adaptations, she...

Le Gallienne, Richard
(1866-1947) English poet and essayist. He was prominent among the writers of the 1890s. His romantic novel The Quest of the Golden Girl 1896 won critical and popular favour. Other works include George Meredith:...

Le Guin, Ursula K(roeber)
(1929) US writer of science fiction and fantasy. Her novels include The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), which questions sex roles; the Earthsea series (1968-91);The Dispossessed (1974), which compares an...

Le May, Curtis E(merson)
(1906-1990) US air force general. He commanded 305 Bomber Group, one of the first US units to arrive in the UK in World War II, and devised most of the tactics employed by the 8th Air Force. He took charge of...

Le Nain
Three 17th-century French painters, the brothers Antoine (c. 1588-1648), Louis (c. 1593-1648), and Mathieu (c. 1607-1677). Born in L ...

Le Queux, William Tufnell
(1864-1927) English novelist. He travelled a great deal and made a fine collection of medieval manuscripts. Of over 130 sensational stories, the best-known is The Invasion of 1910 1906, which foreshadowed...

Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel Bernard
(1929) French historian. He was a pupil of Fernand Braudel and, like him, a leading member of the Annales school. The importance he attaches to customs, rituals, and symbols is seen in Le Carneval de...

Le Sage, Alain-René
(1668-1747) French novelist and dramatist. His novels include Le Diable boîteux/The Devil upon Two Sticks (1707) and his picaresque masterpiece Gil Blas de Santillane (1715-35), which is much indebted to...

Le Sueur, Eustache
(1616-1655) French painter. He specialized in religious and mythological works. His style was influenced first by the Renaissance Classicism of Raphael Sanzio and then the baroque classicism of his contemporary...

Le Sueur, Meridel
(1900-1996) US writer. She gained a burgeoning reputation after her work was rediscovered by feminist readers, and she was honoured for her poetry, essays, short stories, a biography of her parents, and novels...

Le Vau, Louis
(1612-1670) French architect. He was a leading exponent of the baroque style. His design for the château of Vaux-le-Viscomte outside Paris (begun 1657) provided the inspiration for the remodelling of...

Le Vexin
Historic region of northwest France on the right bank of the Seine, now in the départements of Val-d'Oise, Oise, and Eure. Traditionally an agricultural plain, the area has experienced urban...

Leach, Bernard Howell
(1887-1979) English potter. His simple designs of stoneware and raku ware, inspired by a period of study in Japan from 1909 to 1920, pioneered a revival of studio pottery in Britain. In 1920 he established the...

Leach, Edmund Ronald
(1910-1989) English anthropologist. Leach's Political Systems of Highland Burma (1954), based on fieldwork among the Kachin of Burma, overturned the orthodox notion that the structure of society was stable or...

Leacock, Stephen Butler
(1869-1944) Canadian political scientist, historian, and humorist. His humour has survived his often rather conservative political writings. His butts include the urban plutocracy, especially in the parodies of...

Leahy, William D
(1875-1959) US admiral and diplomat during World War II. After two difficult years as ambassador to the Vichy government of France 1940-42, he was recalled by President F D Roosevelt to become his chief of...

leakage
In economics, money that leaves the circular flow of income. The three main leakages are usually said to be savings, taxes, and imports. ...

Leake, William Martin
(1777-1860) British topographer and antiquary. He travelled in Asia Minor, the Peloponnesus (Morea), and other parts of Greece, surveying the coasts and fortresses. His books include Travels in the Morea 1830...

Leakey, Louis Seymour Bazett
(1903-1972) Kenyan archaeologist, anthropologist, and palaeontologist. With his wife Mary Leakey, he discovered fossils of extinct animals in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, as well as many remains of an early...

Leakey, Mary Douglas
(1913-1996) English archaeologist and anthropologist. In 1948 she discovered, on Rusinga Island, Lake Victoria, East Africa, the prehistoric ape skull known as Proconsul, about 20 million years old; and human...

Leakey, Richard Erskine Frere
(1944) Kenyan palaeoanthropologist and politician. In 1972 he discovered at Lake Turkana, Kenya, an apelike skull estimated to be about 2.9 million years old; it had some human characteristics and a brain...

Leander
In Greek mythology, the lover of Hero; see Hero and Leander. ...

Lear, Edward
(1812-1888) English artist and humorist. His Book of Nonsense (1846) popularized the limerick (a five-line humorous verse). His Nonsense Songs, Botany and Alphabets (1871), includes two of his best-known...

learning curve
Curve reflecting the reduction in time taken to perform a task as experience in performing that task increases. Successful companies and individuals are those that progress up the learning curve the...

Leary, Timothy
(1920-1996) US writer and psychologist. Leary was one of the more controversial and influential psychologists of the last 41 years and a guiding iconic figure of the counter-culture of the 1960s and 1970s....

