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

literati
Term applied, sometimes disparagingly, to the learned and well-read. It was originally used by English philosopher Robert Burton in the 17th century to describe the literate class in China. ...

literature
Words set apart in some way from ordinary everyday communication. In the ancient oral traditions, before stories and poems were written down, literature had a mainly public function - mythic and...

Lithgow, William
(1582-c. 1650) Scottish traveller and writer. He left Scotland about 1610 and for 19 years travelled in Europe, the eastern Mediterranean, Egypt, and North Africa. An account of his adventures, including his...

lithography
Printmaking technique invented in 1798 by Aloys Senefelder, based on the mutual repulsion of grease and water. A drawing is made with greasy crayon on an absorbent stone, which is then...

Lithuania
Country in northern Europe, bounded north by Latvia, east by Belarus, south by Poland and the Kaliningrad area of Russia, and west by the Baltic Sea. Government Lithuania has a multiparty...

Lithuanian
Member of the majority ethnic group living in Lithuania, comprising 80% of the population. Most Lithuanians are Roman Catholics. Lithuanian is (with Latvian) one of the two surviving members of the...

Lithuanian literature
Vernacular writing dates from the 16th century but the secular literary tradition begins with the nature poetry of Kristijonas Donelaitis (1714-1780) and folk-song collections in the 18th...

Little Bighorn
River in Montana, USA, a tributary of the Bighorn. On 25 June 1876 it was the scene of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. ...

Little Bighorn, Battle of the
Engagement on a tributary of the Bighorn River in Montana, USA, on 25 June 1876, in which Lt-Col George Custer suffered a crushing defeat by Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians, under chiefs...

Little Britain
English television comedy sketch series. First broadcast on BBC Three in 2003, it was created by and stars Matt Lucas (1974) and David Walliams (1971)...

Little Crow
(c. 1820-1863) US Mdewakanton (Santee) Sioux. Friendly with whites to the point of helping them track down `hostile` American Indians, he was said by some to have been boastful and often drunk. But in 1862,...

Little Entente
Series of alliances between Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia 1920-21 for mutual security and the maintenance of existing frontiers. Reinforced by the Treaty of Belgrade 1929, the entente...

Little John
In English legend, a companion of Robin Hood. ...

Little Lord Fauntleroy
Novel for children by Frances Hodgson Burnett, published in 1886. Cedric, a seven-year-old, golden-haired boy, lives in New York but discovers that his grandfather is an English earl who...

Little Moreton Hall
Outstanding black-and-white Tudor house near Congleton, Cheshire, England. It was built in stages throughout the 16th century, the oldest part dating from about 1520. The somewhat random...

Little Red Book
Book of aphorisms and quotations from the speeches and writings of Mao Zedong, in which he adapted Marxist theory to Chinese conditions. Published in 1966, the book was printed in huge numbers and...

Little Review, The
1914-29 US literary magazine founded in Chicago by Margaret Anderson. It published many experimental writers including W B Yeats, Ezra Pound, T S Eliot, and William Carlos Williams, and was banned...

Little Willie
Prototype British tank built 1915. It consisted of little more than a rectangular box on two `Creeping Grip` caterpillar tracks, with a two-wheeled steering unit connected to the rear, but it...

Little Women
Novel for children by Louisa M Alcott published 1869, one of the most popular children's books ever written. It describes the daily life of a New England family in reduced circumstances, and the...

Little Woodbury
Early Iron Age settlement in England, just south of Salisbury, Wiltshire. It was a small fortified farmstead inhabited some time during the 5th-3rd centuries BC, with evidence of stock rearing and...

Little, Malcolm
US black nationalist leader; see Malcolm X. ...

Littleton, Harvey (Kline)
(1922) US glassmaker. Following service in World War II, he gained a Master of Fine Arts degree in ceramics from Cranbrook Academy, then taught ceramics at the University of Wisconsin (1951-77). In 1962,...

Littleton, Mark
Pen-name of US writer John Kennedy. ...

Littleton, Thomas
(c. 1407-1481) English judge and legal author. His Treatise on Tenures (probably 1481) was one of the earliest printed books. He became a judge on the northern circuit in 1455 and judge of the Court of Common...

Littlewood, Joan (Maud)
(1914-2002) English theatre director. She established the Theatre Workshop in 1945 and was responsible for many vigorous productions at the Theatre Royal, Stratford, London, 1953-75, such as A Taste of Honey...

liturgical worship
In the Christian religion, acts of public worship set out in an authorized liturgy, or pattern of service. Liturgies are often very formal, elaborate, and colourful, and include many rituals. The...

liturgy
In the Christian church, any written, authorized version of a service for public worship, especially the Roman Catholic Mass. Its development over the centuries has had a direct impact on music and...

