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

Magenta
Town in Lombardy, Italy, 24 km/15 mi west of Milan, where France and Sardinia defeated Austria on 4 June 1859 during the struggle for Italian independence. Magenta dye was named in...

Magersfontein, Battle of
During the South African War, Boer victory over the British on 11 December 1899 at a crossing of the Modder River 65 km/40 mi south of Kimberley, South Africa. Together with the British defeats at...

Maggior Consiglio
The ruling body of Venice during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. All adult males of the aristocracy had a lifelong hereditary right to sit on the council. Throughout the Renaissance the Maggior...

magi
Priests of the Zoroastrian religion of ancient Persia, noted for their knowledge of astrology. The term is used in the New Testament of the Latin Vulgate Bible where the Authorized Version gives...

magic
Art of controlling the forces of nature by supernatural means such as charms and ritual. The central ideas are that like produces like (sympathetic magic) and that influence carries by contagion or...

Magic Circle, The
Magical society, formed in 1905 in London, England. The society has approximately 1,400 members (2001), of which a quarter live in countries other than the UK. Full membership is limited to those...

Magic Mountain, The
Novel by Thomas Mann, published in Germany in 1924. An ironic portrayal of the lives of a group of patients in a Swiss sanatorium, it shows the beauty and futility of their...

magic realism
In 20th-century literature, a fantastic situation realistically treated, as in the works of many Latin American writers such as Isabel Allende, Jorge Luis Borges, and Gabriel García Márquez. The...

Maginot Line
French fortification system along the German frontier from Switzerland to Luxembourg built 1929-36 under the direction of the war minister, André Maginot. It consisted of semi-underground forts...

Maginot, André
(1877-1932) French soldier. He was the originator of the fortifications which became known as the Maginot Line. He had been an infantryman at Verdun in World War I. In 1922, and in 1929, he was minister of war....

magistrate
In English law, a person who presides in a magistrates' court: either a justice of the peace (with no legal qualifications, and unpaid) or a stipendiary magistrate. Stipendiary magistrates are paid,...

magistrates' court
In England and Wales, a local law court that mainly deals with minor criminal cases. A magistrates' court consists of between two and seven lay justices of the peace (who are advised on the law by a...

Magistretti, Vico
(1920-2006) Italian architect and furniture designer. Active in Milan from 1945, he was a member of the generation which created the post-war modern Italian design movement. He worked closely with the Arflex...

Magna Carta
In English history, the charter granted by King John (I) Lackland in 1215, traditionally seen as guaranteeing human rights against the excessive use of royal power. As a reply to the king's demands...

Magna Graecia
The ancient Greek city-states in Italy. The name was first given in the 6th century BC to the city-states on the east coast of what the Romans later called Bruttium (the `toe` of Italy). It...

Magnasco, Alessandro
(1681-1747) Italian painter. He was greatly admired in his own time for his melodramatic scenes of gloomy, ruinous buildings in storm-tossed landscapes, peopled with mysterious, often sinister figures. He...

Magnes, Judah Leon
(1877-1948) US rabbi and educator. Educated at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, he became a Reform rabbi and an ardent Zionist. He was rabbi at Temple Emanu-El in New York 1906-10, after which he...

Magnesia
Name of two ancient cities of Asia Minor. One was in Lydia, near Smyrna; the other further south, in Ionia, near Ephesus. Magnesia ad Sipylum (modern Manisa, Turkey), 64 km/40 mi northeast of...

magnetic mine
Naval mine detonated by the magnetic field of a ship pass ...

magnetic resonance imaging
Diagnostic scanning system based on the principles of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). MRI yields finely detailed three-dimensional images of structures within the body without exposing the...

magnetometer
Device for measuring the intensity and orientation of the magnetic field of a particular rock or of a certain area. In geology, magnetometers are used to determine the original orientation of a rock...

Magnificat
In the New Testament, the song of praise sung by Mary, the mother of Jesus, on her visit to her cousin Elizabeth shortly after the Annunciation. It is used...

Magnus Eriksson
(1316-1374) King of Norway and Sweden from 1319. In 1343 Norway was given to his son Haakon, and in 1365 he was forced to give up the Swedish throne to Albert, Prince of Mecklenburg. ...

Magnus the Barefooted
(1073-1103) King of Norway from 1098. He subdued the Orkneys and the Hebrides, but was killed while on an expedition to Ireland. ...

Magnusson, Magnus
(1929) Icelandic broadcaster who chaired the compelling British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) quiz show Mastermind (1972-97). He was the chair of Scottish National Heritage until 1999. ...