Lease, Mary Elizabeth
(1853-1933) US political activist and lawyer. Her most famous work, The Problem of Civilization Solved (1895), contained elements of both Marxism and racism. A fiery, uncompromising figure, she frequently...

leasehold
In law, land or property held by a tenant (lessee) for a specified period (unlike freehold, outright ownership), usually at a rent from the landlord (lessor). Under English law, houses and flats are...

Leatherstocking Tales, The
Five novels by James Fenimore Cooper, describing the ideal US frontiersman, Natty Bumppo, also known as Leatherstocking or the Deerslayer:The Pioneers (1823), The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The...

Leautaud, Paul
(1872-1956) French writer and critic. His works include an autobiographical novel, Le Petit Ami 1903; essays, `Passe-temps` 1929 and `Propos d'un jour` 1947; books on Henri de Regnier, Stendhal, and...

leaven
Element inducing fermentation. The term is applied to the yeast added to dough in bread-making; it is used figuratively to describe any pervasive influence, usually in a good sense, although in...

Leavenworth, Henry
(1783-1834) US soldier. A lawyer by training, he became a colonel during the War of 1812. While on almost continual frontier duty during 1819-34, he built Forts Leavenworth and Snell ...

Leaves of Grass
Collection of poems by US poet Walt Whitman, published anonymously in 1855 and augmented through many editions up to 1892. With its long lines, `barbaric yawp` metre, and all-embracing, mythic...

Leavis, F(rank) R(aymond)
(1895-1978) English literary critic. With his wife Q(ueenie) D(orothy) Leavis (1906-1981), he cofounded and edited the influential literary review Scrutiny (1932-53). He championed the work of D H Lawrence...

Lebanon
Country in western Asia, bounded north and east by Syria, south by Israel, and west by the Mediterranean Sea. Government Lebanon is a multiparty parliamentary democracy in which high-ranking...

Lebed, Aleksandr Ivanovich
(1950-2002) Russian soldier and politician. He was briefly national security adviser in 1996 and successfully negotiated a peace settlement that ended the 1994-96 civil war in Chechnya. He was sacked by...

Lebel rifle
French service rifle of World War I, introduced 1886. An 8-mm caliber weapon, using a bolt breech action, and with a tubular magazine beneath the b ...

Lebensraum
Theory developed by Adolf Hitler for the expansion of Germany into Eastern Europe, and in the 1930s used by the Nazis to justify their annexation of neighbouring states on the grounds that Germany...

Leboeuf, Edmond
(1809-1888) French soldier, minister of war and marshal of France 1869-70. Before the Franco-Prussian War he claimed France to be in perfect readiness, and took much of the blame when the French army proved...

Lebrun, Albert
(1871-1950) French politician. He became president of the senate in 1931 and in 1932 was chosen as president of the republic. In 1940 he handed his powers over to Marshal Pétain. ...

Lecavele, Roland
Real name of French writer Roland Dorgeles. ...

Lechford, Thomas
(lived 1629-1642) English lawyer. He was practising law in London before 1629, and emigrated to Boston in 1638, becoming the first lawyer in Massachusetts Bay Colony. He opposed the prevailing politics and religion...

Lecky, William Edward Hartpole
(1838-1903) Irish historian and philosopher. Lecky was admired by contemporaries an impartial and authoritative commentator, whose works were characterized by their spirit of tolerance and liberal outlook. His...

Leclerc, Phillipe
(1902-1947) General in the Free French forces of World War II. A captain in the 4th French Infantry Division, he refused to surrender to the Germans in 1940. He was captured but escaped to the UK. He was...

Lecouvreur, Adrienne
(1692-1730) French actor. She performed at the Comédie Française national theatre, where she first appeared 1717. Her many admirers included the philosopher Voltaire and the army officer Maurice de Saxe; a...

lectern
In a Christian place of worship, the stand from which a Bible reading takes place. It is often carved in the form of an eagle with outstretched wings, symbolizing the Christian belief that the Bible...

Leda
In Greek mythology, wife of Tyndareus of Sparta and mother of Clytemnestra. Zeus, transformed as a swan, was the father of her daughter Helen of Troy and, in some traditions, the brothers Ledoux, Claude-Nicolas
(1736-1806) French neoclassical architect. He is stylistically comparable to E L Boullée in his use of austere, geometric forms, exemplified in his series of 44 toll houses surrounding Paris (of which only...

Ledru-Rollin, Alexandre Auguste
(1807-1874) French politician and contributor to the radical and socialist journal La Réforme. He became minister for home affairs in the provisional government formed in 1848 after the overthrow of Louis...

Ledward, Gilbert
(1888-1960) English sculptor. His many public commissions include the Guards' Division Memorial on Horse Guards Parade, London, and the fountain in Sloane Square, London, 1953. ...

Ledyard, John
(1751-1789) American explorer and adventurer. As a British marine, he was sent to Long Island during the American Revolution 1775, but, refusing to fight against his own countrymen, he deserted in 1782. After...

Ledyard, William
(1738-1781) US soldier. An active patriot in the years before the American Revolution, he became a captain in the Connecticut militia in 1776. In September 1781 he surrendered Fort Griswold, Connecticut,...