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

Ligachev, Egor Kuzmich
(1920) Soviet politician. He joined the Communist Party (CPSU) in 1944, and became a member of the Politburo in 1985. He was replaced as the party ideologist in 1988 by Vadim Medvedev. Ligachev was...

Ligget, Hunter
(1857-1935) US general. He joined the army in 1879 and saw service in Cuba and the Philippines, later becoming president of the Army War College. He succeeded General Pershing as commander of the US Army in...

Light Brigade, Charge of the
See Charge of the Light Brigade. ...

Ligne, Charles Joseph, Prince de
(1735-1814) Belgian-born Austrian soldier, wit, and writer. He distinguished himself in the Seven Years' War, afterwards rising to the rank of lieutenant field-marshal. He lost all his estates at the...

Ligny, Battle of
French victory over the Prussians 16 June 1805 during Napoleon's `Hundred Days`, at Ligny, a Belgian village 14 km/9 mi northeast of Charleroi. It was Napoleon Bonaparte's final attempt to...

Ligozzi, Jacopo
(c. 1547-1626) Italian painter. Born in Verona, he moved to Florence, where in 1575 he became a court painter to the Medici. In this role he painted scenes from Florentine history for the Palazzo Vecchio,...

Liguori, Alfonso Maria di
(1696-1787) Roman Catholic theologian. In 1732 he organized the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (the Redemptorist order), and was appointed founder-general for life by Pope Benedict XIV. He was...

Ligutti, Luigi Gino
(1895-1983) Italian-born US religious leader. As executive director of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference (1939-60), he promoted greater awareness of the needs of the developing world. He also...

Likud
Alliance of right-wing Israeli political parties, formed in 1973 by Menachem Begin, uniting Herut (`freedom`),...

Lilburne, John
(c. 1614-1657) English republican agitator. He was imprisoned 1638-40 for circulating Puritan pamphlets, fought in the Parliamentary army in the English Civil War, and by his advocacy of a democratic republic...

Liliencron, Detlev von
(1844-1909) German novelist and poet. His best work, published when he was almost 40, is his poetry Adjutantenritte, Gedichte, and Nebel und Sonne; he also wrote novels, including Der Macen 1889, Kriegsnovellen...

Lilienthal, David (Eli)
(1899-1981) US government official. A Chicago lawyer, he rewrote Wisconsin's public utility statutes (1931-33). As the most visible and active official of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) - board member...

Lilith
In the Old Testament, an Assyrian female demon of the night. According to Jewish tradition in the Talmud, she was the wife of Adam before Eve's creation. ...

Lilley, Peter
(1943) British Conservative politician. A right-winger, he came to prominence in 1990 when he was appointed secretary of state for trade and industry. After moving to social security in 1992, he...

Lillie, Beatrice Gladys
(1898-1989) Canadian-born English revue singer. A popular music hall figure, she is well remembered for her popular rendition of Noël Coward's `Mad Dogs...

Lillie, Gordon William
(1860-1942) US frontiersman and showman. Enchanted by stories of the Old West, he left home at age 15 and lived among the Pawnee Indians and learned their language. He held various jobs in Oklahoma and Texas...

Lilly, William
(1602-1681) English astrologer. He issued a series of yearly almanacs from 1644 onwards. His book Christian Astrology 1647 became the standard work in English. His autobiography was published 1715. ...

Lima Declaration
Agreement sponsored by US President Franklin D Roosevelt at the Pan-American Conference December 1938 which held that a threat to the peace, security, or territory of any of the American republics...

Liman von Sanders, Otto
(1855-1929) German general assigned to the Turkish army to become inspector-general and a Turkish field marshal in December 1913. This link between the Turks and the Germans caused great suspicion on the part...

Liman, Arthur L
(1932) US lawyer. He joined New York's Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in 1957, and handled many high-profile clients. He was counsel to the McKay Commission on New York's Attica prison riot in...

Limbaugh, Rush
US right-wing political commentator and broadcaster. His daily three-hour radio talk show The Rush Limbaugh Show, articulating popular sympathies, was launched 1988 and was by 1996 syndicated to...

limbo
In Christian theology, a region for the souls of those who were not admitted to the divine vision. Limbus infantum was a place where unbaptized infants enjoyed inferior blessedness, and limbus...

Limbourg brothers
Franco-Flemish painters, Paul (Pol), Herman, and Jan (Hennequin, Janneken), active in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, first in Paris, then at the ducal court of Burgundy. They produced...

limerick
Five-line humorous verse, often nonsensical, which first appeared in England in about 1820 and was popularized by English writer Edward Lear. An example is:`There was a young lady of Riga, Who...

