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

Lent
In the Christian church, the 40-day period of fasting that precedes Easter, beginning on Ash Wednesday (the day after Shrove Tuesday), but omitting Sundays. Easter is the most significant of the...

Lentaigne, Walter
(1899-1955) British general. He raised and trained the 111th Indian Infantry Brigade which became part of the Chindits. When Wingate was killed March 1944 he took over command of the Chindit operations and...

Lentulus, Publius Cornelius
(c. 112-63 BC) Roman politician. He was praetor in 74 BC and consul three years later. He was expelled from the Senate in 70 BC, with 63 others, because of his alleged lifestyle. Following his expulsion from the...

Lentulus, Publius Cornelius
(c. 100-48 BC) Roman politician. He was successively curule, aedile, praetor, and consul during the period 63-57 BC. During his consulship he promoted the recall of the exiled orator Cicero, and in 56 BC went...

Leo (I) the Great, (St Leo)
(c. 390-461) Pope from 440. He helped to establish the Christian liturgy. Leo summoned the Chalcedon Council where his Dogmatical Letter was accepted as the voice of St Peter. Acting as ambassador for the...

Leo (III) the Isaurian
(c. 680-741) Byzantine emperor and soldier. He seized the throne in 717, successfully defended Constantinople against the Saracens 717-18, and attempted to suppress the use of images in...

Leo (V) the Armenian
(died 820) Byzantine emperor, 813-20. A general under Michael I, he deposed the emperor after his defeat by the Bulgarians at Adrianople. Leo defeated the Bulgarians near Constantinople, and signed a...

Leo (VI) the Wise
(866-912) Byzantine emperor 886-912, successor to his father, Basil I. He was a learned man, who continued his father's work of drafting new laws for the empire. However, during his reign, Constantinople's...

Leo III
(c. 750-816) Pope from 795. After the withdrawal of the Byzantine emperors, the popes had become the real rulers of Rome. Leo III was forced to flee because of a conspiracy in Rome and took refuge at the court...

Leo IV, St
(died 855) Pope AD 847-55, successor to Sergius II. Before his election he was a Benedictine monk of San Martino. During his pontificate, he built the Leonine Wall to enclose the Vatican, and organized...

Leo IX, St
(1002-1054) Pope 1049-54, successor to Damasus II. With the aid of his chief minister Hildebrand (later Pope Gregory VII), he undertook important judicial and administrative reforms to combat corruption in...

Leo X, Giovanni de' Medici
(1475-1521) Pope from 1513. The son of Lorenzo the Magnificent of Florence, he was created a cardinal at 13. He bestowed on Henry VIII of England the title of Defender of the Faith. A patron of the arts, he...

Leo XII
(1760-1829) Pope 1823-29, successor to Pius VII. His term of office was marked by a doctrinal return to conservatism and energetic efforts towards reform of church . Before his election, he had been secretary...

Leochares
Greek sculptor, a pupil of Scopas, with whom he worked on the Mausoleum. With Lysippus he executed a group in bronze representing Alexander the Great at a lion hunt. All his works are lost, but the...

Leofric
(died 1057) English nobleman. He was created earl c. 1034 by King Canute, and was a rival of Godwin, Earl of Wessex, supporting Edward the Confessor against him 1051. His wife was Lady Godiva. ...

León, Luis de
(1527 or 1528-1591) Spanish poet and theologian. He was imprisoned by the Inquisition (1572-77), partly for his translations of the Song of Solomon, and partly through his position in controversies associated with...

Leonard, Elmore (John, Jr)
(1925) US novelist and screenwriter. A prolific writer, Leonard is the author of numerous Westerns and crime novels. His writing is marked by vivid dialogue, and his crime novels, usually set in Detroit or...

Leonardo da Vinci
(1452-1519) Italian painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist. One of the greatest figures of the Italian Renaissance, he was active in Florence, Milan, and, from 1516, France. As state engineer and...