Mago
(died 203 BC) Carthaginian general. He was the youngest son of Hamilcar Barca and brother of Hannibal. Mago took part in Hannibal's campaign in Italy 218-216 BC. Mago joined his elder brother Hasdrubal in...

Magrath, Meiler
(c. 1523-1622) Irish ecclesiastic, notorious for the flexibility of his attitudes towards the Reformation in Ireland, which his critics claimed were unprincipled. A Franciscan friar, he was appointed papal bishop...

Magritte, René François Ghislain
(1898-1967) Belgian painter, one of the major figures in surrealism. His work, characteristic of surrealist ideas, focuses on visual paradoxes and everyday objects taken out of context. Recurring motifs include...

Magruder, John Bankhead
(1810-1871) US soldier. Resigning his commission to become a colonel with the Confederate army, he led his forces to victory at Big Bethel, Virginia, in June 1861; regarded as the first land battle of the Civil...

Magsaysay, Ramón
(1907-1957) Filipino politician, president 1953-57. He was elected to the Philippine congress in 1946 and put forward a plan to subdue the communist Hukbalahap (Huk) guerrillas, which persuaded Elpidio...

Maguire Seven
Seven Irish victims of a miscarriage of justice. In 1976 Annie Maguire, five members of her family, and a family friend were imprisoned in London for possessing explosives. All seven of the...

Magyar
Member of the largest ethnic group in Hungary, comprising 92% of the population. Most are Roman Catholic. The Hungarian language belongs to the Uralic group. Magyars are of mixed Ugric and Turkic...

Mahabad
Kurdish town lying in a fertile valley south of Lake Urmia, in the province of Azerbaijan, west Iran; population (1991) 82,000. It formed the centre of a short-lived Kurdish republic...

Mahabharata
Sanskrit Hindu epic consisting of 18 books and 90,000 stanzas, originally written in about 900 BC and probably composed in its present form in about 300 BC. It forms with the Ramayana the two...

Mahadev?
Title given to Shakti, the consort of the Hindu god Shiva. As the Mahadevi Shakti she embodies the divine female energy (shakti) which, combined with the male energy of Shiva, underlies all manifest...

Mahadeva
Title given to the Hindu god Shiva. ...

Mahan, Alfred Thayer
(1840-1914) US naval officer and military historian. In The Influence of Sea Power upon History 1890-92, he propounded a global strategy based on the importance of sea power. It deeply influenced President...

maharishi
Hindu guru (teacher), or spiritual leader. The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi influenced the Beatles and other Westerners in the 1960s. ...

Mahathir bin Muhammad
(1925) Malaysian politician, prime minister 1981-2003. Leader of the New United Malays' National Organization (UMNO Baru), his `look east` economic policy, which emulated Japanese industrialization,...

mahatma
Title conferred on Mohandas Gandhi by his followers as the first great national Indian leader. ...

Mahavira
(c. 599-527 BC) Indian sage from whose teachings the Jain faith arose. At the age of 30 he turned from a life of comfort to asceticism which he practised for 12 years. At the end of this time he began to bring...

Mahayana
One of the two major forms of Buddhism, found in China, Korea, Japan, and Tibet. Veneration of bodhisattvas (those who achieve enlightenment but remain on the human plane in order to help other...

Mahdi
In Islam, the title of a coming messiah who will establish a reign of justice on earth. The title has been assumed by many Muslim leaders, notably the Sudanese sheikh Muhammad Ahmed (1848-1885),...

Mahfouz, Naguib
(1911-2006) Egyptian novelist and playwright. His novels, which deal with the urban working class, include the semi-autobiographical Khan al-Kasrain/The Cairo Trilogy (1956-57). His book Children of...

Mahgoub, Muhammad Ahmed
(1908-1976) Sudanese lawyer and politician. He led the opposition (1954-56), and was foreign minister (1956-58), and (1964-65), before becoming prime minister (1965-66 and 1967-69). His government was...

Mahican
Alternative name for a member of the American Indian Mohican people. ...

Mahjar poets
School of Arabic writers from Syria and Lebanon who in the early 20th century settled in North and South America. The most important group was active in New York 1912-30, led by the Lebanese...

Mahler, Herbert
(1890-1961) Canadian-born US labour organizer and radical. In the state of Washington he joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), serving as secretary and organizer for several IWW locals in the...

mahlstick
In painting, a wooden stick tipped with a pad of cloth or leather. It is used by painters as a support for the wrist when painting fine detail. ...

Mahmud I
(1696-1754) Ottoman sultan from 1730. After restoring order to the empire in Istanbul in 1730, he suppressed the janissary rebellion in 1731 and waged war...