Limerick, Treaty of
Treaty signed 3 October 1691 in Limerick, Ireland, dictating the terms of surrender of the Jacobites who had resisted the invading armies of William III. The Jacobites were granted amnesty or...

limes
Roman frontier system, with military road, ditch, fence or wall, and watchtowers, supported by forts. Such defences marked the empire's boundaries in Africa, Germany, and Syria. In Britain, an...

Limitation, Statutes of
In English law, acts of Parliament limiting the time within which legal action must be inaugurated. Actions for breach of contract and most other civil wrongs must be started within six years....

limited company
Company for whose debts the members are liable only to a limited extent. The capital of a limited company is divided into small units, and profits are distributed according to shareholding. It is...

limited liability
Legal safeguard that allows shareholders to be liable for their company's debts only up to and including the value of their shareholding. For example, if a limited liability company goes bankrupt...

Limited Liability Acts
UK acts of Parliament 1855 and 1862, which provided a legal framework for the consolidation of large companies that existed as legal entities in perpetuity; they restricted the maximum loss for...

limits to growth
The belief, based on computer calculations, that the steadily rising population growth combined with the rapid depletion of the Earth's natural resources will lead to environmental catastrophe by...

limits, territorial and fishing
The limits of sea area to which an adjoining coastal state can claim territorial or fishing rights under maritime law. ...

limner
Painter of miniatures, from an `illuminator` (of manuscripts). The term was used to describe the Elizabethan practitioners of miniature painting; for example, Nicholas Hilliard. It was later...

Lin Biao (or Lin Piao)
(1908-1971) Chinese communist soldier and politician, deputy leader of the Chinese Communist Party 1969-71. He joined the communists in 1927, became a commander of Mao Zedong's Red Army, and led the Northeast...

Lin Piao
Alternative transliteration of Lin Biao. ...

Lincoln Cathedral
Cathedral in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England, built on the highest part of the city. Around 1073 the see of the bishops of Lindsey was moved from Dorcester to Lincoln by Remigius, an appointee of...

Lincoln-Douglas debates
In US history, a series of seven debates between the Democrat senator Stephen A Douglas and Republican Abraham Lincoln held August-October during the 1858 race for Illinois State senator. Slavery...

Lincoln, Abraham
(1809-1865) 16th president of the USA 1861-65, a Republican. During the American Civil War, his chief c ...

Lincoln, Battles of
Two battles near the town of Lincoln: 2 February 1141 King Stephen was defeated and captured by supporters of Matilda and taken to Bristol. The victory temporarily put Matilda ahead in the battle...

Lincoln, Benjamin
(1733-1810) American military and political leader. As brigadier general in the Continental Army during the American Revolution 1775-83, he aided the victory at Saratoga 1777 but was forced to surrender to...

Lincoln, Mary
(1818-1882) US first lady. She married the future US president, Abraham Lincoln, in 1842. She was emotionally immature and she became mentally unbalanced as the years passed. As first lady, it seemed that she...

Lindgren, Astrid
(1907-2002) Swedish children's novelist. She established her reputation with Pippi LÃÂ¥ngstrump/Pippi Longstocking (1945). She wrote at least 50 more books, including Mästerdetektiven Blomkvist/Bill Bergson...

Lindisfarne Gospels
Celtic manuscript conceived as a memorial volume to St Cuthbert, who died in 687, held in the British Museum, London. It was produced at the Anglo-Irish monastery of Lindisfarne on Holy Island,...

Lindow Man
Remains of an Iron Age man discovered in a peat bog at Lindow Marsh, Cheshire, UK, in 1984. The chemicals in the bog had kept the body in an excellent state of preservation. `Pete Marsh`, as the...

Lindsay (or Lyndsay), David
(1490-1555) Scottish poet. He was attached to the Scottish court in 1508, and until 1522 was `usher` to James V of Scotland. His works include the allegorical poem The Dreme (c. 1528);The Testament and...

Lindsay, (Nicholas) Vachel
(1879-1931) US poet. He wandered the country, living by reciting his balladlike verse, collected in volumes including General William Booth Enters into Heaven 1913, The Congo 1914, and Johnny Appleseed 1928. ...

Lindsay, David
(1856-1922) Australian explorer. In 1888 he crossed Australia on horseback from north to south. His expedition across the Great Victoria Desert in 1891-93 led directly to the opening up...

Lindsay, Jack
(1900-1990) Australian writer, based in London. His enduring leftist sympathies pervade an enormous and varied literary output; he published over 100 books, including poems and classical translations, notably...

Lindsay, John (Vliet)
(1921-2000) US politician. He was mayor of New York 1966-73, during which time he abandoned the Republican Party for the Democrats. Lindsay was educated at Yale University, and became a lawyer in 1949. He was...

Lindsey
Small Anglo-Saxon kingdom northwest of the Wash in Eastern England. It was overshadowed by its neighbours and was ruled by Northumbria in the 7th century until it passed into Merician control 678....