Litvinov, Maxim
(1876-1951) Soviet politician, commissioner for foreign affairs under Stalin from January 1931 until his removal from office in May 1939. Litvinov believed in cooperation with the West and obtained US...

Liu Shaoqi (or Liu Shao-chi)
(1898-1969) Chinese communist politician, president 1960-65 and the most prominent victim of the 1966-69 leftist Cultural Revolution. A Moscow-trained labour organizer, he was a firm proponent of the...

Lively, Penelope Margaret
(1933) English writer. She has written many novels for children (A Stitch in Time (1976) won the Whitbread Literary Award) and, from 1977, for adults (Moon Tiger (1987) won the Booker Prize). Her fiction...

Liveright, Horace (Brisbin)
(1886-1933) US publisher. In 1917, with Albert Boni, he launched the profitable Modern Library series of reprinted classics, sold in 1925 to Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer. Liveright also published original...

Livermore, Mary Ashton Rice
(1820-1905) US temperance worker, women's rights activist, lecturer, and author. After the American Civil War, she became active in the women's suffrage movement and in 1869 founded her own...

livery and maintenance
In England, the traditional marks of a man's relation to his lord;livery being the uniform of the lord and maintenance the help a lord would give his followers in legal cases, often by illegal means...

livery companies
The guilds (organizations of traders and artisans) of the City of London. Their role is now social rather than industrial. Many administer charities, especially educational ones. ...

Livia Drusilla
(58 BC-AD 29) Roman empress, wife of Augustus from 39 BC. She was the mother by her first husband of Tiberius and engaged in intrigue to secure his succession to the imperial crown. She remained politically...

Living Theater
Experimental US theatre group, 1947-70, founded by Judith Malina and Julian Beck. Committed anarchists, Malina and Beck promoted avant-garde plays and radical dramatic techniques in opposition...

Livingston, Edward
(1764-1836) US lawyer and statesman. A Democrat-Republican, he represented New York in the US House of Representatives (1795-1801). He held the offices of US attorney and mayor of New York City...

Livingston, Goodhue
(1867-1951) US architect. Among the many dignified neoclassical buildings he designed in his New York partnership with Breck Trowbridge were the St Regis Hotel (1901-04) and B Altman & Company Department...

Livingston, Henry Brockholst
(1757-1823) US Supreme Court justice. He fought in the American Revolution before serving on the New York Supreme Court (1802-06). An outspoken opponent of federalism, he was appointed by President Thomas...

Livingston, Peter van Brugh
(1710-1792) US merchant and Revolutionary patriot. He prospered in New York City by privateering and by supplying various military expeditions during the French and Indian wars. He was a supporter of his...

Livingston, Philip
(1716-1778) US Revolutionary patriot. He had cultural, intellectual, and political interests and was one of the founders of King's College (later Columbia University) and New York Society Library. He served in...

Livingston, Robert R
(1746-1813) American public official and diplomat. As secretary for foreign affairs 1781, he directed negotiations for the Paris Peace Treaty 1783. In 1801 he was named minister to France by President...

Livingston, William
(1723-1790) American politician and journalist. He became a political leader on the side of the Whigs. He served in the New York legislature 1759-60, but his influence was chiefly exerted in...

Livingstone, David
(1813-1873) Scottish missionary explorer. In 1841 he went to Africa, reaching Lake Ngami in 1849. He followed the Zambezi to its mouth, saw the Victoria Falls in 1855, and went to East and Central Africa...

Livingstone, Ken(neth)
(1945) British Labour politician, mayor of London from 2000. The leader of the Greater London Council (GLC) 1981-86 and member of Parliament for Brent East 1987-2001, he ran as an independent in the...

Livingstone, Richard Winn
(1880-1960) British classical scholar and educational reformer. His works on the classics include The Greek Genius and its Meaning to Us 1915, A Defence of Classical Education 1917,...

Livius Andronicus, Lucius
(c. 284-c. 204 BC) Latin poet. By birth a Greek, he was brought as a prisoner to Rome and, as a freedman of M Livius Salinator, he adopted his owner's name on emancipation. Livius Andronicus was the first literary...

Livonia
One of the former Baltic States, divided in 1918 between the modern states of Estonia and Latvia. Livonia belonged to the Teutonic Knights from the 13th to 16th centuries, to Poland from 1561,...

Livy
(59 BC-AD 17) Roman historian. He was the author of a History of Rome from the city's foundation to 9 BC, based partly on legend. It was composed of 142 books, of which 35 survive, covering the periods from the...

Lleras Camargo, Alberto
(1906-1990) Colombian politician and president 1945-46 and 1958-62. His first term in office was very brief, but during his second term Lleras temporarily succeeded in stabilizing the economy, though...