Leone Ebreo
(c. 1465-1530) Portuguese-born Jewish philosopher and physician, the son of Isaac Abarbanel. He lived in Spain but with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 he moved to Italy, where he practised as a...

Leone, Giovanni
(1908-2001) Italian Christian Democrat politician and president of Italy 1971-77. Before his election as president, he had been prime minister of two caretaker ministries, from June-December 1963 and...

Leone, Mark P(aul)
(1940) US anthropologist and archaeologist. He published a number of works on contemporary American religions, including Roots of Modern Mormonism (1979). As an archaeologist he is best known for his...

Leoni, Pompeo
(c. 1531-1608) Italian sculptor, goldsmith, and medallist, son of Leone Leoni. He spent much of his life in Spain, working mostly for Philip II. The chapel of the Escorial contains his most famous sculptures, the...

Leoni, Rául
(1905-1972) Venezuelan politician and president 1964-69. His administration was relatively uneventful, although some guerrilla activity required government action. The wealth generated by the oil industry at...

Leonidas
(died c. 480 BC) Greek epigrammatist from Taranto. About 100 of his poems are included in the collection called the Greek Anthology. ...

Leonidas
King of Sparta. He was killed in 480 BC while defending the pass of Thermopylae with 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians, and 400 Thebans against a huge Persian army. ...

Leonov, Leonid Maksimovich
(1899-1994) Russian novelist and playwright. His works include the novels The Badgers (1925) and The Thief (1927), and the drama The Orchards of Polovchansk (1938). ...

Leontief, Wassily
(1906-1999) Russian-born US economist whose entire life has been devoted to the development and refinement of a single technical tool, input-output analysis, which...

Leontini
Ancient city in Sicily founded by Chalcidians from Naxos in 729 BC. It never attained real political importance owing to the proximity of Syracuse. It was the birthplace of the...

Leopardi, Giacomo, Count Leopardi
(1798-1837) Italian romantic poet. The first collection of his uniquely pessimistic poems, I Versi/Verses, appeared in 1824 and was followed by his philosophical Operette morali/Minor Moral Works (1827), in...

Leopold I
(1790-1865) King of the Belgians from 1831. He was elected to the throne on the creation of an independent Belgium. Through his marriage, when prince of Saxe-Coburg, to Princess Charlotte Augusta, he was the...

Leopold I
(1640-1705) Holy Roman Emperor from 1658, in succession to his father Ferdinand III. He warred against Louis XIV of France and the Ottoman Empire. ...

Leopold II
(1835-1909) King of the Belgians from 1865, son of Leopold I. He financed the US journalist Henry Stanley's explorations in Africa, which resulted in the foundation of the Congo Free State (now the Democratic...

Leopold II
(1747-1792) Holy Roman Emperor in succession to his brother Joseph II. He was the son of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. His hostility to the French Revolution led to the outbreak of war a few...

Leopold III
(1901-1983) King of the Belgians 1934-51. Against the prime minister's advice he surrendered to the German army in World War II in 1940. Post-war charges against his conduct led to a regency by his brother...

Lepanto, Battle of
Sea battle on 7 October 1571 between the Ottoman Empire and `Holy League` forces from Spain, Venice, Genoa, and the Papal States jointly commanded by the Spanish soldier Don John of Austria. The...

Lepcha
Member of a people living in northeastern India and Bhutan. They were possibly the original inhabitants of Sikkim, now a state of India. Traditionally they lived by hunting and gathering; today they...

Lepenski Vir
Prehistoric settlement site in the valley of the River Danube, where it runs through the Iron Gates gorge, in Serbia on the Romanian border. One of Europe's oldest farming settlements, dating from...

Lepidus, Marcus Aemilius
(89-13 or 12 BC) Roman politician and soldier. A supporter of Julius Caesar, he was consul 46 BC and magister equitum (`master of the horse` and deputy to the dictator...