Lindsey, Benjamin Barr
(1869-1943) US jurist and reformer. He became a crusader for the juvenile court movement, pushing through legislation that created the first such court in the USA. As juvenile court judge for more than a...

Lindsey, Parts of
Former administrative county within Lincolnshire, England. It was the largest of the three administrative divisions (or `parts`) of the county, with its headquarters at Lincoln. In 1974 Lindsey...

Lindsey, Robert Bertie, lst Earl of
(1582-1642) English admiral. He joined the Spanish expedition of the earls of Essex and Nottingham, and was present at the capture of Cadiz in 1597. In 1628, after the Duke of Buckingham...

line manager
In a hierarchical management structure, a manager who holds authority over a vertical line or chain of command. Line managers are responsible for meeting corporate objectives in a specific...

lingam
In Hinduism, the phallic emblem of the god Shiva, the yoni being the female equivalent. ...

Lingard, Joan
(1932) Northern Irish writer of children's books. Her best known work is Across the Barricades (1972), which views Northern Ireland through teenage eyes. She often explores themes of religious and...

Lingard, John
(1771-1851) English historian. In 1811 he began work on his History of England. The first two volumes appeared in 1819 and the last in 1830. Its accuracy and detachment have preserved its importance as a...

Lini, Walter Hadye
(1942-1999) Vanuatuan centre-left politician and priest, chief minister 1979-80 and prime minister 1980-91. A member of the New Hebrides National Party, later named the Vanuaaku Pati (VP), he campaigned...

Link, Arthur S(tanley)
(1920-1998) US historian. He taught at Princeton University (1945-49), then at Northwestern University, returning to Princeton in 1960, where he retired as professor emeritus in 1991. Editor of The Papers of...

Linklater, Eric Robert Russell
(1899-1975) Scottish novelist and biographer. Juan in America (1931) helped to establish his reputation as a humorous, zestful, and inventive writer. It was followed by Juan in China (1937), The Impregnable...

linkman
Person employed to show the way through city streets with lighted torches. They were employed in most cities until the advent of street lighting made them unnecessary. ...

Linköping, Battle of
Swedish victory over the Poles in 1598, during the Swedish-Polish wars. Sigismund III, king of Poland, succeeded his father as king of Sweden in 1592 and attempted to establish a Catholic...

Linn, Lewis Fields
(1795-1843) US physician and politician. A surgeon in the War of 1812, he set up his practice in Missouri, and was then appointed to serve that state as a Democrat in the US Senate (1833-43). An exponent of...

Linna, Väinö
(1920-1992) Finnish novelist. Born at Urjala, he worked as a labourer and factory-worker. He caught the attention of the public with his third novel Tuntematon sotilas/The Unknown Soldier 1954, a...

Linnankoski, Johannes
(1869-1913) Finnish novelist and journalist. His reputation rests chiefly on Laulu tulipunaisesta kukasta/The Song of the Blood-Red Flower 1905, a didactic novel about the sexual development of a young man...

Linnell, John
(1792-1882) English painter. He was successful in portraiture, though he is now remembered for his landscapes. He befriended the artist William Blake and encouraged the production of his final masterpieces. He...

linocut
A relief process of printmaking. High-quality linoleum is mounted on a wood block, and the design cut into it transferred to paper by pressure or rubbing, exactly as in woodcut. Linocutting is a...

Linowitz, Sol (Myron)
(1913-2005) US lawyer and diplomat. He was the general counsel and chair of the board for Xerox Corporation (1958-66) and chief executive officer of Xerox International from 1966. He was...

Linton, Ralph
(1893-1953) US cultural anthropologist. He introduced the terms `status` and `role` to social science and influenced the development of the culture-and-personality school of anthropology. His works,...

Linton, William James
(1812-1897) English engraver and publisher. With his partner, John Orrin Smith, he helped produce the Illustrated London News. Linton became acquainted with Mazzini, the Italian revolutionary, whose ideals and...

Linus
Formerly a heroic figure in Greek legend, now typifying a dirge or lamentation. The ordinary legend treats Linus as a youth who has either succumbed to the fury of some god or goddess, or has been...

Lipchitz, Jacques
(1891-1973) Lithuanian-born sculptor. He was active in Paris from 1909 and emigrated to the USA in 1941. He was one of the first cubist sculptors, his best-known piece being Man with a Guitar (1916; Museum...

Lipman, Jean
(1909-1998) US folk art collector and author. She worked for Art in America, a magazine devoted to the decorative arts. She and her husband, Howard Lipman, purchased the magazine and she became...

Lippi, Filippino
(c. 1457-1504) Florentine painter. He was trained by his father Filippo Lippi and Botticelli. His most important works are frescoes in the Strozzi Chapel of Sta Maria Novella in Florence, painted in a graceful but...