Mahmud II
(1785-1839) Ottoman sultan from 1808 who attempted to Westernize the declining empire, carrying out a series of far-reaching reforms in the civil service and army. The pressure for Greek independence after...

Mahomed, Ismail
(1931) South African lawyer, appointed the country's first non-white judge in 1991. As legal adviser to SWAPO, he was the author of Namibia's constitution, which abolished capital punishment. He defended...

Mahony, Francis Sylvester
(1804-1866) Irish humorous writer and poet. Born in Cork, he was educated at Clongowes Wood, where he later taught while training as a Jesuit priest. Expelled for taking the boys on a drunken outing, he was...

mahr
The gift (dowry) of money or property from the bridegroom to the bride without which an Islamic marriage is not valid. Normally the amount of the mahr is a part of the marriage contract. It becomes...

Mahratta
Rivals of the Mogul emperors in the 17th and 18th centuries; see Maratha. ...

Mahuad Witt, Jorge Jamil
(1949) Ecuadorean politician and president 1998-2000. Politically aligned to the centre-left Popular Democracy Party (DP), he was elected following the presidency of Abdalá Ortiz Bucaram. Although the...

Maia
In Greek mythology, eldest and most beautiful of the Pleiades, daughters of Atlas and Pleione, and mother of Hermes by Zeus. Identified by the Romans with an ancient Italian goddess of spring, also...

maid of honour
In Britain, the closest attendant on a queen. They are chosen generally from the daughters and granddaughters of peers, but in the absence of another title bear that of Honourable. The appointment...

Maida, Battle of
In the Napoleonic Wars, defeat of about 6,500 French under Marshal Jean Reynier by a 5,000-strong British force under General Sir John Stuart, on 3 July 1806, near Maida in the toe of Italy, about...

Maidanek
German concentration camp near Lublin, Poland. Originally established as a labour camp in 1939...

Maiden Castle
Prehistoric hill fort with later additional earthworks 3 km/1.8 mi southwest of Dorchester in Dorset, England. The site was occupied from 4000 BC, although the first identifiable settlement is late...

Maids of Honour, the
Oil painting by Diego Velázquez, 1656 (Prado, Madrid). The composition is...

Maidu
Member of an American Indian people who lived in the eastern drainage system of the Sacramento River in northeastern California. Their language belongs to the Penutian family. They were nomadic...

Mailer, Norman Kingsley
(1923) US writer and journalist. One of the most prominent figures of post-war American literature, he gained wide attention with his first, best-selling book The Naked and the Dead (1948), a...

Maillart, Ella Kini
(1903-1997) Swiss explorer, skier, and Olympic sailor whose six-month journey into Soviet Turkestan was described in Turkestan Solo 1934. Her expedition across the Gobi Desert with Peter Flem ...

Maimonides, Moses (Ben Maimon)
(1135-1204) Spanish-born Jewish rabbi and philosopher, one of the greatest Hebrew scholars. He attempted to reconcile faith and reason. His codification of Jewish law is known as the Mishneh Torah/Torah...

Main Plot
Conspiracy of 1603 to replace James I on the English throne with Lady Arabella Stuart, the English-born daughter of the Earl of Lennox. The Spanish were involved, but the plot failed and its...

Main Street
Classic satirical novel by Sinclair Lewis, published in 1920, which made the American small-town Main Street the exemplification of enduring if simplistic social values. ...

Mainardi, Sebastiano
(died 1513) Italian painter. Active from 1493 in Florence, he is said to have collaborated with Domenico Ghirlandaio...

Mainbocher
(1891-1976) US fashion designer. He started a couture house in Paris, France, in 1930. He designed the wedding dress for Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, in 1937 as well as stage clothing for stars such as...

Maine, Henry James Sumner
(1822-1888) English jurist and legal historian. In 1847 he was made regius professor of civil law at Cambridge, and in 1852 reader in Roman law and jurisprudence for...

Mainote
Inhabitant of Maina, or Máni, the central peninsula of the southern Peloponnese in Greece. They claim to be pure Spartans, but there are signs of Slavonic influence. They remained virtually...

mainprise
In England, early form of bail, under which a `mainpernor` would give an undertaking to guarantee a felon's appearance in court. ...

maintenance
In law, payments to support children or a spouse, under the terms of an agreement, or by a court order. In Britain, financial provision orders are made on divorce, but a court action can also be...

Maiorescu, Titu
(1840-1917) Romanian critic and politician. Maiorescu was one of the first to foster literary criticism in Romania. In 1864, he convened the first meeting of the literary circle Junimea (`youth`), which...