Llewellyn, Karl (Nickerson)
(1893-1962) US legal scholar. His speciality was unifying state laws and he helped write the Uniform Commercial Code. He also became an authority on American Indians' law. He wrote several books setting forth...

Llewellyn, Richard
(1906-1983) Welsh writer. How Green Was My Valley 1939, a novel about a South Wales mining community at the end of the 19th century, was made into a film 1941. He also wrote the plays Poison Pen 1937 and Noose...

Llewelyn I
(1173-1240) Prince of Wales from 1194. He extended his rule to all Wales not in Norman hands, driving the English from northern Wales in 1212, and taking Shrewsbury in 1215. During the early part of Henry III's...

Llewelyn II ap Gruffydd
(c. 1225-1282) Prince of Wales from 1246, grandson of Llewelyn I. In 1277 Edward I of England compelled Llewelyn to acknowledge him as overlord and to surrender southern Wales. His death while leading a national...

Lloyd George, Lady Megan
(1902-1966) English politician. The younger daughter of the former prime minister, the 1st Earl Lloyd George, she became Liberal MP for Anglesey in 1929. She retained the seat until her defeat at the general...

Lloyd-Jones, David Martyn
(1899-1981) Welsh preacher and writer. He preached at Westminster Chapel, London, and for 30 years made it virtually the heart of English Nonconformity, basing his preaching on Reformed theology. Born in...

Lloyd, (John) Selwyn (Brooke)
(1904-1978) British Conservative politician. He was foreign secretary 1955-60 and chancellor of the Exchequer 1960-62. He was made a baron in 1976. He was responsible for the creation of the National...

Lloyd, Henry Demarest
(1847-1903) US journalist and author. Disappointed with reform politics in New York City, he joined the Chicago Tribune in 1872, where, as financial editor and editorial writer he concentrated on the emerging...

Lloyd, James (Tighman)
(1857-1944) US politician. A sheriff and prosecuting attorney, he went to the US House of Representatives as a Democrat representative of Missouri (1897-1917), serving as minority whip for eight years before...

Lloyd, John
(lived 15th century) Welsh sailor who carried on an illegal trade with Greenland and is claimed to have reached North America, sailing as far south as Maryland, in 1477 (15 years before the voyage of Columbus). ...

Lloyd, Marie
(1870-1922) English music-hall artist. Her Cockney songs embodied the music-hall traditions of 1890s comedy. ...

Lloyd, Selwyn
British Conservative politician; see Selwyn Lloyd. ...

loa
Spirit in voodoo. Loas may be male or female, and include Maman Brigitte, the loa...

loan
Form of borrowing by individuals, businesses, and governments. Individuals and companies usually obtain loans from banks. The loan with interest is typically paid back in fixed monthly instalments...

lobby
Individual or pressure group that sets out to influence government action. The lobby is prevalent in the USA, where the term originated in the 1830s from the practice of those wishing to influence...

Lobengula
(1836-1894) King of Matabeleland (now part of Zimbabwe) 1870-93. He was overthrown in 1893 by a military expedition organized by Cecil Rhodes's South African Company. After accepting British protection from...

local authority
Government at a local level in the UK. Examples include county councils, with district councils below them, in shire counties and metropolitan borough councils in city areas. Since 1997 most are...

local colour
In art, basic colour of an object, unmodified by the effects of light or colour reflected from surrounding objects. When painting, it is of secondary importance to those modifications of colour...

local government
That part of government dealing mainly with matters concerning the inhabitants of a particular area or town, usually financed at least in part by local taxes. In the USA and UK, local government has...

local option
Right granted by a government to the electors of each particular area to decide whether the sale of intoxicants shall be permitted. Such a system has been tried in...

Locarno, Pact of
Series of diplomatic documents initialled in Locarno, Switzerland, on 16 October 1925 and formally signed in London on 1 December 1925. The pact settled the question of French security, and the...

Loch Ness monster
Unconfirmed aquatic animal reputedly living in Loch Ness, Scotland. Reports of the beast date from the 6th century, although photographs and scanning devices have been unable to give positive pro ...

Lochner v. New York
US Supreme Court decision of 1905 dealing with the use of state police power to regulate working conditions. Lochner, an owner of a bakery convicted of violating a New York law that set maximum...

Lochner, Stephan
(c. 1400-1451) German painter. Active in Cologne from 1442, where most of his work still remains, notably the Virgin in the Rose Garden (c. 1440; Wallraf-Richartz Museum) and Adoration of the Magi, (1448;...

lock
Construction installed in waterways to allow boats or ships to travel from one level to another. The earliest form, the flash lock, was first seen in the East in 1st-century-AD China and in the...

Locke, David Rose
(1833-1888) US journalist and writer. As was editor of the Jeffersonian in Findlay, Ohio, he gained popularity by printing the Nasby letters (from 1861). His assumed persona, the Reverend Petroleum Vesuvius...