Lippi, Fra Filippo
(c. 1406-1469) Florentine painter. His most important works include frescoes depicting the lives of St Stephen and St John the Baptist (1452-66; Prato Cathedral), which in their use...

Lippincott, Joshua (Ballinger)
(1813-1886) US publisher. Starting as a bookseller in Philadelphia, he founded J B Lippincott & Company in 1836; the company prospered as a diversified publisher of religious...

Lippmann, Walter
(1889-1974) US liberal political commentator. From 1921 Lippmann was the chief editorial writer for the New York World and from 1931 wrote the daily column `Today and Tomorrow`, which was widely syndicated...

Lipponen, Paavo Tapio
(1941) Finnish politician, prime minister 1995-2003. Paavo Lipponen was appointed leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1993 and formed his first `rainbow coalition` in 1995. The second...

Lipsius, Justus
(1547-1606) Netherlands scholar and teacher. One of the leading Latin scholars of his age, Lipsius is noted for important editions of the classical authors Tacitus and Seneca. These works popularized a terse...

liquidation
In economics, the winding up of a company by converting all its assets into money to pay off its liabilities. An estimated 25,268 UK businesses went into liquidation in 1992. ...

liquidity
In economics, the state of possessing sufficient money and/or assets to be able to pay off all liabilities. Liquid assets are those such as shares that may be converted quickly in ...

lira
Former Italian currency unit, replaced in 2002 by the euro, the single currency of the European Union. ...

Lisa, Manuel
(1772-1820) US fur trader. Active in the St Louis fur trade, he built Fort Manuel in present-day Montana and Fort Lisa near present-day Omaha, Nebraska (1812). He was a leader of the Missouri Fur Company...

Lisboa, António Francisco
Brazilian sculptor; see Aleijadinho. ...

Lisle, Alicia
(c. 1614-1685) Second wife of the regicide, John Lisle, whom she married in 1630. In 1685, she was alleged to have sheltered one of Monmouth's supporters during his rebellion. She was tried before Judge Jeffreys...

Lisle, John
(c. 1610-1664) English regicide. He was one of the managers at the trial of Charles I, and drew up the form of sentence. When he realized that the Restoration was inevitable, Lisle fled to Switzerland, where.he...

Lismore Castle
Castle at Lismore, County Waterford, Republic of Ireland. On the site of a medieval monastery and a former castle built by King John, the present building is mostly of early 17th- and...

Lispector, Clarice
(1925-1977) Brazilian writer. She was particularly concerned with the themes of adolescence, femininity, alienation, and self-awareness. Her acclaimed first novel Perto do Coraçâo Selvagem/Near to the...

Lissa, Battle of
During the Austro-Prussian War, Austrian naval victory over the Italians, who were allied to Prussia, 20 July 1866 near the Adriatic island of Lissa. The Austrian commander, Rear-Admiral Wilhelm...

Lissauer, Ernst
(1882-1937) German writer. Much of his work is strongly nationalistic. His `Hassgesang gegen England/Hymn of Hate` 1914 was hugely popular in Germany during World War I; it contains the notorious refrain...

Lissitzky, El (Eliezer Markowich)
(1890-1941) Russian painter, designer, printmaker, typographer, and illustrator. Like his fellow Russian Malevich, he was a pioneer of non-objective art. In his Prouns series of lithographs and works on...

List, George Friedrich
(1789-1846) German-born US economist. He was imprisoned in Germany and charged with sedition in 1824 and fled to the USA in 1825. A disciple of Adam Smith, his attitude to free trade was modified by his...

List, Wilhelm
(1880-1971) German field marshal. In World War II, he commanded the 14th German Army in Poland in 1939 and the 12th Army in France in 1940, and was then promoted to field marshal. He led...

listed building
In Britain, a building officially recognized as having historical or architectural interest and therefore legally protected from alteration or demolition. In England the listing is drawn up by the...

listening post
In trench warfare, sentry post, usually slightly forward of the general trench line, where the occupant can listen for signs of enemy activity. In World War I, where the trenches were relatively...

Liston, Robert
(1794-1847) Scottish surgeon. He perfected the complicated method of amputating by flaps. On 21 December 1846 he performed the first major operation under anaesthetic (amputation of the thigh) in Britain. He...

litany
In the Christian church, a form of prayer or supplication led by a priest with set responses by the congregation. It was introduced in the 4th century. ...

literary criticism
Assessment and interpretation of literary works. The term `criticism` is often taken to mean exclusively adverse comment, but in fact it refers to all literary assessment, whether positive or...

literary prizes
Awards for literature, usually annual and for a specific category (poetry, non-fiction, children's, and so on). The Nobel Prize for Literature is international; other prizes are usually for books...

literary society
Body formed by those interested in literature to meet for discussion of literary topics. Literary societies of national standing in England date from Elizabethan times, when Edmund Spenser and...