Maisonneuve, Paul de Chomedey
(1612-1676) French colonial missionary and first governor of Montréal. A veteran soldier, he was chosen as leader of a group of French missionaries who sailed from France 1641. Their mission in the Iroquois...

Maistre, Xavier de
(1763-1852) French-born soldier and writer. He served in the Piedmontese army, but on the annexation of Savoy by the French he took a commission in the Russian army, in which he rose to the rank of general....

Maitland, Frederic William
(1850-1906) English jurist and legal historian. He was Downing professor of English law at Cambridge from 1888 until his death. His reputation chiefly rests on A History of English Law before the time of Edward...

Maitland, Richard
(1496-1586) Scottish poet, lawyer, and historian. All his verses were written after his 60th year, and consist mostly of laments for the state of Scotland, the feuds of the nobles, and the discontent of the...

Maitland, William
(1528-1573) Scottish statesman. He was secretary of state to Mary Queen of Scots 1561-66. He probably participated in the murder of Darnley. After Mary's flight to England he became the leader of her cause...

Maitreya
The Buddha to come, `the kindly one`, a principal figure in all forms of Buddhism; he is known as Mi-lo-fo in China and Miroku in Japan. Buddhists believe that a Buddha appears from...

Maizière, Lothar de
German conservative politician, see de Maizière. ...

Majapahit empire
Last Hindu empire of eastern Java from c. 1293 to c. 1520. Based in the fertile Brantas River valley, it encompassed much of Malaya, Borneo, Sumatra, and Bali, and reached its peak under the ruler...

major-general
After the English Civil War, one of the officers appointed by Oliver Cromwell in 1655 to oversee the 12 military districts into which England had been divided. Their powers included organizing the...

Major, John
(1943) British Conservative politician, prime minister 1990-97. He was foreign secretary in 1989 and chancellor of the Exchequer 1989-90. His low-key, consensus style of leadership contrasted sharply...

Majorian
(died AD 461) Roman soldier and emperor in the western provinces 457-461. He was appointed by the Roman politician Ricimer to replace the emperor Avitus. Following a defeat...

majority rule
In US politics, the democratic principle that the majority determines policy. Although the US Constitution recognizes majority rule, it seeks to ensure that the majority may not unreasonably...

Majuba, Battle of
In the First South African War, a British defeat by the Boers on 27 February 1881 at Majuba Hill in Natal, about 16 km/10 mi south of Volksrust. British position George Colley was appointed British...

Makarios III
(1913-1977) Cypriot politician and Greek Orthodox archbishop 1950-77. A leader of the Greek-Cypriot resistance organization EOKA, he was exiled by the British to the Seychelles 1956-57 for supporting...

Makemie, Francis
(c. 1658-1708) Irish-born US Protestant clergyman. He was ordained c. 1682 and sent to America as a missionary. He evangelized in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Barbados before settling down as a...

Makhno, Nestor Ivanovich
(1889-1935) Ukrainian Anarchist leader. He commanded a peasant army during the Civil War, then allied himself with the Red Army in 1919-20. A new conflict soon broke out between the Soviets...

Making of Americans, The
Novel by US writer Gertrude Stein, published in 1925. A massive...

Makkah
Arabic name for Mecca, the holiest city of Islam, situated in Saudi Arabia. ...

Maklak
Alternative name for a member of the American Indian Modoc people. ...

Makonde
Member of a farming Bantu people living in northeastern Mozambique and southeastern Tanzania. The Makonde trace descent through the female line. There is no overall political organization; each...

Makua
A people living to the north of the Zambezi River in Mozambique. With the Lomwe people, they make up the country's largest ethnic group. The Makua are mainly farmers, living in villages ruled by...

Malachy, St (or St Maol Maedoc)
(1094-1148) Irish archbishop, and principal church reformer in Ireland in the 12th century. Malachy was responsible for introducing the Cistercian order into Ireland, in 1142, when he founded the monastery at...

Málaga, Battle of
During the War of the Spanish Succession, British naval victory over the French on 24 August 1704 off the Spanish coast near Málaga. A French fleet of 53 ships commanded by the comte de Tourville...

Malagasy
Inhabitant of the island of Madagascar. The Malagasy language is divided into many dialects and has about 9 million speakers; it belongs to the Austronesian family. Despite Madagascar's proximity to...

Malahide Castle
12th-century castle at Malahide, County Dublin, Republic of Ireland, held by the Talbot family from 1174 until 1976. Many of the internal features survive due to this long and continual ownership....