Locke, John
(1632-1704) English philosopher. His Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690) maintained that experience is the only source of knowledge (empiricism), and that `we can...

Locker-Lampson, Frederick
(1821-1895) English poet. London Lyrics 1857 was a collection of light verse; other works include the anthology Lyra Elegantiarum 1867, which was suppressed, and Patchwork 1879, a selection of prose passages....

Lockhart, John Gibson
(1794-1854) Scottish author and editor. He wrote many articles and novels, and was editor of the Quarterly Review 1825-53. He published a biography of Robert Burns 1828, a History of Napoleon Bonaparte 1829,...

Lockhart, Robert Hamilton Bruce
(1887-1970) Scottish journalist and writer. His books, largely autobiographical, include Memoirs of a British Agent 1932, Retreat from Glory 1934, Return to Malaya 1936, My Scottish Youth 1937, Comes the...

Lockheed Martin
US aircraft manufacturer, the world's largest military contractor. Its Space Systems Company has built or contributed to major spacecraft. It designed and built...

Lockwood, Charles A(ndrews)
(1890-1967) US naval officer. He served aboard submarines (1914-28) and commanded submarines of the South West Pacific Force (1942-43) and of the Pacific Fleet (1943-45). He was the naval inspector...

Lockwood, Margaret Mary
(1916-1990) English actor. Between 1937 and 1949 she acted exclusively in the cinema, appearing in Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (1938) and in...

Locri
Ancient people occupying two separate districts of Greece. West Locris was a region north of the Gulf of Corinth, bounded on the north by Doris, on the east by Phocis, and on the west by Aetolia....

locus standi
In law, the right to bring an action. ...

Loden, Barbara
(1932-1980) US stage and screen actor, writer, and director. She appeared in a several film and television dramas, then turned to writing and directing her own films, including The Frontier Experience and Wanda...

Lodge, David John
(1935) English novelist, short-story writer, dramatist, and critic. Much of his fiction concerns the role of Catholicism in mid-20th-century England, exploring the situation both through broad comedy...

Lodge, Henry Cabot
(1850-1924) US Republican politician. He was senator from Massachusetts 1893-1924 and chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after World War I. He supported conservative economic legislation at home...

Lodge, Henry Cabot, II
(1902-1985) US diplomat. He served as the US representative at the United Nations 1953-60. He was the Republican Party's unsuccessful candidate for vice president in 1960. During the Vietnam War he was...

Lodge, Thomas
(c. 1558-1625) English author. His romance Rosalynde (1590) was the basis of Shakespeare's play As You Like It. He excelled as a lyric poet, and Glaucus and Scilla appeared in 1589; his main volume of verse,...

Lody, Carl
(died 1914) German spy operating in the UK during World War I. He was arrested in Ireland and shot in the Tower of London 6 November 1914, the first German spy to be executed in the war. As a lieutenant in the...

Loetscher, Hugo
(1929) Swiss novelist and playwright. His style varies between traditional realism and parable form. His Abwasser. Ein Gutachten (1964) satirizes modern urban life from the perspective of a sewer...

Lofting, Hugh John
(1886-1947) English writer and illustrator of children's books. His best-known work is the `Dr Dolittle` series, in which the hero can talk to animals. Born in Maidenhead, Lofting was originally a civil...

Logan
(c. 1723-1780) US American Indian leader. He was a friend of the whites until his family was killed at the Yellow Creek Massacre in Ohio in 1774. Dedicating himself to revenge, he refused to attend a peace...

Logan, James
(1674-1750) Irish-born US colonial statesman and judge. He worked as a merchant in Bristol, England, becoming William Penn's secretary in 1699. Logan emigrated with his employer to Pennsylvania that same...

Logan, John Alexander
(1826-1886) US soldier and politician. A lawyer, he volunteered to fight in the Mexican War, then served as a Democrat representative of Illinois in the US House of Representatives (1859-62). During the Civil...

Loggan, David
(1635-1700) German engraver and designer. Born in Danzig (Gdansk), he settled in London and published engravings of the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge:Oxonia Illustrata 1675 and Cantabrigia Illustrata...

logic
Branch of philosophy that studies valid reasoning and argument. It is also the way in which one thing may be said to follow from, or be a consequence of, another (deductive logic). Logic is...

logical atomism
Philosophical theory that seeks to analyse thought and discourse in terms of indivisible components, or atomic propositions, like `Jane is clever`, `Tom loves Jane`. Atomic propositions are...

logical positivism
Doctrine that the only meaningful propositions are those that can be verified empirically. Metaphysics, religion, and aesthetics are therefore meaningless. However, the doctrine itself cannot be...