Lépine, Stanislas Victor Edmond
(1835-1892) French landscape painter. He painted many small pictures of Paris and quiet canal and river views in its neighbourhood and in Normandy. A pupil of Camille Corot, he developed a delicate sense of...

leprechaun
In Irish folklore, a fairy shoemaker with a hidden treasure or `crock` of gold. If caught, the leprechaun must tell the location of the treasure, but he always tricks the captor into looking...

Lepsius, Karl Richard
(1810-1884) German Egyptologist. He led a Prussian expedition to Egypt in 1842-45, publishing the results of his researches in Denkmäler aus Ägypten und Äthiopien/The Monuments of Egypt and Ethiopia (12...

Leptis Magna
Ruined city in Libya, 120 km/75 mi east of Tripoli. It was founded by the Phoenicians, then came under Carthage, and in 47 BC under Rome. Excavation in the 20th century revealed remains of fine...

Lermontov, Mikhail Yurevich
(1814-1841) Russian Romantic poet and novelist. In 1837 he was sent into active military service in the Caucasus for writing a revolutionary poem on the death of Pushkin, which criticized court values, and for...

Lescot, Élie
(1883-1974) Haitian politician, dictator-president 1941-46. After replacing Sténio Vincent in 1941, he quickly established a tyrannical and corrupt dictatorship, surviving through his close ties with the...

Lescot, Pierre
(1515-1578) French architect. His most famous work is at the Louvre in Paris, where he designed a square court known as the Cour Carrée (1546-51). On this and other projects he worked closely with the...

Lesgian
Member of an indigenous people of Dagestan, also living in northern Azerbaijan and eastern Georgia. They are Sunni Muslims and speak 24 different languages. In the 18th century the Lesgians formed...

Leskov, Nikolai Semenovich
(1831-1895) Russian writer. Leskov was one of the greatest masters of the Russian language, introducing many dialect and provincial forms into literary usage. Many of his works deal with religious life in...

Leslie, Charles Robert
(1794-1859) English painter. He depicted scenes from literature, in particular the works of Shakespeare, Miguel de Cervantes, Walter Scott, and Henry Fielding. A close friend of...

Leslie, David, Lord Newark
(1601-1682) Scottish soldier. As a lieutenant-general, he was at the Battle of Marston Moor (1644), routed Montrose at Philiphaugh (1645), and fought in the siege of Newark. He went over to the Royalist side...

Lesotho
Landlocked country in southern Africa, an enclave within South Africa. Government Lesotho is an independent hereditary monarchy within the Commonwealth. Its 1966 constitution was suspended in 1970...

less developed country
Any country late in developing an industrial base, and dependent on cash crops and unprocessed minerals; part of the developing world. The terms `less developed`, `least developed`, and...

Lessing, Doris May
(1919) English novelist and short-story writer. Concerned with social and political themes, particularly the place of women in society, her work includes The Grass is Singing (1950), the five-novel...

Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim
(1729-1781) German dramatist and critic. His plays include Miss Sara Sampson (1755), Minna von Barnhelm (1767), Emilia Galotti (1772), and the verse play Nathan der Weise (1779). His works of criticism Laokoon...

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
Book 1941 (begun in 1936) by US writer James Agee and US photographer Walker Evans. Agee's impressionistic prose and Evans' stark pictures record the dignified poverty of three Southern white cotton...

Lethaby, William Richard
(1857-1931) English architect. An assistant to Richard Norman Shaw, he embraced...

Lethe
In Greek mythology, a river of the underworld whose waters when drunk, usually by the shades (dead), brought forgetfulness of the past. The first appearance of Lethe in...

Leto
In Greek mythology, a Titaness, daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe; and mother by Zeus of Artemis and Apollo, to whom she gave birth on the Aegean island of Delos,...

Letsie III
(1964) King of Lesotho 1990-95 and from 1996. He succeeded his father, King Moshoeshoe II, as Crown Prince David Mohato Bereng Seeiso in 1990 when Moshoeshoe was deposed by the army. Letsie voluntarily...

letter
Written or printed message, chiefly a personal communication. Letters are valuable as reflections of social conditions and of literary and political life. Legally, ownership of a letter (as a...

letter of marque
Licence or commission formerly granted by a government to a private person to fit out an armed ship or privateer to capture an enemy's ships and merchandise in time of war, or in...

Letterman, David
(1947) US television talk-show presenter. He was host of Late Night with David Letterman for the NBC network 1983-93, then moved to CBS to present The Late Show with David Letterman. Letterman was born...

letters missive
In England, letters from the sovereign conveying permission or command to a particular person, thus differing from letters patent, which are addressed to the public. They are used generally for the...

Lettow-Vorbeck, Paul Emil von
(1870-1964) German general. He served in the Boxer Rebellion in China 1900 and after in German Southwest Africa. In World War I, he was military commander in German Sou ...

lettre de cachet
French term for an order signed by the king and closed with his seal (cachet); especially an order under which persons might be imprisoned or banished without trial. Lettres de cachet were used as a...

Letwin, Oliver
(1956) British Conservative politician, chair of the Policy Review from 2005. He became MP for West Dorset in 1997, was the party's shadow home secretary 2001-03, shadow chancellor of the exchequer...

Leuchtenburg, William E(dward)
(1922) US historian. A participant in 20th-century liberal Democratic politics as well as a historian, he received Bancroft and Francis Parkman prizes for Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal,...

Leucippus
(lived 5th century AD) Ancient Greek philosopher. He was the originator of the atomistic theory afterwards more fully developed by Democritus. Leucippus was probably born in Miletus in Asia Minor. ...

Leuctra, Battle of
Theban defeat of the Spartans July 371 BC, southwest of Thebes (now Thivai, Greece). The defeat finally ended the 30-year period of Spartan dominance over Greece and the Thebans assumed the...

Leuthen, Battle of
Prussian defeat of Austria during the Seven Years' War 5 December 1757 about 16 km/10 mi west of Breslau (now Wroc&lsla;aw, Poland). The Austrian general, Count Leopold von Daun, returned to Austria...

Leutze, Emanuel (Gottlieb)
(1816-1868) German-born US painter. His famous historical paintings have been reproduced countless times, especially Washington Crossing the Delaware (1851). His popular mural, Westward the Course of Empire...

Levant Company
Company formed in 1592 to trade English cloth and tin for oriental silk or Turkish carpets in the eastern Mediterranean. The company was formed by the merger of the Turkey Company (1581) and the...

Levellers
Democratic party in the English Civil War. The Levellers found wide support among Cromwell's New Model Army and the yeoman farmers, artisans, and small traders, and proved a powerful political force...

Leven, Alexander Leslie
(c. 1580-1661) Scottish general in the English Civil War. He led the Covenanters' army which invaded England in 1640, commanded the Scottish army sent to aid the English Puritans 1643-46, and shared in the...

leveraged buyout
In business, the purchase of a controlling proportion of the shares of a company by its own management, financed almost exclusively by borrowing. It is so called because the ratio of a company's...

Leverson, Ada
(1862-1933) English novelist. Following the publication of articles and sketches, she branched out into fiction. Her six novels, of which the first was The Twelfth Hour (1907) and the last The Bird of Paradise...

Levertin, Oscar Ivar
(1862-1906) Swedish poet and novelist. His verse is often aesthetically rather than emotionally inspired, as in Legender och visor/Legends and Songs 1891, but in his later years he wrote some very moving...

Levertov, Denise
(1923-1997) English-born US poet. She published her first volume of poetry The Double Image (1946), after which she moved to the USA. In the 1950s she was associated with the Black Mountain poets, and in the...

Leveson-Gower, Granville George
(1815-1891) English politician. He held several cabinet posts 1851-86, including that of foreign secretary 1870-74 and 1880-85 under Gladstone. He supported Gladstone's home rule policy and played a...

Lévesque, René
(1922-1987) French-Canadian politician, premier of Québec 1976-85. In 1968 he founded the Parti Québecois, with the aim of an independent Québec, but a referendum rejected the proposal in 1980. ...

Lévi-Strauss, Claude
(1908) French anthropologist. He helped to formulate the principles of structuralism by stressing the interdependence of...

Levi, Edward H(irsch)
(1911-2000) US attorney general and university president. Considered a brilliant antitrust lawyer, he became dean of the University of Chicago Law School (1950-62), university provost (1962-67), and...

Levi, Eliphas
(1810-1875) French occultist. He wrote a number of books on occult subjects, including Dogma and Ritual of High Magic and Transcendental Magic. ...

Levi, Peter
(1931-2000) English poet, prose writer, critic, and classical scholar. In 1977 he resigned from the priesthood and from the Society of Jesus, of which he had been a member since 1948. His first volume of verse...

Levi, Primo
(1919-1987) Italian novelist. He joined the antifascist resistance during World War II, was captured, and sent to the concentration camp at Auschwitz. He wrote of these experiences in Se questo è un uomo/If...

leviathan
In the Old Testament, a sea monster (thought to be the whale), later associated in Christian literature with Satan. The term was also used to describe the monstrous qualities of wealth or power...

Levin, Harry (Tuchman)
(1912-1994) US scholar and literary critic. Noted for his somewhat mannered style, he wrote perceptively on Elizabethan drama, the modern novel, and French literature. He was also famous for his highly composed...

Levine, David
(1926) US caricaturist. Considered, along with Al Hirschfeld, one of the USA's most influential caricaturists, he worked in pen and ink and watercolour, and produced revealing...

Levine, Jack
(1915) US painter. His satirical cautionary attitude, conveyed through an exaggerated baroque surrealism, is seen in The Feast of Pure Reason (1937) and Gangster's Funeral (1952-53). He also painted...

levirate
Form of marriage in which a man is required to marry the widow of a brother who dies without a male heir. Children of the marriage are legally those of the dead brother. The purpose is to provide...

levitation
Counteraction of gravitational forces on a body. As claimed by medieval mystics, spiritualist mediums, and practitioners of transcendental meditation, it is unproven. In the laboratory it can be...

Levite
In the Old Testament, a member of one of the 12 tribes of Israel, descended from Levi, a son of Jacob. The Levites performed...

Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien
(1857-1939) French anthropologist and philosopher who was mainly concerned with analysing the differences between modern and primitive mentalities. In How Natives Think 1910, he argued that primitive thought...

Levy, Andrea
(1956) English writer. She draws on her Jamaican roots to explore themes of race, multiculturalism, and alienation in her novels. These include Every Light in the House Burnin' (1994), Never Far from...

Lewes, Battle of
Battle in 1264 caused by the baronial opposition to the English King Henry III, led by Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester (1208-65). The king was defeated and captured at the battle. The barons...

Lewes, George Henry
(1817-1878) English philosopher and critic. Originally an actor, he turned to literature and philosophy; his works include a Biographical History of Philosophy (1845-46) and Life and Works of Goethe (1855),...

Lewinsky, Monica
(1973) US former White House intern who became the centre of scandal in 1998 after President Bill Clinton eventually admitted having had an `inappropriate relationship` with her, and the House of...

Lewis and Clark expedition
US government expedition conducted 1804-06 to map uncharted territory bought from France under the Louisiana Purchase (1803), and to find a land route to the Pacific coast. The survey, ordered by...

Lewis gun
British light machine gun, it was gas-operated, air-cooled, and fed from a rotating drum of 47 or 97 rounds. The gun was used by the British, Belgian, and Italian armies in great numbers, both...

Lewis, (Harry) Sinclair
(1885-1951) US satirical novelist who was the first US writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 1930. With the appearance of Main Street (1920), Lewis was recognized as a new force in US...

Lewis, (Percy) Wyndham
(1882-1957) English writer and artist. He pioneered Vorticism, which, with its feeling of movement, sought to reflect the age of industry. He had a hard and aggressive style in both his writing and his...